I was going to write about my heart attack last June 4th and the
subsequent chronic heart failure that I am now dealing with and how to
help others avoid this outcome, but something else has come to my
attention.
I will write about the above mentioned heart problems
soon, but really I am trying to assist a nice person keep her job and
would like to let you all know of the horrible experience I had today
while using the parking ramp by the Sheraton/Bread Garden/Library.
I
dropped Melissa off at the library and ran to the pharmacy at the
hospital and upon my return I parked on level 2 of the aforementioned
city parking ramp. I then went to the library and got a book. Melissa
and I headed back to the parking ramp and there is a machine that
indicates that you must put the ticket into it, whereupon you pay, and
have 15 minutes to exit the ramp.
The only problem with the above
scenario is that the stupid machine did not work. It sucked in the
parking ticket and then indicated it was not valid. It would not release
it, nor would it allow us to pay to get out of the ramp.I was extremely
upset, because I had not used a parking ramp since 2003 when I lived on
Iowa Avenue and managed the Bruegger's Bagel Bakery there, so i was not
familiar with this new technological acheivement.
Melissa
struggled with the machine, while I tried to figure out what to do next.
After a good 20 minutes of this nonsense of trying to coaxe the ticket
back out of the recalcitrant machine, she succeeded. We the drove to the
exit where an actual person was working. She was a very pleasant blonde
lady, who told us that the machine messes up all the time and what was
most disturbing is that she said, the machine was going to be her
replacement.
WTH!! Why would the city replace a perfectly
competent person, in favor of a machine that did not work on my first
attempt. I do not understand the stupidity involved in this decision. I
know for a fact if I was not a resident of Iowa City and came here to
shop or for anything and had a problem like I did with their intelligent
machine, I would not use the parking ramp ever again, no matter how
many times I would have to drive around the block to park somewhere
safer.
Is there others out there who have had similar BAD
experiences with this parking machine and if so please let the city
know, so that they will NOT replace the very good workers that they
currently have, but will remove these moronic machines, that don't even
work while they are new. Can you imagine how bad they will function when
they get some age on them. There will be people trapped in the parking
ramps on a daily, perhaps an hourly basis.
Let us make known to
the "geniuses" that approved these parking machines that the best way
to represent our city and get people to use the parking ramps is to make
sure that we have a flesh and blood attendant in the ramps when things
go wrong.
Have a great day and again I want to thank the young lady in the parking ramp for helping with the messed up ticket.