If you take transit, you probably know it’s full of crazy people. Well, this week, I got to be one of those crazy people because let me tell you, I have had the commute week from hell.

I work in San Francisco and live in Oakland, which means I have a multi-system commute. I drive my car to BART, park there, take BART into San Francisco, then transfer to Muni and take that to my office. Technically speaking I could walk to my office from one of two BART stops, but it tends to aggravate my knee and foot issues and leave me limping in pain for the rest of the day. Especially if I’m wearing cute shoes instead of practical ones. I also typically carry both a purse and a laptop bag, which doesn’t help matters either.

So recently I bought a Translink card. The selling point of Translink is that you can load all your various transit passes or cash onto it and use it for multiple systems, set up auto-load to keep your card filled, and otherwise be generally convenient.

Then they decided to switch to Translink to Clipper.

I also work from home a few days a week, which means I don’t actually go into the office enough to justify a monthly Muni pass. So I have cash loaded on that card. I set up autoload for that a few weeks ago and went along my merry way.

Only I then come to find out this week that autoload did not, in fact, load. So I’ll just stop at the machines. No problem, it’s annoying, but no big deal.

Except that they ripped out all the old Translink machines to put in new Clipper branded machines (which they are selling lots of cards for) only the machines? DON’T WORK.

Fine. It’s Wednesday, I have a tiny bit of cash (Muni is exact change only) and I can get home.

But it’s game day. So the transit cop won’t let me on the train until I go to the crowded, insanity inducing ballpark to buy my ticket instead of paying cash on the train. So I do, missing two trains and my chance to see my friends and go swimming which is probably the only relaxing thing I get to do all week. Cue me bursting into tears and becoming That Lady on the train.

I go back on Thursday. Same broken machines. Only now add a broken change machine so that I have to crawl around on the floor retrieving my cash while some guy in a business suit sighs and huffs impatiently.

I put money on my card online. Then get on the train and guess what? It doesn’t work and has a negative balance. Fine. Only apparently if you have a negative balance in one system you can’t use ANY system so suddenly I’m stuck in Embarcadero cash with no cash, and no forseeable ability to leave. Since I also have a planning meeting that night, the delay means I also have no dinner. For the second or third night in a row.

I finally get a BART employee to stop chatting and notice I’m there and I’m informed that the machines? Won’t be activated for several more WEEKS. And then have to hike all the way to the opposite end to find one of the (unmarked) vendors that will let you put cash on your card.

So at this point, we have the following: a system that can’t process online payments in less than three days (which every other site I’ve used can apparently manage), NO working machines in the stations, inconvenient and UNMARKED temporary locations to put cash on your card.

Tell me who thought this was a good idea? I’m half tempted to start driving in just because I don’t want to encourage massive incompetence. All I’ve wanted to do this week is get home on time, without bursting into tears, and get to relax. Maybe even get food. It has not happened.

Obviously, neither has knitting. I don’t expect today will be any better.