Somehow the Keystone Kops were in charge of operations at the Gold center last night. I arrived to find a milling crowd around the gold booth. With my heart sinking, I looked to the signboard hoping that my name would be listed, but it was not. Each bus that arrived contributed another 6-12 people on the line, as they were also not listed. A couple of agents were running in the back room and coming out with contracts, but in a sporadic manner while others had to stand in line until the agents at the counter could help.

Fortunately, the shuttling agents came out with my contract. As so often happens, I was in an upgraded car, a Murano (sp?) AWD. It had only one power (cig lighter) port, which fell out when I opened the access door and dangled. As it was not functional, I couldn't work my GPS so I had little choice but to trudge back into the fray for a replacement.

Of course, continued crowds milling as each new bus dumped off Gold members whose car was not yet ready. After some time in the line again, I was given a new vehicle by the agent. It was also an upgrade over my reservation, and in this case a vehicle with 5 miles on the odometer.

This illustrates the duality of Hertz. Nice upgrades, people willing to help, but cumbersome processes that sometime hammer the station so far behind the curve that they just can't catch up. Fortunately, most experiences are not like this.

If it had been a time of bad weather or many delayed flights, I would have understood the chaos, but this seemed unprecipitated by any external event.