reesesWeb

Yesterday was hilarious. We had a client meeting, which necessitated driving. Three of us carpooled, and while we were at the infamous Sutter-Stockton garage, their payment link to the bank or credit card processing center was interrupted. For quite a while. This meant that no one could use the many automated payment stations, but had to go to the one attendant window.

Now, as you can imagine, people got testy. While there were apparently at least three attendants working, one ran around to the various payment kiosks, probably because he had an advanced degree in computer science and was going to do a binary debug on a black box system using a magnetised needle and some shoe polish. Another ran around looking officious, and giving blank stares to all of the worried and unhappy customers. The third stood impassive behind the protective glass, taking cash and returning validated exit cards at a glacial pace.

The line was long, and some people lost what little social conditioning they had. One woman cut in line, claiming that she had a fractured back. She then proceeded to take forever at the counter, grinding her axe on the attendant, who wasn't going to give her satisfaction anyway, because frankly, he didn't care. Some poor soul told the woman to hurry up, and she turned around again with the fractured back story. "I don't care about your bloody back. We let you cut in line, so just pay and get the hell out of here!" Whee!

One other woman spent ten minutes arguing that the long line cost her fifteen minutes, which put her into the next hourly payment bracket. Pay the three dollars, or argue for ten minutes, get upset, and pay the three dollars? If three dollars matter that much to you, don't park your flipping car in downtown San Francisco! :-)

However, once she paid, she couldn't get out. You see, one of the conveniences of this garage is that you don't really need tickets. You can insert your credit card upon entry, and when you leave, you'll insert the same card at the exit gate. The machine will hash the card number (I hope they're not storing the number itself), see when you entered, and debit your card the appropriate amount.

So, when the link to the bank breaks down, you're sitting there, in your car, at the gate, which will refuse to open. People can go through the other gate, until someone with a credit-card entry is stuck in that one, and the next, and the next. Ad infinitum, ad occultum. One might assume that an attendant, seeing this debacle, would hasten to lift the gates, perhaps check exit tickets, but just clear the obstruction and get people out of there.

After about twenty minutes, a normal-looking middle-aged man came up to the front, with that foamy-mouthed about-to-go-postal look, and shouted,"If you don't open these gates, I'm going to break them off!"

Yeah, right, Mr. D-FENS. Get back in line.

So, this old tweed walks to the gate, calmy pushes his belly up against it, and starts walking slowly toward the street. The gate snaps, he pushes it to the ground, and everyone leaves. The attendant rushes to the gate and pretends to take down license plate numbers as people leave, but really, who was he kidding?

We were kind of disappointed to leave at that point, because it was feeling like an 80s heavy metal video.

As for today, It has been raining ferociously here. I felt totally at home. I trucked out without an umbrella, just wearing a baseball cap to keep my hair from getting totally drenched, and apart from my raincoat, that was it. It was like a particularly rainy day in Seattle, the type I used to ride to work in.

Much less interesting than yesterday. :-)

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