August 15, 2007
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I was pleasantly surprised by a WMATA employee today. As I was waiting for my train to arrive, a different one was just pulling away when it abruptly stopped. Apparently a kid, he looked to be under 12 years old, had gotten onto the train without the rest of his family. The family got the WMATA employee to stop the train. Never thought they actually did stuff like that but kudos to them. The train stopped, opened it’s doors and the family got on before the doors closed again.
On the flip side, it’s interesting to know what they do with their SmarTrip cards. When I purchased mine I decided not to register it for obvious reasons. Due to certain new circumstances it needs to be registered. So I went ahead and tried to do so, only to find out I had to talk to a SmarTrip representative because of some “error” or “issue.” After talking to the rep I found out that the card automatically gets registered whenever you use a credit or debit card to add more money to the card. Pretty smart on their part (not on mine I guess) to do that. Data mining is an extremely important commodity these days (If you don’t believe me what do you think Google does).
There’s an interesting article about generic fees charged by telephone, credit card, etc companies. Though I normally look at my statements I took another gander at our house phone bill. Everything is very nondescript – the taxes, fees and various other charges are about 55% of the bill. Maybe it’s time to ditch the conventional house phone and go with a digital, internet phone service.
