Turn At the Fork in the Road

It's happened again. I was at the craft store buying yarn for a project and the cashier that was checking me out answered the phone, apparently couldn't help the customer on the phone, and then called the manager over to give directions to this same customer on the phone. Now, I guess I am being petty, picky, or otherwise trivial, but it seems to me that if you work at a store, you should be able to give directions to that store. I mean, really, there are only four directions - north, south, east, and west. Surely, when you drive to work every day, you come from one of those directions. And, you should at least be able to tell people how to get to your store from that same direction.

This particular store is located about 1/2 block off of a major Interstate Highway. It is one of the more well known highways in the state. And, this store is also right across the street from one of the larger malls in the area, so it's not like it's hidden down some country road out in the boondocks and you have to go down hundreds of convoluted paths to get there. No, it's right there for all the world to see. I have called many stores to get directions and the person answering the phone has no idea what to tell me. I just don't get it. Have these people never been out of the store? How do they get to work? Were they born in the store, grew up in the store, and lived their entire lives in the store and never left it? Surely, they must have to leave the store, go to their home, or, heaven forbid, run some errands on their way home from work in the evening or on their way to work in the morning. This would necessitate that they surely know how to get from at least one or two other places to their work place.

So, as you can see, I am having a hard time understanding how anyone who drives to a particular place EVERYDAY cannot tell someone else how to get there. This store, in particular, is one of the easiest places to find. Here is what you tell someone if they are calling for directions: "If you are coming from the north, go south on I-35 and turn right on FM 3040. If you are coming from the south, go north on I-35 and turn left on FM 3040. If you are coming from the east ON FM 3040, keep going until you pass I-35 and the store is 1/2 block on your right. If you are coming from the west on FM 3040, the store is 1/2 block before you get to I-35 and will be on your left." There, simple as that. Oh, there's one more possible way. "If you are coming from the east or west on Hwy. 121, go north on I-35 and turn left onto FM 3040 and the store is 1/2 block on your left." That covers ALL possible routes to this store, and you will notice that there is a theme - I-35 and FM 3040. Yes, those are the two MAJOR streets that form the intersection where this store is located.

I'll bet I could look this up on Google Maps or Mapquest.com and they would give you the exact same directions that I just gave. Only there would be some cute little highway signs and left and right arrows. But, that is for the people who have grown up since Apple Computer changed the world from text to graphics. But, that's another blog entry which you can find further back on my blog.

And, this stuff doesn't just happen in my area. I went to Atlanta to meet some friends at a cat show. I had never been in the Atlanta airport, and, quite frankly, I really don't want to be in it again. But, let's just say that I wandered around for quite some time trying to find THE EXIT. Yes, not a particular gate or even a remote destination. I was simply trying to find the exit that a person would take to find the rental cars. Finally, I saw two people with airport uniforms and who were working near the baggage claim area. I figured, since they worked at the airport, surely they would know where this particular exit would be. So, I asked them. The first person said, "I don't know. I'm not from around here." That seemed like a strange thing to say since she was working at the airport and I was the person who had just flown in from Texas. I was not "from here" either. So, she asked her co-worker, and he also didn't know. I cannot imagine that I was the only person near the baggage claim area who might need to know where the rental car location was. It seemed to me that there might be a high probability that a lot of people might want to know where they could rent a car or pick up one they had already reserved soon after they claimed their luggage. I finally found the exit I was looking for, but not because any airport employee helped me.

Maybe people don't need to know how to give directions anymore. Maybe they assume that everyone has a Tom Tom, Garmin, or Magellan GPS device that will tell you how to go in a rather silly computerized voice that can be either male or female, have an accent or not, and may or may not actually give you the correct directions. The GPS device we had when we were trying to drive in Atlanta, after we finally made it out of the airport, seemed to be in a state of shock that we had taken her out of the Dallas area. She spent most of her time saying things like "recalculating", "unable to locate that address", or "turn right at the light", which of course we had passed 1/2 block back.

I guess I'm old fashioned and expect people to be able to hold a halfway intelligent conversation and at least tell me how they got to work in the morning, but apparently I am in the minority on that one. Most people would prefer to depend on their little electronic friend that resides inside their "smartphone" or their GPS device and hope that they don't have to find their way back on their on when said device quits working or can't find a satellite signal. Good luck to you when your GPS voice just keeps saying, "recalculating, recalculating" and you are stuck in the middle of nowhere with only locals who "are not from around here" to help you. I feel your pain!