Hi, Drunkards. I'm going to rant a bit today.
As apartment-dwellers go, I'm pretty fortunate. Over the last nine years, the property management in my building has seldom given me cause to get pissed off at them. Friendly people, great maintenance crew, good communication, all that stuff that I'm told can be rare in the world of renting from a corporate landlord.
People tend to be amazed when I tell them I've lived happily in the same apartment for almost a decade. While that's mostly the result of my Aergian* levels of laziness and extreme susceptibility to inertial forces, it's also a testament to the fact that my current residence has been a good place to live. I've seen no reason to roll the dice on a new place, given the horror stories I've heard from other renters.
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This guy totally looks like he has a peephole hidden behind a picture frame on the other side of your bedroom wall. |
(Also, when I moved Precocious Daughter and myself into this place, we didn't even own kitchen chairs. Or a kitchen table to put them around. Or a sofa to eat dinner on because we didn't have a table or chairs. In short, I've got way more stuff now than I had then. Moving seems exhausting.)
So I've stayed put, and life has been good. Except that, as of last summer, my apartments are now in the hands of a new corporate landlord. And, to put it as elegantly as I can, it's been death by a thousand fucking cuts ever since.
I won't go into details that I'm sure are boring as hell if you're not me. I don't know why anyone reads any of this stuff, frankly. But here we are and, you know, thanks.
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For real. |
Anyway, I'm pretty sure we've arrived at the straw that landed on the camel's hump and broke that bastard. Except it's not a straw. It's a fob.
I live in a secure building. The parking garage is gated, and the building entrances, including elevators and stairs, are access-restricted. Until recently, all of that was controlled by a fob, which hung from my key ring. One fob to rule them all, one might say.
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LOL, you really can find anything on the Internet. |
But my corporate landlord, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that the convenience of a single electronic access device that goes wherever I go and provides instantaneous entry is, apparently, some kind of affront to decency. Or maybe the manufacturer kickbacks dried up or something. I dunno.
As of last month, garage access is now controlled by a coded sticker on the windshield of my car. A little electronic eye reads the code when I get right up to the gate and makes it slide open while I wait. Over the past nine years I've perfected the art of activating the gate from the perfect distance away so that it fully opened just in time for me to glide through without stopping. Now the perfect distance is literally six inches from the gate so the electronic eyeball can sense the sticker. While I wait. And while the cars in front of and behind me that also used to glide through without stopping also wait.
But there's more, oh lawd yes. If my car is in the shop and I have a loaner? I can't get into the garage without the permanently stuck sticker (or stucker, if you will). If I'm traveling and I want someone to look in on Tacocat? I can't give them my fob so they have access. My car, and not me, now has exclusive control over who gets into the garage that I pay for every month.
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And my car can be kind of a bastard, tbh. |
But it gets better. The fob also no longer works on the access-controlled doors and elevators of my building. Instead. We have. To use. A goddamn app.
Because why use a fob, which is attached to the key ring you're already carrying and can simply be waved at the door to open it? Especially when you're also carrying a purse, a coat, several bags of groceries, and the bottle of vodka you're going to desperately need by the time you stop, pull out your phone with your convenient third hand, open an app, and wait for a count of three-Mississippi for it to unlock the door? It's inconvenient and wastes time? Sign me up!
Don't forget - if you go anywhere on the property without your phone, you are locked out. If you go downstairs to check the mail without grabbing your phone, you are locked out. If, God forbid, you leave your phone at the office or a restaurant or a friend's house, locked out. Because your phone now has exclusive control over whether you get into the building you pay to live in every month.
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Download me, I'm eeeeevil. |
This turn of events is causing me to seriously consider moving. Which maybe is just a sign that subconsciously I was already wanting to go. Or it could be simply that this aggression will not stand, man.
It just won't. |
* Aergia is the Greek goddess of sloth and idleness. She is frequently depicted lounging on a sofa or comfy chair and is totally my new hero.
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