After today's insanity, I've come to the conclusion organizations implement a 'multi-purpose' access point as a way to keep citizens or their clientele at arms-length. I had a simple task to complete - purchase a July Youth Bus Pass. Simple concept, but yet, not as simple as you would assume.
The Youth Passes are available through schools between September and June. July and August left me with a plethora of responses. We don't have any; we don't have passes but we have booklets of Youth tickets; they don't make Youth Bus Passes for July and August.... I was left to ponder my options and decided to try the general access line - 311 for assistance. No, they don't have Youth Passes for July and August you can use the tickets. Really? If I have a student enrolled in summer session and has a part time job you expect me to pay double to triple what I normally do with a bus pass? Well, the bus passes are subsidized during the regular school year and as school is not in session I can't purchase one. I asked how it was possible to purchase Youth Passes through normal outlets (not the school) during every other month of the year but now for some reason the powers that be (who cannot possibly ever use the transit system otherwise they would not be so stupid as to implement such a scheme) decide that Youth do not require the use of transit during the summer months and just remove them from available methods of accessing the transit system. Well, she decided to look it up in her reference book. Oh, yes, indeed they have them available BUT you can only purchase them from 3 outlets during the summer months. Visiting one of these outlets would require the investment of an extraordinary length of time if you needed to access them by transit, or waste a lot of gas driving there. Phone calls to two of the outlets went unanswered so the advice was I would have to try and go down to one of these sites to see if they had any left. Yup, tried that, sold out.....
With my blood pressure rising I once again called the general access line - hmmmmm complaint time again. This conversation was even less helpful than the previous one, if that is possible. This guy suggested it was my fault for driving all the way to the southside to try purchasing a pass - I should have called ahead. I mentioned (Ok, I was pretty much screaming by this time) I tried that and called two of the three sites mentioned. Ah, yes, he said, they don't answer the phones because they are so busy. Really?!?!?! Then why the hell are you telling me to call them???? And around and around we go. The conversation continued into a death spiral until I hung up on the idiot. If I wasn't between a rock and a hard place with the holiday tomorrow I would have continued my fight into tomorrow. I will be sure to file a complaint on Wednesday when staff should return from the July 1st holiday. How can such incompetence be tolerated; there are plenty of dedicated people out there trying their best to find good jobs, the city somehow manages to hire this kind of twit! How in the world did they manage to get through an interview? Who was the numb-nut who hired them? So this is where my tax dollars go - going back to appealing my property taxes! We are NOT getting what we pay for!!!
