This week I thought it best to stay at my day scoring project until 4:30, at which time I would spend upwards of an hour to get to my night scoring project which starts at 5:30. An hour seems to be right; I get there with minutes to spare, yet I build in plenty of time to navigate the back-ups and twists and turns to get to my destination as quickly as possible.
Ever since I began my double-shift, I have used Waze to get from home to my day job, then from my day to my night job. I have heard great things about it. I have heard, though I cannot confirm, that it is better at up-to-date information than Google Maps, and therefore you can trust it more to find a quicker route on the fly than Google Maps. I don't know if this is true, and it has its problems with what I call "flying" -- where the cursor on my phone is tracking my route but suddenly loses where I am, puts me in another spot, and tells me to, for example, turn right when I'm on the highway (this is probably due to a bad combination of slow 3G and an old phone), especially when I was trying to use it December when getting around Kansas City. But it worked well enough for the past two weeks.
Until yesterday/Thursday. For the past week-and-a-half, Waze (which I like to pronounce "Whaaa-zay") has given me slightly varied routes between jobs. There is a chunk in the middle where I get sent to-and-fro through side streets, and it's those side streets that have differed day-to-day. It gets weird sometimes, especially if I need to change lanes, stop abruptly, and take a left through a neighborhood. Nevertheless, I get to work on time, so no worries. Plus I feel as though Waze's routes help me not just in terms of time but also in terms of pace; I don't mind wending my way through side streets as long as I am going somewhere.
But something happened yesterday/Thursday. I was just minding my own business, driving wherever Waze told me, when it told me to take a route I've never taken before. I usually (and this is information only locals know) from 169N to Crosstown West, and then I spill onto a side street and find my way to 494N. I was about to reach a side street when Waze suddenly told me to do a U-turn. I did it; sometimes I have missed Waze finding a new route, and I am relying on it, so I trust it.
This route, however, told me to continue on through 169N. The problem: At one point, 169N is closed due to construction. Extensive construction. And construction which began weeks ago. But I looked down at Waze and it told me to continue north on 169.
Im-fucking-possible. And from there I was going in circles, hemmed in by a Waze machine that insisted I take 169N even though it was closed. Finally it froze on me and I resorted to Google Maps. But by then I think I was on the road an extra 10 or 15 minutes more than I should have, and I was going on an extremely congested Crosstown East, a dedicated detour for 169N. Google Maps told me to take go the other way, and that involved me getting off and taking two lefts, and of course lefts are a killer during rush-hour traffic because you have to wait for both ways to be free of traffic.
When all was said and done, I got to work at 5:45. I was on the road for over a goddamn hour. And not only was I late, but that put me under the 16 hours of work I need to get the bonus for the week. That means I have to come in an extra 15 minutes today/Friday if I want to get that bonus, and that means I have to leave early from the day job, which takes money away from that job. You see the cascade of consequences and lost money I now suffer as a result of getting fucked over by Waze?
However this has taught me a lesson: Never be too reliant on technology. I don't like it that the best way that I learn is by making mistakes, because I unfortunately remember bad things that happen to me way more vividly than good things. But now I know that I should check Google Maps on my laptop and familiarize myself with the area where the side streets I have taken are to make sure that, if Waze goes to shit on me again, I know in what general direction I should go. That way I won't go on a wild goose chase trying to find the right way to a place when the applications are crapping out on me.
And so I will check Google Maps right now. By the way, I complained to Waze about my experience on their Twitter. Maybe they'll reply -- right? (Probably won't.)
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