Sunday, January 14, 2024

Oh, Brave New World

Made a second (possibly third, I can't remember) valiant attempt to 'spend' some e-vouchers I was given last year in the Guardian pharmacy at Clementi Mall this afternoon. Failed. Again.

But some progress has been made. Back home I accessed the website the vouchers come from on my lap-top and discovered somehow - I'm not sure I can repeat the procedure - that you have to buy the vouchers from your own account, if that makes sense, before you can use them at the cashiers. I think we might just be able to make this work on our next visit as bar codes have suddenly appeared in places where there were none before.

Now in case you're thinking that this is just a case of a foolish old man with no idea of how anything on-line works, I need to tell you that we showed the vouchers on my phone to a very helpful assistant in the shop who ran everything by the cashiers there and no one could figure out what I was supposed to do in order to use the things.

Which leads me to a pressing question: Why is everything intended for our convenience in this Brave New World so deeply inconvenient?

And here's another. Why does every system change as soon as you've actually got used to using it?

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