Permission, Currency, and Identity Crisis: a tale of technology amuck in Sydney

(l-r: UTS locker card, City of Sydney Swimming Pool pass, UTS ID card, Transport NSW transit pass, Australian $2 coin)

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. --Arthur C. Clarke.

The greatest enemy of technology is poorly implemented technology. --Me.

One fine morning, I decided to go to the swimming pool, which is downtown near where I go to school. Rather than paying two dollars for a locker at the pool, I've paid for a locker at school, which is a few blocks away. The idea of course is to stash valuables in the locker and only take what I need to the pool.

I take the light rail, which accepts the MyMulti card, even though their system is only set up for the new Opal card (UTS hasn't groomed their database yet to selectively give the transit agency verification data on students). A conductor manually stamps a date on the MyMulti card, and subsequent conductors sight the date to tell if the card is expired (seriously). If passengers have an Opal card, the conductor runs a detector over the smart card to see if the fare was actually paid. Trains and buses all have machines that imprint the magnetic stripe on the MyMulti card, but the newer light rail was set up for Opal, a system that will eventually be in all the transit.

I get to school and use my school ID card to get into the lounge area where the lockers are. I use my locker smart card to unlock the locker. As I'm exiting the building, I realize I'll need my student ID to get back into the lounge, so I go back to the locker and get it.

Outside, I realize they've torn down the parking garage and walkway I usually take to the pool. I imagine it's a long walk around this mega-construction project, so I decide to go back to my locker, pick up my MyMulti card, and take the train back to the pool. When I come back out, I ask someone who tells me there's a passageway through the construction zone, so I didn't need to go back and get the transit card.

I use the City of Sydney 360 Pool Pass to get into the pool. I go swimming. Afterward, as I'm rinsing off in the shower, on the floor I spy... a two dollar coin - exactly what would have saved me a number of convolutions to this story.