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Meanwhile my great grandmother, in her 80s, was able to learn how to boot up Win95 to play some puzzle games.
I personally think it’s because she was never really one for passive entertainment. If she watched television, it was stuff like Wheel of Fortune and she played along. She hit up the library every week for fresh books, and did a lot of crochet and crossword.
It’s similar to how I think her curiosity for life and refusal to be afraid is why she wasn’t a bigot. We have several interracial marriages in my family, and she never had a problem with it, despite being born in 1912.
She lived to be 100, and I hope I’m half as cool as she was.
… Tell me more about this penny trick.
I feel like I missed something in my childhood!
Oh. Add it as a weight on the arm, probably.
At least try to keep up instead of being defeatist.
When my grandmother tried to tell me she didn’t understand computers we got her an iPad. She tried to tell us that was too hard too and I reminded her “you’re not an idiot grandma, babies who can’t read yet figure there things out”
She figured it out, just needed a kick in the pants about the defeatism.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who went from a relatively clever teen to being a fucking braindead idiot as an adult but I am concerned that this seems to be somewhat commonplace.
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Maybe if we had a fucking standard for the where the fuck the tap to pay is. We all knew the swype and inserts were because we could see the slots.
But why be mysterious where the tap is? One machine will be in the corner but you can’t tap until it lights. Some is on the screen and you can tap anytime. Some are on screen and you can’t tap until you pick credit. Then there are those that say you can tap but the store doesn’t have it turned on so you can’t tap.
Pick a fucking standard. It’s using the chip all over again, that was really fucking annoying too, you would go to swype and they say oh you need to insert the chip, next store you go to and you insert but they say that don’t work and you need to swype.
My annoyance with the chip cards was that some of the POS machines would say
DO NOT REMOVE CARDfor a long time before silently switching to
REMOVE CARDwithout any other visual cues than two words in 10pt font disappearing. Like c’mon, change the background color from red to blue or something.
Worse! My gas station flashes:
DO NOT REMOVE CARD3 TIMES before
REMOVE CARD
Fucking. Exactly. Tap is awesome. It’s fast, it works, but just fucking standardize where it’s at!
But until then, as someone who works a register, people, please, look at the machines and see if there is a very clear label on it saying TAP HERE. I don’t know how every customer misses it, but they do.
People miss it because the sheer amount of extra crap that stores put in checkout lines had trained us to stop trying to read everything while we’re there. Also we’re watching for the total, not reading the text NOT on the screen
We miss the sign because we’re used to tapping at our normal store a certain way and your way is different. Our normal store doesn’t need a sign because it’s obvious.
I’m guessing your terminal uses the “tap the corner” method and not the screen method. If I see a sign, it’s often the corner. I’ve never seen a sign that points to the screen.
I bet the first tap to pay device maker patented the good spot.
To be fair it is pretty finicky and you never quite know where the NFC receiver is on the payment terminal. Sometimes I just say fuck it and insert the card
About being left behind - sheesh, I guess thisbguy was born with knowledge of all he did as a teen. Not like, had to be curious and learn it xD
Wait, how have you guys fucked up payments this time? I thought the US was finally on board with everyone else after the chip and sign debacle
In the UK (and anywhere I can recall travelling) we pretty much always tap (i.e. move your phone or card within 5cm) above the screen or a bit more in recent years, on the top of the machine for one of those touch screen ones.
I think the only time I don’t manage to pay first time is when the terminal or my phone is broken
I’m in Canada and my issue is every machine wants you to tap somewhere different. They all have a label somewhere indicating where to tap, but sometimes it’s on a screen, sometimes a sticker somewhere, sometimes a handwritten note next to the machine… and there are so many other signs and stickers all over the place that I often don’t spot the right one right away, so it takes me a couple of tries. Other than that it’s very easy.
But the cashiers always look at you judgingly like “why don’t you know how to do this basic thing?? It has the little logo RIGHT THERE beside these other 6 flashier logos.” Or at least in mind that what they’re thinking lol
Some people vibe with analog, some people vibe with digital.
Except the problem is not with it being digital. I think the only issue people have is being confused about where to tap, since that is different between machines and it’s not always clear. I guess I could memorize a few different common styles but again that’s not related to it being digital.
And the rest?
I’ve been working retail almost 3 years, a lot of people don’t know how to use a card to pay for things.
No, wiping it over the machine like a cloth won’t make it work better.
No, wiping it over the machine like a cloth won’t make it work better.
Ironically, doesn’t it? If you don’t know where the reader and chip are (sometimes it’s not clear), keeping the card close and moving it all over will eventually hit the spot ;D
Has a very high failure rate. The more you move the card, the less likely the card is to work. If you put it in the proper spot and then wiggle it around, at least on most of the machines near me, it’ll nearly always fail.
Wiping the card over the machine makes my machines throw a contact error and spit out a failure receipt.
