Automation

I just lost it while trying to buy a train ticket from Bochum to Erlangen. I was getting on amicably with the ticket machine until it asked me which route I wanted to take. It gave four options, each with a different price, each consisting of 3 cities I hadn't heard of and one city that I knew, but that wasn't on the way from Bochum to Erlangen. I searched the screen for the button "Just put me on the next fucking train to Nürnberg" or "Automatic route selection using arrival time optimisation" but there wasn't one.

So I decided to go to the ticket office, and tell them to put me on the next fucking train to Nürnberg. The counters were blocked by a couple planning a 3-week rail holiday and an old lady who was being explained what a railway was. I got confused, thinking how annoying other people are, how best to program a ticket-selling machine for people with simple aims who are in a rush, and how I was going to miss my train.

I couldn't keep patient enough to stand in a queue, so I headed back to the machine and selected the most expensive of the four routes, just to be on the safe side. The route was via Dortmund, the train I took went in exactly the opposite direction, but wtf.

(I wrote this rant last weekend. I was going to follow it up, locate the missing cities, draw a map of Germany with the routes on, and make a big post. After careful thought, I decided to get on with more important things and not get so worked up. I also decided that the extra 5 Euros wasn't the end of the world.)