God hates Oysters

[shinytoaster]

There'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.

Comments

[katiemorris.livejournal.com]

One of Crowley's indeed! He's all around us, mate. Thanks for this - made me laugh out loud in recognition.

[wheeler.livejournal.com]

The thing with the 'seek assistance' sign is that it's entirely arbitrary. Your card works. You know it works. You've got money on it, you've used it three times already that morning, and you've done nothing to it that might have damaged it. Furthermore, it will work again without your having to do anything about it. Often it will work again immediately if you just try it again, because there is nothing wrong with it. So, yeah, I will try a second time if I get the 'seek assistance' light, and eight times out of ten it will work the second time.

If it fails the second time, I will then try a different gate, because nine times out of ten it will work on that one. (However, I do not barge. I take my place in the queue.) Only if that fails will I then go through the hassle of getting some little Nazi to let me through the suitcase gate.

To summarise: I feel these are perfectly acceptable ways to behave. I refuse to be held responsible for the cruel games London Underground plays with its customers, and I refuse to capitulate too easily to their tortuous whims.

[titanic-days.livejournal.com]

I've found that if you're too close to the person in front of you it will 'Seek Assistance' at you because it hasn't finished dealing with their swipe. Incidentally this also seems to be how it's possible to get through on someone else's swipe, my card bitches at me about having an incomplete journey every time I top up because of this. I think the solution is to leave your swipe until every part of the person in front's arse is through the gate, it's a beat of about a second extra in real terms, and this will stop it telling you to 'Seek Assistance.'

There's no actual scientific evidence for that, though.

[wheeler.livejournal.com]

I think you're probably right. If only the people behind me weren't at toe-shuffling-tutting distance, I wouldn't have to feel so rushed. The real criminal here is not the person struggling with the ticket, but the person directly behind them, trying to bully them through and then getting all agitated when their ticket doesn't work first time!

[phoenixsong]

WMATA started implimenting SmarTrip cards a few years back, and it's fairly common for these sorts of issues to crop up once in a while here, too. As someone else pointed out, sometimes the card will work at one gate but not another, and I've also had to adapt to waiting that extra split-second before swiping to make sure my card registers. (I've taken to glancing at the balance and fare on the display to make sure it's mine.) Additionally, Metro requires a SmarTrip card to exit parking lots, which involves its own bit of fun and games on occasion.

Overall, though, I'd rather deal with the smart card than a paper farecard. I get my fare taken out of my paycheck, mostly pre-tax, and I load up the smart card once a month -- maybe twice if I need to throw a little extra cash on due to weekend trips or missing the bus too often before the first of the month comes back around.

Don't despair -- if it's new, it'll get better s:) And hey, you all get a daily cap -- we don't! Ours is just a straight-up declining balance.

[psychic-serpent.livejournal.com]

Any idea why it's called an Oyster Card, of all things?

I prefer the transpasses (which is what we call them) here in Philadelphia to the Metro Cards in New York. For one thing, the Metro Cards have a set amount of money on them and every time you swipe one $2 gets taken off; you pay a flat weekly or monthly fee for the transpass and can use it as often as you like during the time period when it's valid. I've also had a dreadful time getting Metro Cards to work sometimes. (Recently I was on one side of the barrier and my daughter on the other while we tried to get one of these damn things to work!) My son made the mistake, when he was in NYC the first time (the PoA IMAX show) of swiping the card with his LEFT HAND and then trying to go through the barrier, only to discover that he couldn't. What he'd done was give a free ride to the person going through the gate to the left of his; as a lefty he didn't realize that the swiping had to be done on the right. OTOH, I've almost never had a problem swiping one of the transpasses on our buses, trolleys or subways, and even when I've had to swipe it again--very rarely--that doesn't mean that I've lost $2, since the cost is a flat fee for the week or month.

[titanic-days.livejournal.com]

Eheu, alack, it's true. We're all moving too fast. I'll slow down in future. Or, not get in a queue behind you, either's good :p

[benjj.livejournal.com]

Damn, I was going to say that. If you get 'seek assistance' and try again it generally works. And if it doesn't, it works on another gate (with, under your breath, muttered, "bloody thing, seek fucking assistance indeed, you've thirteen pound fifty on you, I topped you up this morning)