U-Haul

Renting a U-Haul really makes you appreciate how magical the Uber experience is, and how much worse it could be if allowed to reach its full negative potential.

Our apartment lease is ending today. A month ago, I reserved a U-Haul truck through their website. I don’t remember anything about that experience, so I’m going to assume it was relatively smooth. Yesterday, however…

The difficulties began when I tried to login to make sure I’d actually rented a truck and wasn’t just playing a realistic truck renting game a month ago (this will make more sense to future you). Maybe it was because I was on my phone, but after five minutes, the scoreboard read U-Haul login form: 3, Mark: 0.

The form asks to enter your email or phone number and then tap one of two buttons: 1) Sign In With Password or 2) Send Me a One-Time Code. I tried Sign In With Password. The form revealed a password field, which I filled with my password manager. I hit Submit. The form disappeared and I was taken to the previous step, with a Sign In button. I scratched my head and tapped Sign In, which revealed the form again, and an error: “Enter a valid password.” It must have been hidden by some CSS rule on submission.

I fiddled around with the page, refreshing it, backing up from my computer and closing all the windows in my house in case there was a virus outside. I was getting somewhere, if not where I wanted to be. Now when I entered my password, it would take me to a minimalist page with the words “Session Expired” and a size 10 font link reading “U-Haul”, which took me back to the home page. Subsequent login attempts went straight to Session Expired, to save me time I assume. I switched to Incognito Mode and managed to get the invalid password error again, before my session “expired” once more. Gotta keep that session fresh!

If there’s one thing I’m good at in life, it’s giving up. It was time to try the email-based one-time code flow. I checked my optimism meter. It read 2/10. I requested a one-time code and five minutes later I was proven right, after having faithfully worn out the refresh button in my inbox. Well, there was one door left. I entered my phone number, tapped Send Me a One-Time Code and got a text a few seconds later. A flood of dopamine erased the last 10 minutes of my life, because if there’s one thing I’m good at in life, it’s forgetting everything that happened before the current thing. I breathed a sigh of relief, said “modern technology, William,” aloud, and continued.

U-Haul now offered me to upload my driver license in preparation for the pickup. I did. It wasn’t fun, but it also wasn’t the Rube Goldberg machine their login form was. Then I read the pickup instructions in more detail, with a mounting sense of dread. To get the keys to the truck, I had to go to the facility, or trick their GPS into believing I was there, then do the whole login and driver license check adventure again, next to the truck. Oh well, at least I already knew the secret handshake.

When my Uber dropped me off at the facility, it was drizzling. Standing there next to the trucks are other poor bastards fighting the Session Expired boss. An Indian woman looked up from her phone and gave me a friendly smile. She was just getting started. My eyes welled up with 30 years of pent up empathy. “Use the phone number and the one time code to login,” I choked out. Then I geared up for my speedrun replay and prayed to the gods of determinism.

Once U-Haul verified my license, they sent me into the office for the final step, where a living breathing human handed me the keys.

“Thanks. Hey, do you have any friends among the developers working on the website?” I asked the guy at the counter.

“Oh, no man. Haha. It’s terrible, right?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Would you believe it’s actually a lot better than it was a few months ago?”

I wasn’t sure I did, so I just wept politely and left.

I’m going to try to forget the IQ test I had to take to return the truck. It was long and embarrassing for everyone involved.

***

Contrast that with the Uber experience of getting to the truck facility:

Step 1: open the app. I’m already logged in, yay! (well…now I know to say “yay”).

Step 2: search for the destination, just like in Google Maps.

Step 3: see the price, tap to confirm.

Step 4: get picked up 5 minutes later. Tell the driver a 4-digit code (this sucks). Get dropped off.

Step 5: get 2–4 notifications to rate the driver and/or give a tip. This is a second source of friction, but it comes after you’re done, so I’m inclined to forgive it.

Update: I got U-Haul’s verification code in my email inbox an hour and a half later. I guess it works after all!