Random Commuter Observations – “Big Brother Is Watching” Edition

Greetings, my fellow port swillers!

Ol’ Robbo’s commute home last evening (after a brutally boring day of mandatory annual “Professionalism” training during which I also managed to completely miss lunch) was made extra painful and extra long owing to several simultaneous foul-ups on the Metro.

This morning I got an odd email from Metro apologizing for the delay in my commute and informing me that they were comping me for the ride by reimbursing the three bucks and change to my “SmarTrip Card” account.

I suppose I don’t mind getting the fare back, but I was surprised to realized that Metro evidently is keeping track of when I pass in and out of the system.  (How else would they know that I was delayed?)  Heretofore, I had thoTght that the only chip technology in my card went to keeping track of the money in my account relative to where I do so.  Evidently, I was naïve in thinking so.

Ol’ Robbo is neither a John Bircher nor a fan of Ayn Rand, but one doesn’t necessarily need to be in order to be creeped out by this sort of thing.