One thing I have to do tomorrow is pick up a RIPTA "Wave" card. RIPTA, the public transit agency that covers most of Rhode Island, used to sell monthly passes. Now those are being replaced by a credit/gift card kind of deal, that you can add more money to online.
Will this turn out to be more convenient for the users? Maybe. That's certainly the line they're pushing.
While you could get the passes at the big supermarkets, they also used to be sold at the RIPTA center in downtown Providence. I used to like the lady who sold them to me. That building was shut down in March 2020, and while they've recently reopened the doors, the public can't do anything in there but use the bathroom. And now that they're not selling the passes anymore, it looks like they've eliminated some job. So I hope that lady was close to retirement already and that she's doing okay.
2 comments:
It certainly appears that a number of things they do for our convenience these days actually make things more convenient for them, as in getting rid of jobs. The one I especially despise is the convenience of self checkout at grocery stores. I'd far prefer to converse briefly with a pleasant cashier while they scan the stuff rather than do it myself. Besides, those scanners don't always function as advertised. Another one that's an irritating supposed convenience involves the removal of parking meters where you could put in your quarter and go. Instead you have to memorize the number of your parking post and then walk a block to a central machine that's far more complicated to operate - and then you must walk all the way back to your car to put the machine sticker in the window. I bet I could think of more but I'll pass for now.
I hope the lady you used to see at the RIPTA center is happy and content in her retirement. Sheesh..
I don't think I've ever used self-checkout. For one thing, I prefer to pay cash and get change if possible, and most of those systems--I think--require that you use some kind of card. And also there's the grim vision of future groceries and drugstores where no human actually works, and I'd like to stave that off for as long as I can. The removal of parking meters is a new one on me. While I don't drive I do still see digital meters around town. How common would you say this is? It certainly isn't something that drivers would have asked for.
I hope she's enjoying her retirement too, if she is retired. And I hope she wasn't caught too much by surprise.
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