Sometimes you can’t stop thinking about how much you love something when you’re away from it. Yet sometimes you can forget exactly how much you love something until you’re reunited with it. For me, that’s usually the case with San Francisco. I’m once again back for a short visit, and as usual I realize just how much I love this amazing city.
It’s funny how trained humans become at certain tasks. I recently upgraded to the latest iTunes release for Macs, and the iTunes logo has now changed from green to blue. My mind and hand are trained to know exactly where in the dock the icon is, but now that’s it’s blue it takes me a little longer to get it open. My eye is still trained to look for the green logo, and it keeps initially skipping over the blue logo. So, the question is, is color a more powerful UI (User Interface) factor than position? They are both obviously important, but which has a more lasting impact on the user? Which change would a user adapt to more quickly?
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to be continued…….
I rented a U-Haul truck a few weeks back to move some of our stuff into our new apartment. It was cheap expensive, quick time consuming, and easy complicated.
When I went to pick up the truck, I had to wait in the store for about 45 minutes. Horrible staff, completely disorganized, etc. Eventually I got to the counter, filled out the paperwork, was told to return the truck by 7am the next morning (yikes!) and went outside to get the truck. A U-Haul employee was out there and checked the gas level, mileage, and truck damage. I pointed out that one of the side view mirrors was cracked. No big deal for me, I only needed the truck for 6 miles total.
I had the truck back at U-Haul by 7am the next morning. There was a long line of people outside the locked gate, but no U-Haul employees. They arrived at about 7:45am and began checking-in returned trucks. When they checked mine, they claimed I broke the mirror. I objected, and they told me I would have to come back later to talk to the guy who checked the truck out to me. I came back and spoke with him later in the afternon, and he initially claimed he didn’t remember me. Then I got loud and reminded him of our conversation (about a stripped down bicycle chained to a street sign). Suddenly he remembered and marked down that the mirror was broken when I picked it up. Not too big a deal, but it was frustrating. My guess is that most people wind up paying for the same mirror over and over and over and over again. An extra revenue stream for U-Haul?
Last Thursday, a few weeks after my rental, I noticed a new U-Haul charge for $145 on my credit card. I assumed it was some mix up over the mirror, so I called to straighten it out. I assumed it was going to be a challenge to get it sorted, but I had no idea just how difficult. Every department I called told me to call a different department. And the chain circled a few times. I spent about 6 hours over a 3 day period making a countless number of calls. I did realize about half way through that it would probably be cheaper to just drop the issue and pay the charge, since it was eating up way too much of my time. But that’s not the kind of person I am. If I know something is wrong, whether it be a matter of $100,000 or $1, I’m determined to see the situation corrected. So I persisted. And I finally got to the bottom of the charge today. The $145 charge was for a parking ticket that was issued to the truck, but U-Haul couldn’t provide any other details. They told me to call the NYC Department of Finance to inquire. I did. Turns out the ticket was issued to the truck 6 hours before I even picked the truck up. I called U-Haul back with the details, assuming it would be an automatic refund to me. Foolish me. U-Haul tried to convince me that I had to fight the ticket. I protested, complained, and expressed my astonishment at their horrible business practices. Then I called back later, spoke with a different manager, and was told they would try to correct the issue “soon”. Another extra revenue stream for U-Haul?
Next time I’ll rent from Budget, no doubt about it. I’ve lost all respect for U-Haul. And I remain completely baffled by their business practices. U-Haul seriously needs a complete overhaul. And an investigation.
We finally moved into our new apartment about 2 weeks ago. It’s not “new”, but it’s new to us. It’s been a long time coming, and we’re happy to start settling in. There’s a ton of work to be done (understatement), but at least we get to transform the place into our own creation. I just hope we don’t go bankrupt in the process. :-)
During the move, we’ve been going back and forth between the New Jersey shore and Brooklyn. If you’re familiar with that route, you know the path goes across the Verrazano-Narrows bridge. I wasn’t familiar with it, and I hadn’t been across the Verrazano-Narrows in a long time. Imagine my surprise at the $9 toll to get into Staten Island from Brooklyn. Yes, $9. Unbelievable, but sadly true.
$9 is a hefty toll for even a beautifully upkept bridge, which the Verrazano-Narrows certainly isn’t (not to mention the long delays, horrible road conditions, and nasty pollution). I was curious about exactly where the money goes, so I started asking the toll booth clerks whenever I passed. Does the entire toll go toward maintenance of only the Verrazano-Narrows bridge? Is there a surplus? If so, does it go into a larger NYC fund? Does it go to only Staten Island? Nobody knew. The only response I got consistently was, “you always pay when you come to Staten Island”. Funny, maybe. But it didn’t answer my question, so I’ve been digging around. And today I found this article: congressional candidates duel over use of bridge toll (I uploaded a local copy just in case they take that article offline in the future: local version)
According to that article, the Verrazano-Narrows bridge generated a surplus of more than $267 million in 2005. That is a LOT of money. I’m torn between my own opinions of the situation, but at the end of the day I lean toward reducing the toll to an amount that doesn’t generate a surplus. And keep in mind that I’m a Brooklyn resident who has no need to drive regularly. If I were a Staten Island resident, and I had to drive back and forth across the Verrazano-Narrows regularly, I would be campaigning daily to have that toll reduced.