I wanted to write about as it happened, but I also didn't want the experience to sour what was an attempt to do my wife a favor and to spend some time with my brother from another mother in on of my favorite places. And this all happened in the process of renting a vehicle to drive to Las Vegas. When you rent with a debit card, there's a process you have to go through to verify your card: proof of employment (most recent pay stub) and a current paid balance bill with your address. This is an obnoxious process, but one I've been through. On Friday, when the rental car company called, they indicated to me that i needed a credit card for payment and my license. This means I didn't think I needed this extra stuff as I was told what i would need...
...I arrive with all my stuff and I'm ready to get in the car and drive- it's about 1pm, and this window means I'll get to leave town before traffic starts, hit Bakersfield before their traffic and will be on the 15 before LA traffic gets 'thick up in here' and I get to sit behind all kinds of traffic- the Friday to Vegas drive has to be handled with kid gloves: just being 60 minutes off can add as much as 3-4 hours on the overall trip. So I arrive, and there's one person in front of me in line, and it appears there are some problems, but it also appears the manager is going above and beyond her duties. I decide to listen (read: eavesdrop) in on the conversation, just because I was bored and there. Apparently, the man didn't have all the materials he needed to rent the vehicle with a rental car: many of the home bills aren't in his name and/or a couple of bills were in the process of payment. In the end, the manager waived his need for a pay stub and let him use his wife's bills, as they were married and that proved he lived there (no wedding certificate provided). I provide all this context, as it's relevant to the next couple of things i plan on writing...after about 15 minutes, she gets him into his Chevy Malibu and he hits the road...
...I then head to the counter. She informs me that she's the one that called me to make sure I had my credit card and license, which I then pulled out. She sees it's a debit card and asks me for my pay stub. I tell her I don't have it on me, it's at my job. She asks if I can look it up, and I tell her the directions to do that are also at word. She tells me they won't be able to rent to me. Remember, I was in line minutes ago when she let a white guy who didn't have this exact form rent a vehicle. And she's about to send me home carless. Anyone that knows me at all knows it's about to get live up in this spot. She's being petty, which I only know because I watched her eschew pettiness for an older, unthreatening white man, who, upon reflection, was in the exact same situation I was in- except her bending over backwards at every turn to make it happen for him, and to be putting up roadblocks for me in the exact same situation...
Enter another employee at the rental car place, who happens to be black. He reminds her that she JUST did this for a man who just left the store, and that she should offer me the same instances- which essentially was prove two other factors. I tell her that some of the bills they're asking for aren't in my name, but they're in my wife's name, but I can pull them up online (something she offered when she didn't think i'd produce the paperwork) . She informs me that the name on the paperwork has to be the same as on the rental, and that maybe my wife should come rent the vehicle (which was said in a way that was probably more condescending than she intended: this is not to say she didn't mean it to be condescending, just not THAT bad). I inform her that the bill i need is at my house, somewhere and i needed to find it. She offered to cancel my reservation and offered me a ride home (they pick you up and drop you off- not a favor by her- she'd have a been a bigger bitch to not have offered it). The Black guy working there told her she could just put it on his desk and that the driver would give me a ride to find the form. As he grabs my forms, he asks me to sit down, and tells me: "I'm getting you this car today- you bring back two forms on this list, in your name or your wife's name, just like the guy in front of you- and i know you saw that and thank you for not making the kind of scene I would surely have made" [aside: and that I would have made had he been 45 seconds slower in his intervention]. "I'm sick of this office pretending like everyone is treated the same- we don't get the same treatment they do- I'm gonna make sure you do today- if that's all I can do." I tell him the form I need from home and he lines me up with a driver...
...The driver is this 20-something Rastafarian (self described- not making generalizations) who has moved to the Bay about a year and a half ago (from where he didn't say). He started talkin to me about what he just saw on the way to the apartment, and he lets me know that, "if i was white" that I wouldn't have had to do all this mess." He let me know that he'd been there awhile and this is just how it worked out. And it wasn't the company, and it's not that these were bad people. "They do it and they don't even notice- and when you tell them and they realize- they feel bad- because they mean well- like that matters." I explained to him what was going on, and he told me to "take my time" and "don't worry about it" as I attempted to explain that it might take a few minutes to find a bill (we have a mass of unopened mail, and the bill i'm looking for is paid in the rent but sent separately, so our need to do anything with this is zero- which is why i was sure i can find a copy of the bill, but the most recent one- unlikely at best. But it will have the requisite information for me to pull the information online (which they offered, remember?) which will let me get the car. I'd have printed it up, but my computer- and everything I planned on taking with me- was in the van they gave me a ride over with (so if i could find nothing- i could just take my stuff and be done with me). So I just got the copy of the bill, got all the information i needed to print out the most recent statement of the bill in my name, went to the computer and pulled the most recent statement online to print to verify. This process only took me about 90 minutes, which means the processing for the paperwork for the vehicle was being finalized around 2:50pm, and I was in the vehicle at 3pm. (note: if they'd let me use a bill in my wife's name, like she did the guy in front of me- I'd have been able to rent the vehicle when I there the first time- about 1:20pm). As I described earlier, the difference in leaving at 1:30 and 3:00pm in the Bay Area, headed south, on a Friday, is monumental. The entire trip took about 3 hours longer based on traffic I encountered that would have not been present with an earlier departure, just magnifying my frustration...
...Why was I frustrated? Well, a couple of things. 1) f the woman had initially reminded me that if I was going to be using a debit card that I needed to bring additional verification, maybe even going as far as to remind me what i would need to bring, that would have been helpful. Where might I have come up with such an idea? The manager told me, while apologizing for not doing so, did inform me she has a specific protocol to prevent this from happening, and then acknowledging that she failed to do that with me. This seems to be a reason, if there was going to be one, to relax rules if you can. If you can't, I get that, too. Some places are Draconian in allowances. And as annoying as that is, it pales in comparison to 2) she violated these rules. rules that she defines as rigid and inflexible were just magic wand whisked away. by her. 15 minutes earlier. in front of me. For this to have happened this way, one of two things have to have happened in her mind about me: a) she thinks I'm an idiot and that I somehow missed the guy, who was in the exact boat I'm currently in, and you're treating us fundamentally differently, and i'm too dumb to catch it or b) you just didn't see me, at all, when you waived these rigid rules. Let's not even get into the subliminal things in your head for this to even be an issue, because they may say things about you- things you're not really willing to admit- like that a black man can't be trusted as a white man can, and despite them having the same issue and the Black man asking for some of the same concessions, those request being made to deaf ears until another Black man working there decided he'd had enough and got me the help i needed...
...like I said, it's the kind of thing that could ruin a trip if you let it. I didn't.
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