My buddy has a beach house on the Spanish coast and he asked me to help him move some furniture and a mattress in.
We got the classic rental van and loaded everything up. Got there, unloaded, back in the van.
All good.
On the way back, there's a guy by the road with no shirt and a joint in his hand, waving at us to pull over. A bit further back, his wife. Both of them dragging an e-bike.
Stopping didn't look like the smartest move. But that damn little voice in your head guilts you into it, and you stop.
The guy comes up to the window and tells us their e-bikes have locked up, and could we throw them in the van and drop them at the next bike dock.
The funny part is he kept calling us "chubs."
"Chubs, seriously, it's right around the corner."
"Chubs, it'll take two seconds, I swear."
Chubs? Excuse me?
We felt bad for them. It was one in the afternoon, both of them dripping sweat, each one pushing a bike with a locked wheel. In the end we helped.
Back in the van I ask him how the hell the bikes locked up, and he shows me the map in the app. There's a no-go zone where the bikes stop working.
Fair enough. The problem is the bike didn't lock up when they went in. It locked up two miles later.
Two goddamn miles later.
What kind of crap system is that?
When a system is badly designed, the user is the one who pays.
And pays a lot.
I know because I built one. In Excel.
Every game I wanted to play, with how long it takes pulled off the internet. Next to it, my free hours each week. And the sheet spat out two dates per game: the day I'd start it and the day I'd finish it.
I could tell you that in two years, seven months and three days I'd be done with my list.
And it worked. I finished games one after another, and that was exactly the problem.
The bike didn't lock up at the line either. Mine took seven years to tell me. And the one pushing was me, the same guy who'd designed the system.
I was dragging games instead of enjoying them.
If you want to keep dragging, you know what to do.
If you want to enjoy them, I'm putting all of it in a book. The English edition isn't out yet.
P.S. Up there.