The following is part of a serialized story, Everyone Thinks I Dream of Chocolate. You can find the first chapter here.
Actually, it was a big problem. In the year 2019, with high-speed internet, smartphones, and digital currency, our workplace was hooked up to dial-up. In an age where cashless is king, Lou’s was in a weird place in time, roughly 10 years in the past.
Dick was an old school capitalist and if there was one thing he loved, it was traditional dead presidents inked on green, cotton-like paper. It is a physical representation of the power that circulated throughout the store, the mill, the country, and the planet.
Still, it was the late 2010s. Everyone had a credit card. So most of our transactions took at least 30 seconds. It wasn’t a problem during the week when customers drifted in and out between long intervals of time.
During the weekends, it was a nightmare. Lines would form during peak hours. I would push the credit card into the slot and wait. I would look up and several groups of people would join the line like drops of water joining in osmosis to form a puddle. The credit card reader would beep.
“Just need your signature, here…Thank you very much.”
I would look up again to see the line had gotten even longer. The puddle was now a river.
There were usually two, maybe three of us taking orders but there was only one credit card machine. On the rare occasion that the other store was quiet, we could run the total on the other machine. This meant bringing the customer over to the chocolate store, wading through crowds of customers and incoming pedestrian traffic, and hoping that by the time we got there, the credit card machine would still be unoccupied.
Usually, both stores were stuffed with people trying to eat sandwiches or chocolate. Our machines had a line of employees waiting to use the machine. It was like being at the DMV. Dick made sure to voice his disdain.
“Oh my god,” he would say. “So god damn slow.”
The long wait wasn’t good for my ADHD, either. I was undiagnosed and unmedicated. I would stare at the screen and my mind would wander into several other daydreams before the machine finally beeped. Sometimes, I was quick enough to get right back to work.
However, executive dysfunction has a funny way of playing tricks on you. It is a form of tunnel vision. You walk into it from one entrance coming from one task. Then, you sluggishly push through the vortex as you try to make it out the other end onto the next task.
“Thank you very much. Have a nice day…oh your card?” It was still in my hand.
“Thank you very much. Have a nice day…oh this isn’t your card?” The customer had wandered off because they were also caught up in their bullshit. I had been too caught up in my own to remind them to pick up their card.
“Thank you very much. Take care…oh, you didn’t get your chocolates?” It was sitting on the counter and I had forgotten to give it to them.
The internet was also unreliable. I chalked it up to the Mill’s old infrastructure. The credit card reader had a habit of disconnecting at random times. When this happened, I had to follow a loose set of procedures, hoping it would work again.
First, I would simply try again. Sometimes, this worked and we only gained another 30 seconds in waiting. This is the best-case scenario because usually, I had to do this several times, adding entire minutes to the process.
In the worst possible scenario, I had to reset the machine. I had to shut it off manually by going behind the counter, unplugging the cord that was buried in a sea of wires, then plug it in again. The reader’s screen would go black, then a flash of light would bloom off the small, one-inch screen. Then, we would wait as the machine read “Loading…”
This was another minute of our time wasted.
Then, there were the customers who would try to pay with contactless methods. Our machine was old. Dick and Lou are like most people and try to put off updating software until the last possible moment. Sometimes it worked ok. Samsung and Paypal never gave us too much trouble. Apple Pay was always a crapshoot to the point where Dick outright banned it just so he wouldn’t have to deal with the headache.
Personally, I would have loved it if we could go contactless. When it worked, it was the quickest way to pay. I single tap and everything was golden. No waits, no hassle. I’m pretty sure the machine just needed to be replaced with a newer model or at least just an update. But Dick hated wasting time and money. To be fair, I can’t blame him. Neither do I.
I remember one morning an official from the county department came by and asked to check out the elevator. Due to the Mill’s unusual layout and history, it wasn’t uncommon for Mill infrastructure to be a part of some of the businesses. The elevator closet was located in our Deli, behind a stainless steel table.
“Sure,” I said. “What for?”
“We’ve been getting some weird interference with the elevator phone. Every elevator needs a working phone for safety reasons.”
Dick popped his head out of the kitchen.
“Oh yeah. No problem,” he said as he pulled out his keys. I couldn’t tell if his voice was louder than usual or if that was his usual loud voice.
“Just give me a minute to clean up back here.”
I helped him move the table, the metal screeching against the hard ground as we did so. He opened the door, then went inside the closet and made sure to close it, leaving very little exposed to us on the outside. When he came back out, I thought I noticed him kick something gray into the corner. He was sweating, too. Again, I didn’t think much of it. It was the middle of summer and the Mill got humid during this time of year.
The inspector went inside and for 10 minutes, we waited. When he was done, Dick asked him if everything was ok.
“Oh yeah. Sometimes, these old lines just need to restart. I plugged it in and out. Everything is working now. Sorry to bother yall. Have a good one.”
Dick made sure that the inspector had gotten into his car and left before he put the table back. He picked up what I now saw as a grey ethernet wire. We went inside the closet with it. I heard a distinct click before he came back outside.
“What was that?” I asked.
Dick gave me a smirk.
“Why do you think the credit card reader is so slow?”
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To Be Continued…
Danger Wonka 