I put “trip” in quotations, as I wasn’t sure how else to effectively and sarcastically communicate that said trip never happened. I suppose I could have just written “My first trip, which never actually happened…” thus eliminating the “‘s, but that just didn’t seem appropriately peevish. I digress.
So, as you may have already read in my MetroAccess – an introduction, I got home after my appointment and scheduled all of my trips for the week. An important thing to mention here is that I am given a 30 minute window that I must be ready and able to get out the door, within 5 min of their arrival. There seems to be a bit of a discrepancy there… I have to give them a 30 minute window, but I only get five? Interesting. Anyway, my window time came, I was sitting in my dining room looking out the window, lunch packed up, my boots tied tight (Billy Madison, in case you missed the reference) and waited. And waited.. and waited some more. After 2 hours of waiting, I called them. I was told that someone should be there in 30 min. Unfortunately, I had a conference call scheduled with our company lawyer to go over a contract, and if I waited, I’d be getting onto the van at the same time I was to be on the phone! So I told them to go ahead and cancel both that trip and the AM trip. I was charged for both, as same day cancelations… cool.
Just FYI, here is my bill of rights, coupled with my responsibilities…
It’s interesting… it says that I have the RIGHT to be picked up, within a 30 minute window. So basically, WMATA, what you’re telling me is that you have violated my rights. Whew! I think I should go occupy something, or burn an article of my undergarments in protest! Not only were my needs not met, but my rights were trampled upon.
Regardless of rights-trampling, I was quite irritated that I was unable to go to work, that I was charged for a fault of theirs, and that my very first trip didn’t even happen! Then, the following day, the 18th, was a “Snow Emergency,” DC style, so there was no MetroAccess service THAT day either. So effectively, my first day of MetroAccess was actually on the 19th. And naturally, I have a story for THAT day too. Read on.
Cheers!