Dogbert's New Ruling Class


So, there I was, in Super Lube(tm), getting various things done to my car to make sure it keeps happily running along and doesn't suddenly let out its 'magic juice' on the highway. It's one of those maintenance things, which is to say that most times the people there don't really do all that much (aside from changing the oil and filter, which on a car like mine is a nigh Herculean task). Top up the occasional seemingly random tank of fluid, spray the vehicular equivalent of "WD-40" around on the undercarriage, make sure nothing's broken. It's the kind of thing that you might feel you can let go for much longer than you should, and you probably could get away with it, too, except for the fact that eventually something will go wrong and without regular pokings from people who know what all to look for, it'd never be found.

But we digress.

So, there I was, in Super Lube(tm), going to pay for this pouring of fluids into my vehicle, with the wonderful piece of plastic known as the 'credit card'. Except, much to the technician's horror, his boss was on the phone talking to whoever it was that bosses talk to, and refusing to sodding well get off so that he could run the credit card through the little magic box.

This resulted in much amusement from me (I had time to wait) and much consternation from him, since he had to go to the, gasp, manual backup. It was clear he'd never actually used the manual backup, although he at least knew where to look for it, and actually had to call someone else over to help him figure out how to work it (c'mon, you put the carbon thingie over the card, run the little lever back and forth, and you're done). Ya know, it's things like this that make people wake up in a cold sweat thinking about Y2K failures. It's also things like this that make me feel damn old. I remember when everything was done with the little slidey carbon thingies when you used credit cards. I remember when the little magic boxes were keen, and new. I remember...

For crying out loud, I'm not even 25 yet, and I'm already snickering at those darn kids and their high-falutin' techno-gizmos. That's just pathetic. He didn't even know the yellow copy was the one he's supposed to give to me. Everyone knows that! Years of work went into training people to mindlessly hand over anything yellow to the customer! And now they've gone and thrown it all away! The fools! The mad fools!!!

Oh well. It's things like this that'll make people like me a member of the New Ruling Class when Dogbert takes over the world (this is a Dilbert joke, for those of you who aren't geeks. Er. There are people who read this who aren't geeks, right? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?).

Rant 'o the day contains no additives, preservatives or small woodland creatures of any kind. Use only as directed. Do not expose to direct sunlight. Do not fold, spindle, multilate or remove identifying tags. Handle with care. Contains less than 3% milk fat by weight, not by volume. Squeeze the lemon.

THIS SPACE FOR RENT