As a youngster I went to the bank to draw money (no ATM's). I had a savings book, filled in a withdrawal slip, gave it to the lady behind the counter (without bulletproof glass and / or intercoms) and she gave me my money, manually updated the book, and in less then 5 minutes I was on my way. I called the garage / mechanic / post office / electrician / A.N. other service provider, and someone picked up the phone and put me through to whomever I wanted to speak to. I drove into a filling station, the guy filled the tank for me, took my money and I left. I went shopping, loaded a trolley full, the teller read each label (price), no bar codes then) and entered it into the till, and I paid and left.
Today, with all the electronic paraphernalia we have available to "make our lives easier" they say:-
I go to an ATM to draw funds. if it's not off line, or completely blown away, it's ok. But go into a bank, there are queues from hell, and if you want to speak to consultant or similar it's a 10 - 25 minute wait! What the fuck? Was he on call out from Tzaneen? Busy on the crapper? Too scared to actually have to speak to a client?
At the filling station, you have to wait for someone to bother to come and help you. Go through 17 "No thank yous" while he offers to wash the screen, check the oil / water / tires / blood tests / DNA - "Fuck off - Just fill the tank!" Then you pay with a card - it takes upto 5 minutes to do this fia=financial transaction! At a restaurant - they use to use the old "zipzap" for credit cards - 2 minutes tops. Today, 5 minutes with a credit card machine!
You call a service provider - electronic answering machine with 73 options "If you want to... pres..1, If you want to... press 2...." and your option is number 69! And then there is a second, and third, and even a fourth level of selections. You never get to speak to anyone though. hell, in good old SA even 911 is an electronic answering machine. "If you no longer wish to hold on, and would like someone to call you back, please press 9, leave your name and number and a short message and we will get back to you as soon as an operator is available!" HUH?
Go to a store. You fill the trolley with goods, but have no idea what they cost anyway as everything is now bar coded, and none of the pricing cards on the shelf match any of the goods on the shelf anyway. Then you get to a till, where you queue up behind 17 other hapless shoppers. The store brags that it has 387 till points! but there are never more than 3 manned, and 2 of which are on tea break at any one time! WTF? The useless, overpaid / undereducated nose picking papvreter (Thanx Fishman) scans the goods. God help you if the machine does not see the bar code. Then she has to manually enter the numbers - oh man - 26 retries and you take it from her and throw it down the strip - "never mind! I'll get it next time!!"
Finally, she's done, you pay (credit card), her machine does not work, so you go together down the aisle to a working machine to finalize the transaction. Meanwhile some other papvreter is stealing some of your goods! And again, the transaction can take up to 3 - 5 minutes....
And all this time we thought computing was going to make life easier and quicker. Yea right, just like it will lead to a paperless society!
And we are so used to waiting / queuing, the people in the photo above were asked what they were queuing for, and no one knew! They said "We saw the queue, and joined it! it must be going somewhere!!!"
Salagatle!
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