God hates Oysters
Aug. 8th, 2006 09:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shinytoasterThere's nothing quite like the Oyster Card for weeding out the terminally dim. This morning, whilst leaving the tube station and heading across to the office, I witnessed a well-dressed woman with an - it must be said - epically hideous nose walking up to the ticket barriers and, seemingly oblivious to the red glowing x on its display, proceeding to try and swipe her card. Of course, the barrier didn't open, so with a disdainful snort she tried again, and again, and then a third time, becoming more and more agitated. At this point a friendly commuter spoiled my fun - I had stopped by the Photo!Me Yay booth and was watching and quietly sniggering - and directed her to a barrier displaying a green glowing arrow, and all was well.
It occurs to me that there is really a hell of a lot of potential for commuting embarrassment with these little smart card doodads. What really gets me riled up are the people who swipe their card and get a 'Seek Assistance' message on the display, which they ignore and swipe again and again - the average is about three swipes and three angry beeping 'Seek Assistances' before they give up and waddle off to find an LU employee to open the wheelchair gate and let them out.
But the thing is, the majority of people essentially commute on autopilot, so woe betide you if you become stuck behind one of these illiterates, because you're stepping forward with your Oyster at the ready and so are the people behind you, so you end up filling the space behind the indignant swiper, and because you're expecting the barriers to open and for them to keep walking, wind up treading on their heels. This makes matters worse, you are brought up short and, of course, all the oblivious autopilots behind you promptly tread on your, and each other's heels as well. There's an orgy of tutting and sighing and at least half of the commuters will immediately feint left or right to a quicker moving barrier.
But your ordeal isn't over yet. Oh no. For, stuck up against the barrier behind an imbecile, you can't go left or right without barging into somebody else's queue, precipitating more heel kicking and tutting. And then, then, when it dawns on the imbecile at the gate that their card ain't going to work, they back out, and you have to back up, and all the people behind you have to back up as well, inevitably this upgrades the heel kicking to a good old fashioned toe squashing, which is infinitely worse, in its way.
This all plays out in a matter of seconds.
But there is one more, one more cardinal Oyster sin, and this one is really seventh or eighth level stuff, people, so pay attention, and that is the 'Well It Didn't Work Four Times On One Barrier, But It Will Work Fine On This One' Brigade. These degenerates are surely doomed, for they have lost all sense of human dignity and condemned their twisted souls to an eternity of torment at the hands of Satan's own nine-to-fivers. These people, having gone through the rigmarole of swiping, ignoring the tutting crowd and precipitating a chain reaction of heel kicking and toe squashing that travels back down the platform and sometimes even ONTO THE TRAIN ITSELF, decide that the natural, polite thing to do would be to barge into the neighbouring queue and play out the whole shoddy drama once again. It is the height, the very height of day-destroying, mind-numbing annoyance to have got yourself into a fast-moving queue of Oyster-savvy commuters whose winged-footwear will surely carry them to the gates of heaven itself, only for a horned Oyster-feeble beastie to barge into your line and start swiping away. Beep beep 'Seek Assistance.' Beep beep 'Seek Assistance.' Beep beep... beep beep.... and away they go, onto the next barrier, and the next, comprehensively making everybody at the station just a weensy bit pissed off and making this beautiful world just an ever so slightly worse place.
Yep, Oyster cards are one of Crowley's.
It occurs to me that there is really a hell of a lot of potential for commuting embarrassment with these little smart card doodads. What really gets me riled up are the people who swipe their card and get a 'Seek Assistance' message on the display, which they ignore and swipe again and again - the average is about three swipes and three angry beeping 'Seek Assistances' before they give up and waddle off to find an LU employee to open the wheelchair gate and let them out.
But the thing is, the majority of people essentially commute on autopilot, so woe betide you if you become stuck behind one of these illiterates, because you're stepping forward with your Oyster at the ready and so are the people behind you, so you end up filling the space behind the indignant swiper, and because you're expecting the barriers to open and for them to keep walking, wind up treading on their heels. This makes matters worse, you are brought up short and, of course, all the oblivious autopilots behind you promptly tread on your, and each other's heels as well. There's an orgy of tutting and sighing and at least half of the commuters will immediately feint left or right to a quicker moving barrier.
But your ordeal isn't over yet. Oh no. For, stuck up against the barrier behind an imbecile, you can't go left or right without barging into somebody else's queue, precipitating more heel kicking and tutting. And then, then, when it dawns on the imbecile at the gate that their card ain't going to work, they back out, and you have to back up, and all the people behind you have to back up as well, inevitably this upgrades the heel kicking to a good old fashioned toe squashing, which is infinitely worse, in its way.
This all plays out in a matter of seconds.
But there is one more, one more cardinal Oyster sin, and this one is really seventh or eighth level stuff, people, so pay attention, and that is the 'Well It Didn't Work Four Times On One Barrier, But It Will Work Fine On This One' Brigade. These degenerates are surely doomed, for they have lost all sense of human dignity and condemned their twisted souls to an eternity of torment at the hands of Satan's own nine-to-fivers. These people, having gone through the rigmarole of swiping, ignoring the tutting crowd and precipitating a chain reaction of heel kicking and toe squashing that travels back down the platform and sometimes even ONTO THE TRAIN ITSELF, decide that the natural, polite thing to do would be to barge into the neighbouring queue and play out the whole shoddy drama once again. It is the height, the very height of day-destroying, mind-numbing annoyance to have got yourself into a fast-moving queue of Oyster-savvy commuters whose winged-footwear will surely carry them to the gates of heaven itself, only for a horned Oyster-feeble beastie to barge into your line and start swiping away. Beep beep 'Seek Assistance.' Beep beep 'Seek Assistance.' Beep beep... beep beep.... and away they go, onto the next barrier, and the next, comprehensively making everybody at the station just a weensy bit pissed off and making this beautiful world just an ever so slightly worse place.
Yep, Oyster cards are one of Crowley's.
