ORCA, Confessions, Fine.

RantWoman confessions:

RantWoman's ORCA card has gotten sort of finicky: sometimes ORCA card readers read it; sometimes they do not. RantWoman has heard the suggestion that ORCA cards wear out and maybe she should take herself to the downtown METRO offices to get a new ORCA card. So far RantWoman has not done that.

RantWoman is also a little scatter-brained. SOMETIMES RantWoman will tap her card twice in the same link station. RantWoman will tap it once the first time she finds a card reader or as she enters the station and then forget she has tapped it when presented with another ORCA card reader near the tracks. Apparently somewhere in RantWoman's travels yesterday she did this.



Typical ORCA card reader

RantWoman has no clue she has done this. The tone is the same when one taps on and when one taps off. The green light is the same when one taps on as when one taps off. Apparently, though, something appears in the teeny tiny backlit, dim no-contrast visual screen that is different when one taps on than when on taps off. And people would expect RantWoman to figure this out why????

RantWoman learned this yesterday aboard Link when a fare inspector was wondering what she was doing riding the train after she had just tapped off. RantWoman presented her ID as requested. RantWoman listened to the fare inspector's lecture about procedures until he got to the part something like "it says in..."

At that point, the ill-behaved white cane had been curled up lounging indolently on RantWoman's bag and slacking off on his ambassadorial duties. RantWoman had to direct the fare inspector to look: "which part of this white cane do you not see?"

(RantWoman was also thinking to herself, well if anyone is going to DO anything with ORCA data, dealing with the out of balance tap pairs falls in the area of data cleaning, not something she currently gets paid to think about, but...)

Okayyyy, but next time you might get a $124 fine.

(Link fare inspectors not known for sense of humor; Fine. Do that, and RantWoman will consider sending a $124 bill for free usability and / or data ETL consulting. Okay, RantWoman, CHILL out! Just CHILL out!)