RantWoman has a simple request. She would like to go online at http://www.orcacard.com/ like a normal person, register the spiffy new ORCA card she got last month and set up an automatic transaction so that her disabled sticker gets automatically loaded every month via withdrawal from her bank account.
For some reason this simple, prosaic desire is still a fantasy.
Late last month while ORCA cards were being handed out for free, RantWoman trundled down to the navel of the Metro universe, stood in line, proffered the right magical talismans, had her picture taken (better than the last one actually) and paid her monthly pass fee. RantWoman even put $10 on her transit wallet for various circumstances when her disabled pass alone will not cut it.
RantWoman toted the new token of transit payment home in its silly plastic sleeve with last month's unexpired sticker. As the new month dawned, RantWoman cast off the silly plastic sleeve and began using her new transit token with abandon all over all the buses she usually rides. Many of the readers beeped peculiarly. RantWoman posted a complaint to the local bus system wondering how the heck the drivers are supposed to tell what the readers are saying when the drivers cannot see the readers because of the location and RantWoman cannot either.
The readers have emitted a variety of tones and beeps, sometimes with red lights, sometimes green lights. RantWoman has several times told drivers whose readers seem not to be clued in yet that indeed she has already paid her monthly pass fee.
RantWoman also went home, created a login on the http://www.orcacard.com/ site, and TRIED to register her card online so she can do the next steps to add value automatically. When RantWoman punched in the magical codes requested, the site burbled back that the card is already registered.
RantWoman emailed the designated customer service and got back a nonsensical response. RantWoman suspects based on her long and lurid experience in various technical support roles this was based partly on the responder viewing some kind of admin screen instead of a user screen. The nonsensical response referred to a link which RantWoman does not have, which is why she has formed the suspicion about the admin screen.
Silly RantWoman decided just to drop the problem for a few weeks, but the end of a month is looming. RantWoman was also hoping to accomplish this transaction while she was waiting for something else to download. Log in. Repeat effort to register. This time RantWoman just called a human, apparently not an overly experienced human. RantWoman apologizes for her impatience. Apparently RantWoman's capacity to be patient with customer service have been severely depleted by her own long career in this field.
The hapless human listened while RantWoman repeated her efforts and got the same error message. The hapless human told RantWoman to look for links she knows are not there. RantWoman repeated her comment about the user screen and the admin screen, but the hapless human appeared not even to be able to conceptualize this point. Finally the hapless human took down RantWoman's contact information and promises to call her back.
RantWoman was not displeased to learn that since she has not so far done anything that SHOULD trip withdrawal of funds from her separate travel wallet her travel wallet indeed still contains the sum she deposited last month. Small consolation.
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