I was going to drive to Quezon City for a hearing the next morning, Monday, so I needed to load my Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tollcards.
Loading the AutoSweep RFID was a breeze. You just tap your account information onto the touchscreen that displays a menu-driven dialogue between you and the machine. The machine coughs up a small sales invoice on thermal paper which you bring up to the counter. The sales clerk scans the invoice into the cash register, you pay the load amount plus P13-pesos “convenience fee” and you get a receipt. You are now ready to charge your next toll fee to your RFID account.
The EasyTrip RFID was a different story. Trying to load it is a daunting challenge to your anger management skills.
The first error message told me my account was invalid. Someone please tell me how that is even possible. I’m holding the damn card in my hand, so I must have an account. If I have an account, it HAS to be valid. Because if it isn’t, then I DO NOT have an account, do I? Then what am I holding in my hand, an apparition?
“Maybe you should try the machine in our other branch, sir,” the girl at the cash register suggested.
“Why, is it smarter?”
“I don’t know about these machines’ I.Q. levels, sir. It’s just that some machines seem to work better than others.”
“Why can’t I just bang this machine a few times, you know, shake it up a little bit, that works with my laptop!” I counter-suggested.
“I think it has a bomb inside that will go off if you tilt the machine, sir,” said the cheerful comely petite little miss with freckles. I thought she mustn’t be Filipino, maybe Fil-Am. Filipino girls don’t have freckles—they have pimples or acne.
So off I went to try CLICQ machine number 2, it’s in the 7-11 branch right across the hospital. I repeated the encoding procedure and this time I get an error message that said “selected option is invalid.”
I selected “bill payments” then clicked on the logo of EasyTrip. The darn machine even asked for my contact number and how much I wanted to load (“cannot include centavos” the machine warned). So I typed “1000” and clicked “NEXT.” It coughed up the thermal paper invoice. There were only TWO OPTIONS in the last screen menu: “NEXT” and “BACK.” How can anybody get THAT wrong?
The clerk scanned the invoice and asked me if I followed the procedure on the machine. I said, “Listen, I follow the Rules of Court. It’s a small book about two inches thick with over 138 Rules and 500 sections, so yeah I’m pretty sure I followed those two little sentences right. Is there any problem?”
“Maybe you should try the machine at our other branch, sir,” said the tall lanky fellow behind the cash register. This one had real pimples.
“That’s what they told me in your Session Road branch, they thought you might have a smarter machine here!” I said.
“It’s really not our fault, sir. I think the EasyTrip system is still down. People have been acting like YOU since yesterday,” Mr. Congeniality said.
Aha! Validation! So I wasn’t the only one acting like a moron. I tried to explain, “I really need to get to my hearing tomorrow and according to the news there are no more ‘CASH’ lanes in TPLEX, SCTEX and NLEX tollgates!”
“That’s what everybody’s been saying since yesterday too, sir. Did you people talk to each other to coordinate what to say?” the boy said with a grin.
“Never mind, I’ll try another branch,” I surrendered.
“We have over 500 branches nationwide--”
“Aw, shut up,” I interrupted, “I have GPS, I can find all your branches anywhere in the country if I can just get through the tollgate.”
“Right, sir. Good luck then!”
Luck didn’t help. Five branches yielded the same result and it was getting late, so I went home.
The following day, I slowed down as I approached the Toll Exchange at SCTEX (I breezed through TPLEX with my trouble-free AutoSweep).
There WAS still a cash lane, three of them in fact, and there was a long line of vehicles behind each lane stretching back at least fifteen cars.
But there were “RFID” lanes too—and they were empty!
I thought, “I DO have an RFID card, I’ve used it before, I just don’t know how much its remaining balance was and I did try to reload, but hey It’s not my fault the EasyTrip system was down!”
So I drove into the scanning bay, there was another young lady in the booth with real freckles. This thing must be an evolutionary development, or the latest cosmetic fakery.
As expected, the scanner rejected my card and a small screen display beside the toll booth said “BALANCE: -254”
“I’m sorry sir, but you don’t seem to have any remaining balance in your card. In fact, it says here your balance is—”
“I know! I know, I can see it. How can I have a NEGATIVE balance? Isn’t this thing supposed to stop at ZERO?? What are you, the stock market?” I exclaimed.
“What it means, sir, is you really just have SIX PESOS in your balance, but since you’re supposed to keep a maintaining balance of P300 on your card, the computer thinks you owe us P254-pesos,” the girl nicely explained.
“Tell your computer he doesn’t know a thing about legal accounting. The ‘maintaining balance’ is money belonging to the account holder, not you. I DON’T owe you P254, you just can’t let me through this toll gate cause I didn’t deposit more, or at least enough to pay for my toll fare,” I said.
“Why didn’t you do that then, sir, deposit more?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to do for two days! But YOUR system is down..” I said flabbergasted.
“Oooohh… kaya pala mahaba ang pila namin sa CASH,” she slowly realized, “anyway, sir, you can just pay cash for now and I’ll let you through.”
I paid P311 and she let me through, I beat around a hundred cars queued at the TRUE cash lanes.
Modern technology is awesome, but being pushy even though you're a “techno-bobo” works even faster.*
No comments:
Post a Comment