A Ripe Time for Gripes

First an apology for missing last week: the piece was ready, but I was in a place with spotty internet, so I could not upload. For this post, I am going to carry on from my last article, which I thought set the stage nicely for my gripes about technology.

Here are some more:

1. Taps, soaps and hand dryers: These have now been automated at airports at other places, and, in my experience, rarely work. It is very hard to find, if at all possible, the exact place where my hands need to be for the water to flow from the tap. And as soon as I start rubbing my hands together, the water stops flowing altogether, or begins to flow erratically. Sometimes the overhang is so big, it is a double-guessing game as to where to put your hand to get the soap and/or blow dryer.

All this is supposed to elevate hygiene (no touching the faucet), reduce water wastage and help forest conservation (no paper towels), but these good intentions have turned the process inconvenient for the user. Let’s recall how simple the process used to be: turn the tap, out comes water; push the tab, out comes soap; pull the towel, out comes paper. End of story. No guesswork involved.

2. QR codes at restaurants: So they can save money by minimizing the number of waiters ('streamlining operations'), eateries have outsourced the ordering and payment process to the customers. You sit down, scan in the QR code, order and pay. Sounds simple, but is often not. Recently in Rome I walked out of the restaurant after I found I had to login in Italian, upload my credit card details, and wait for a confirmation which never arrived…in a conventional restaurant, I would have finished my entrée by that time.

My additional gripe is that this process also does not allow me to ask about the details of the dish (there may be ingredients I might like to skip, like cheese) or anything like the secret menu (e.g. some Mexican restaurants have flan but do not advertise it).

Usually I do not even sit down at restaurants which do this (and I walk out even if I realize it late). But now this has become guesswork, since you don’t know right off the bat who uses QR codes and who doesn’t. Some in fact offer both options (ordering online or through the waiter). Recently in Singapore I was wrestling at my table with my phone when the waiter showed up and made my life easy.

3. Apps and Passwords: Now everybody and their grandmother has an app. Imagine traveling to 4 countries in one summer, having to download and eventually delete all the local apps and passwords [for taxis, trains, museums, historical monuments (to download the audioguides) , food, etc.]. What a chore. Somebody needs to simplify this.

4.  Ride-hailing apps: If your phone charge is dwindling, net connection is slow, and/or there is a lot of traffic, these apps make life a lot harder. I have often had my pick-up point switched (to someplace a minute’s walk away) at the last moment (the maps are so crude sometimes it is hard to tell ahead of time where exactly the point is).

In Singapore, the local app gives you 3 minutes to find your ride once it arrives. If you do not succeed in boarding by then the ride is canceled, but you pay the full charge anyway. Try this when the boarding point receives 30 taxis at the same time since they were all waiting together at the red light.

In India, it is very hard to read the plate number of the ride in the midst of the usual chaos of the traffic, with pedestrians, oxcarts, auto rickshaws (they are also on the app!), trucks, vans, and now monstrous air-conditioned tour buses getting in the way.

What happened to the good old days where there was a taxi stand usually nearby and you could go up to one and negotiate your ride with a real person?

Afterword

I am not even griping about the amount of time I spend babysitting my electronic devices - this one is losing charge, that one is suddenly not opening pdfs any more, the phone content can no longer be downloaded into the laptop, the laptop has had its facial recognition scrambled...who's going to fix all this? Is AI listening?