it isn't working

At the airport here, you pay for your parking at a machine before you get to your car to leave. Once you have paid, the machine imprints your parking ticket and then you take that ticket to insert it into the machine at the exit of the parking lot. This seems like a fairly simple process and it is - when it works. When it doesn't work, it becomes ridiculously difficult as there is no one at the exit to help.

Of course, when I had to get out of the parking lot on Wednesday, it didn't work. I inserted my paid ticket into the machine and heard some processing and churning and then it promptly spit my ticket back out without opening the gate. Ok. Perhaps I put the ticket in the wrong way. I turned the ticket around and tried again only to have it spit out once more. Now, I was in no mood for this as it was around 7:30 pm and I had been up since 5 am. By this time, an impressive line up of cars had formed behind me and I can only imagine how happy they must have been.

The machine had a handy help button on it which was supposed to summon someone for assistance. Where this someone was coming from was a mystery but he showed up after about 2 minutes. This is a long period of time to wait when there are irate people lined up behind you.
My expectation of this person was that he would take a look at my paid ticket and promptly open the gate to let me out. Wrong again. He asked me if I had paid. Look at the ticket, Einstein, of course I have paid. He then proceeded to insert the ticket into the machine. What??!!! I put this ticket in every possible way and the gate didn't open. Why he thought the gate would magically open because he tried was beyond my comprehension. Then, he tried again. At this point, I calmly (which was a miracle) asked him to open the gate. He looked at me and tried again. I just about lost my mind. He opened the gate.

SunnyShine

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RainyBow note: And I'll bet you paid a whopping sum for that parking too. Glad to see the money's going towards hiring brain surgeons.

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SunnyShine note: Oh yes. $24 for the day. I knew I should have valet parked. lol. The extra $20 would have been well worth to 1) not have to spend 15 minutes looking for a parking spot @ 6:30 am 2) not have to walk 10 minutes to get to the terminal 3) not have to spend 15 minutes looking for my car when I got back 4) avoid the hassle of the post.