I received this from John Clancy. Now retired, John worked in the technology side of the industry for decades. I don’t think this needs any comment:
I parked at a garage near my hotel at the Riverwalk in San Antonio. It was credit card in, so I swiped my credit card. The gate went up, I drove in and parked.
Now, I should add, don’t get out much. I saw additional equipment at the entry plaza, and lots of instructions. Multiple signs, warnings … but the gate went up, so I drove in and parked. I was in a hurry to get back to the hotel, my wife was waiting for me.
When I went to the exit the next morning, the exit equipment took my credit card to get out, but it wasn’t satisfied. Gate didn’t go up. I tried the intercom, what came out was a garbled static noise that may or may not have been a human being talking.
An attendant was standing 4’ away, she started to train me. She showed me the sequence I needed to learn, to use the unattended transient system. There was a bar code paper ticket involved in the chain somehow; perhaps I was supposed to request that at the entry? No idea.
I paid no attention to her. Once the gate went up, we were outta there. I wasn’t planning any return trips to that hotel in the near future.
I remembered knowing something once, about equipment used for purpose in the distant past.
A different lifetime.
One Response
John’s story reminds me of a similar experience many years ago. I had been to some European jolly or other with my good friend X, I won’t embarrass him by naming him; X was the MD of a major parking technology company. We got back to the airport and X attempted to interact appropriately with the parking lot exit barrier, unsuccessfully, five times. We returned to the office and managed, I thought, to pay there. Back to the barrier; nothing. Finally the operator took pity on this doyen of the parking industry and lifted the barrier.
The lesson is ” If you think that you’ve made it fool proof, you just haven’t met enough fools yet”.