This year, Java One (super nice experience, BTW) was at Oracle Headquarters in Redwood Shores, so I rented a car in order to better navigate the peninsular wilderness. When the car failed to start, things got very weird. Here is the drama in 5 acts.
4pm. The last event at the Java One conference is over, and I walk to my car. Parked in garage 320 next to the Oracle conference center in Redwood Shores.
Approaching my car, I click the key fob. Rats. Nothing is happening. The car doesn't open. Is the key fob dead? When clicking, it's LED is blinking merrily.
The key fob contains an emergency key for opening the car. That's pretty nifty. I retrieve my luggage.
But you can't start the car with the mechanical key. The internet holds out hope for a weird trick: place the key fob directly against the start button. (There is an NFC chip in the fob that doesn't require power.) But that doesn't work either. Must be an electrical failure with the car.
4:20pm. I call up roadside assistance. Budget contracts this out to Allstate. (As do their sister companies Avis and Payless.) On the phone for 38 minutes. I explain. Car not starting. In garage 320. Be sure to tell the towing company—there is a maze of garages on the corporate campus, all alike. They promise to send a tow truck.
5pm. I get a call from towing company #1. (The reason for the numbering will become apparent shortly.) Is the car in a garage? Sorry, no can do. The truck won't fit into a garage.
On the phone again with Allstate. They send me an Uber voucher to go to the SFO car rental center. Sure, that makes sense. Then I can get a replacement car and I'll be on my way.
If that makes sense to you, dear reader, read on and weep mith me. Otherwise have a hearty laugh at my naiveté.
5:30pm. Discussion with manager. I will not get a replacement car until their broken car has arrived at their repair facility. Company policy to prevent theft. Can he expedite that process? No, it's my job to get their contractor, Allstate, to tow their broken car to their repair facility. It's in their rental contract, freely negotiated between the two of us, and signed by me. I was also told in no uncertain terms that I was a fool not to have taken out their insurance (presumably against the peril of malfeasance by the car rental company). And that it was surely my fault for having left the dome light on. (I didn't.)
5:45pm. I call Allstate. They will send another tow truck.
6:30pm. Towing company #2 calls. How big is the garage entrance? How am I supposed to know? I am now at the rental center. Ok, they'll try.
7:45pm. They are at the garage. Sorry, they can't get in.
8pm. I call Allstate. They will send another tow truck. The manager at the rental facility helpfully opines that I might want to personally arrange for a smaller tow truck since Allstate doesn't seem to be up to the task, and it is my responsibility to return their non-working car to them.
8:20pm. Towing company #3 calls. Is the car in a garage? It'll be a bigger and more expensive job. I (!) need to call Allstate to call them to agree to the extra charges. Allstate agrees to negotiate with them and gives me an ETA of maybe between 9:30 and 10pm.
9:00pm. A friend picks me up from the rental center. We buy a CR2032 replacement battery at Walgreens, just in case. (I had tried to get one at the rental center where I had ample time for chitchat. The request was rudely refused. Their job is to give people keys, not to fix them.)
Side note: When my twin daughters entered first grade, grandma sent them a card with a picture of a timid first-grader and an ominous caption which presumably expresses the Horstmanns' attitude to life. And from the chaos a voice spoke to me: “Rejoice and smile. It could be worse.” So I rejoiced. And I smiled. And it got worse.
9:40pm. We arrive at garage 320 on the Oracle campus. The tow truck arrives at the 320 garage. The suspense mounts. Will it fit through the entrance?
We never find out. We don't need to. The car is gone.
Frantically, I call Allstate. They know nothing. They promise to call towing companies #1 and #2 and get back to me. They don't for the rest of the night.
I call Oracle security. No, of course they wouldn't tow an innocent-looking car from an employee garage. And they wonder why anyone would steal a car from there, particularly one that doesn't start. Good question. They suggest to call the police. By now it is almost midnight, and I don't have the strength.
Friday, 7:20am. Allstate's call awakes me from a restless sleep. Where is the car? Good question. I explain. They promise to call towing companies #1 and #2 and get back to me. They don't.
8am. Another call, this time from Budget. A gruff loud voice. WHERE IS THE CAR? Good question. I explain. When I get to the point where I take the Uber to the rental car center, he yells YOU ABANDONED THE VEHICLE??? I remind him that this was on the instructions of their chosen contractor, and finish the story. Should I call the police? NO. He hangs up after growling HAVE A GOOD DAY.
10am. I have breakfast with a friend. Tell her the entire story. Where is the car supposed to be, my friend asks. I happen to know—it's on one of the screen shots that I took. Seems like an Avis repair lot south of San Francisco. She says “Let's go!” and off we go, Ms. Can-Do-Attitude and Inspector Clouseau.
11:00am. At the repair facility. Inspector Clouseau casually enters the lot, looking for the missing car. No luck.
11:15am. I accost a facilities manager. Bless his heart, he is moved by my plight and says “give me a half hour”.
11:45am. The facilities manager hands me a sheet of paper with his research notes. He had called the police. Apparently tow company #4 towed the rental car last night to a temporary lot, planning to drop it off at the repair facility in the next day or two.
This guy is the real deal when it comes to detecting. Inspector Clouseau hangs his head in shame.
He advises us to drive to the rental car center and show his notes to the manager. Hopefully that would do the trick.
I never found out on whose instructions the car was towed by tow company #4. Why was I never told about them? Good question.
12:30pm. Fortunately, today a different manager is on duty at the rental car counter. He looks at the notes, makes a few taps into his cell phone, and I have a replacement car.
In the digital world, we have enshittification, the pattern of inevitable decay in platform quality. (Think Google, Airbnb, etc.)
It isn't restricted to the digital world. We've all experienced call centers whose purpose was not to help customers but to exhaust them.
This is my first encounter of the phenomenon at a brick-and-mortar location. It's a pretty scary experience to be told in your face that it's up to you to solve a problem with a company's product, when it is completely opaque how to solve it, and any solution may be expensive, time-consuming, or both.
Talking of declining quality, I had reflexively relied on the rental car insurance of my credit card. That may no longer be a good idea.
Will I ever rent from Budget again? Or Avis or Payless, with the same corporate owner and the same arrangement with Allstate? They are of course on the top of my shitlist today. But I may cycle through the small number of competing holding companies pretty quickly. Enterprise owns Alamo and National. Hertz holds Dollar and Thrifty, and has a horrific history of falsely reporting cars as stolen.
Why rent a car in the first place? I could have used public transport for all the rides that I took on this trip. Excepting the one to the Avis repair lot. It would have taken longer, but no more than the time I wasted with this incident. Even using Uber everywhere wouldn't have been much more expensive. And it would have been a bargain over paying the added insurance.
Of course, there are situations where public transport and Uber won't cut it. Then rejoice, smile, and prepare for the possibility of it getting worse. Carry a spare CR2032 battery. Carefully evaluate your insurance options before approaching the rental counter. When something goes wrong, don't expect help from the rental counter. Remember that their job is to push insurance, not to solve problems once the rental has commenced. Keep copious notes, photos, screen shots. And think twice before ABANDONING THE VEHICLE.
If you find a kind soul who helps you out, as I did at the repair lot, tell the CEO's office about it. I did. Hopefully their kindness will be recognized and rewarded.
I have shared this blog with Budget and will update it with any reactions from them. So far:
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