RantWoman still has a couple Bermuda triangle moments related to her efforts to update her Regional Reduced Fare Permit. One of those is RantWoman's own fault. Urk! More on this theme shortly.
First, RantWoman must thank the forces of ORCA for several courtesies.
1. Last week, RantWoman realized she should have just paid for her May monthly pass when she renewed her RRFP. Back she went to Metro to do this, though neither RantWoman nor the person assisting her thought to deal with the rest of April. RantWoman is the sort of nerd who fiddles around with online accounts on, say, Saturday night. RantWoman looked up her account on www.orcacard.com and found she was being charged for things she should not have been. She fiddled with ORCA matters unsatisfactorily and opted to email a question. RantWoman immediately got an automated acknowledgement and then on Monday a message from a human saying the question was being forwarded to someone at Metro for resolution.
2. RantWoman is now up to about 5 emails, but the third and subsequent emails are from the same human AND INCLUDE A PHONE NUMBER which RantWoman gratefully made immediate use of.
RantWoman wants to thank a very, very helpful customer service person. RantWoman learned a few really cool things in the course of conversation with Very Helpful Person.
1. RantWoman asked about how to pay others' fares out of her ORCA purse on the bus. RantWoman sometimes travels with World's Most Irrepressible Nephew who is 9. Sometimes RantWoman travels with other Friends who require adult fares. What one must do in such situations, Helpful Customer Service Person said, is to tell the bus driver before one taps one's ORCA card that one wants to pay a group fare. The driver can then press some kind of button to deduct the correct fare from one's ORCA purse. Very Helpful Customer Service Person asserted that bus drivers are well-trained about this procedure.
RantWoman did not ask about how to pay for others' travel on the train. RantWoman imagines that interactions with the ticket vending machines, something RantWoman has never attempted, might be involved.
RantWoman also did not ask specifically about other people with Regional Reduced Fare Permits. RantWoman sometimes travels in clumps of people with Reduced Fare Permits and can imagine having project-related reasons to pay, say, a Sound Transit zone fee for several people out of her ORCA purse. RantWoman HOPES that such a request would not cause a bus driver's brain to melt, but again has not experimented.
2. Very Helpful Customer Service Person also explained enough of Business Accounts that probably RantWoman does not need such. RantWoman does, as mentioned above, from time to time want to add small increments of money to others' accounts but does not want to assume responsibility for managing the whole account. RantWoman in fact still thinks anyone in the world should be able to add money to her ORCA purse though of course money out of her purse should only get spent when she taps her ORCA card on a card reader.
3. Very Helpful Customer Service Person took RantWoman's name and looked up her various data. Very Helpful Customer Service person noted additional screwups related to RantWoman's account--as well as one point which, shhh!, appears to be a customer service error in RantWoman's favor.
4. Very Helpful Customer Service Person was sympathetic to RantWoman's need to transfer her ORCA purse from her old RRFP to her new one. Very Helpful Customer Service Person was also sympathetic to RantWoman's irritation about being charged fares out of her ORCA purse for travel after her RRFP inappropriately expired midmonth. Very Helpful Person proposed a remedy for this problem. Solution is more complicated than flipping a few numbers on a computer screen, but under the circumstances RantWoman is amenable.
5. Very Helpful Person understood RantWoman's point that RantWoman still needs a way to indicate that she has paid for her whole month of April even though the monthly pass put on RantWoman's new ORCA card does not take effect until May. A solution to that was proposed. The Solution involved another trip to Metro's offices, but RantWoman needed exercise mid-afternoon anyway.
Perhaps with all this Very Helpful Customer Service, RantWoman should repent forever of any references to the Bermuda Triangle.
Sorry, this is RantWoman here. RantWoman frets that the fare inspectors on Light Rail may not be charmed by the adhoc rest of the month solution. RantWoman will be toting all sorts of receipts for a few days with the hope that will placate them.
Very Helpful Customer Service Person wrote email suggesting that the person RantWoman was to speak to at Metro MIGHT also be able to add RantWoman's new ORCA card to her existing www.orcacard.com account. Woman at Metro seemed not to know anything about this.
Very Helpful Customer Service Person thought perhaps yet another new RRFP ORCA card might be issued. This would not distress RantWoman in the least. The photo on the old card, miracle of miracles, looks like someone RantWoman would like to do business with. The photo on the new card looks, to RantWoman at least, like a mug shot.
Some of RantWoman's readers will be amused that, while RantWoman may have trouble seeing the Mac truck barreling around the corner, she can tell that her new ORCA card photo looks like a mugshot. That would be only one of the tamer thrills and chills of the RantWoman visual experience but let us stick to ORCA for the moment.
In particular, let us acknowledge a Bermuda Triangle moment that is RantWoman's own fault. When RantWoman arrived at the Metro offices, she discovered that her new ORCA card was nowhere to be found. RantWoman looked high and low, in multiple pockets and pouches. No new ORCA card. The ad-hoc end of April solution was achieved but other points could not be attained.
RantWoman went home and fished a couple times in teh top layers of dunes on her desk. No new ORCA card. RantWoman is going to leave to her readers' imagination where exactly she found her new ORCA card. It had been on RantWoman's person the whole time. RantWoman will now have to call in the morning. MAYBE things are almost straightened out!
RantWoman is storing the links below just for reference.
http://pstransitoperators.wordpress.com/http://www.seattlepi.com/transportation/418645_GettingThere26.html
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