A stubby white building on Lentil Street

I'm skeptical that this will be of interest to anyone, but my pledge to you is always, If it happened I'll write about it.

Had a job interview near SouthCenter at 9:30 this morning, so being a good kid I checked the bus schedule, and used Metro Transit's marvelous 'trip planner' app. Input your destination, and it tells which bus to take and what time it's scheduled.

My destination was on Lentil Street, which I've never heard of, but the 'trip planner' app also provides walking directions from the bus stop, and even estimated that it would take 15 minutes to reach Lentil Street

Yeah, I've got this. No worries, because here's a bus rider's trick — when you're going someplace you haven't been before, use Google Street View to see what the building looks like. That's how I knew I was headed for a stubby white office building. 

My phone is not smart, has no internet access, so I'd done this minimal research in advance.

The #128 bus to SouthCenter came right on time, but at the stop after mine, the bus's front door wouldn't open. After some muttering, the driver motioned for the guy waiting at the bus stop to enter via the back door, and onward we went.

Then a few passengers started shouting, because the dinger — the cord you pull, to signal the driver that you want off at the next stop — wasn't dinging. 

The driver picked up his public address microphone to announce that people should shout "Next stop" when they need to get off, but we could hardly hear it, because the speakers had gone out, too.

Wild guess: the bus's front door, dinger bell, and p.a. speakers are all on the same fuse, and that fuse had blown.

"Great bus they gave me today," the driver muttered, and then he radioed the base to report the problems. Hey, the radio still worked. That's good, right? 

No, it's not, because the voice on the radio told the driver that a stuck front door is a safety issue. "Pull over and take the bus out of service." Which sorta makes sense — if we get in a wreck or the bus bursts into flames, 40 people would need to exit through only one door.

The driver shouted to the passengers that a replacement bus had been sent, and would be there within twenty minutes. People groaned. The driver said passengers could get onto the next scheduled bus when it comes, but the #128 runs only every twenty minutes, so that's the same delay.

And I had to be at my interview on time. Show up late for a job interview, you're definitely not getting the job. I silently fumed, but whatayagonnado?

The bus had parked not too far from a light rail station, and at the light rail there's a different bus that's also going to SouthCenter, so I got off the #128 (through the back door) and walked to the light rail station. Waited a few minutes for an #F bus, with functional doors and dingers and such, and soon I was at SouthCenter, stepping off at the same bus stop my #128 would've taken me to.

That's when my second problem emerged. The Metro trip planner's walking instructions were to "walk a short distance south on Andover Parkway, then turn right on SouthCenter Mall Access Road," but if that road exists, there's no street sign for it.

I asked a guy waiting for a bus, and he glared at me. I asked a bus driver, and he said, "I think it's there," and pointed to an unmarked driveway leading into the shopping center's hundred acres of parking lot.

Following the driver's finger, I walked across the vast, endless lot, scanning the asphalt horizon for a stubby white office building. It was nowhere to be seen, on a road that wasn't there, that might've led to Lentil Street, but I didn't know where that was either.

This was too much walking for a fat guy who's usually in a recliner. It seemed futile and time was running out, so I leaned on a Lexus and called the company's phone number.

When I told the lady I was lost, she confessed that she was in a suburb of Chicago, 1,700 miles from me. There's one central switchboard for all the company's 186 locations. The lady on the phone knew the address on Lentil Street, but that's all she knew.

"What's the cross street?" I asked. She said she'd check, and put me on hold with Fleetwood Mac as time ticked away. In 14 minutes, I'd be late, make a lousy first impression, and be eternally unemployed.

If you wake up and don't want to smile
If it takes just a little while
Open your eyes and look at the day
You'll see things in a different way

Then came a click, and I'd been disconnected.

I called again, and amazingly, rang through to the same switchboard lady. "I got cut off," I said without profanity.

She apologized, and said she'd looked it up on Google. "The cross street is Strander Boulevard," she said. I said thanks, because hey, I grew up here in Seattle, and know where Strander Blvd is.

At the intersection of Strander and Andover, I looked both ways, and (cue the choir) in the distance to the west was my holy grail — the stubby white office building. But it looked a long ways away, and I had only 11 minutes before my interview.

Tired and sweaty and grumpy I walked far and fast, and when I stepped into the office I was out of breath but two minutes early.

Another trick for riding the bus is: Never take the bus that'll get you there on time. Take an earlier bus, to allow for 'just in case', because there's a lot of 'just in case' on public transit.

In the interview, I was frickin' effervescent. I was businesslike, while also exuding warm-and-friendly out the blowhole. I remembered the name of the person interviewing me. We made chit-chat about our cats. I had answers for every question, even "What's a big problem you solved at a previous job?" and "What's your biggest weakness?" 

Smiles all around, with a handshake on the way out. So will I be hired? "We'll let you know," answers that question. 

And then I walked back to the bus stop, which isn't such a long walk if you know where you're headed. Back home again, my legs ache from all the walking.

And I've Googled it, and there's no such thing as SouthCenter Mall Access Road.

4/29/2024   

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