Week One: Meeting Dom and Other Experiences

I had a hard time thinking about past experiences, as I’m in my first week back and overwhelmed with the first load of work, (and Thesis), as well as just general memory problems that is part of being me. I also misunderstood the directions and though we needed to write about a good experience and a bad one instead of an object we love. So here is the revises edition, but I’m keeping the old ‘user experience I like’ part too.

An every day object I like a lot is my weighted blanket. I had it custom made through an Etsy seller that designs blankets and vest for people on the spectrum that need deep pressure stimulation. It’s fifteen pounds on top it’s a Star Wars themed cotton fabric and a black plush underside. That way my tactile sensory is not overloaded by a possibly scratchy material.  It’s also light enough to not trigger any of my pressure point and cause me to have a fibromyalgia flareup. It also insulates in the winter keeping you extra toasty in the cold. And often I will drape it over my shoulders like a cape when I’m sitting in bed doing my work, or burrito up with it and a second blanket. I suppose why I love it is it was made just for me, that is me, and it’s comfy and therapeutic despite it looking like a weird quilt.  I have been thinking of commissioning the shop again for a twenty pound version to switch it up (and fifteen pounds is getting light to me).

This is not my blanket, but close!

Tying to the theme of delivery (I’ll talk more on that later…), I would say Seamless has been some of the best experiences in my introverted, heavy duty social anxiety-ridden life. It’s not so great when I’m home on Long Island, but here it’s just great. I have a whole city’s worth of food at my hand to browse and order and look at— and I don’t need to pick up a phone! (Let’s just say I’d rather brand myself with a hot iron repeatedly than even think about engaging people and making a phone call!) And outside some small talk and socially scripted pleasantries as I hand the delivery person their tip,  I can otherwise be as nonverbal and not be bothered by anyone outside of that. I have personally never gotten a wrong order, the the only time I did was on me, so I wouldn’t count that. It’s just one of the many little things I enjoy popping up these days to help me get by without having to spend energy too much energy on these actions. Especially as someone on the autism spectrum, being overstimulated but needing something and being forced to be around people when you want to decompress…it’s a nightmare interacting with people and could be like dumping gasoline on the fire and going nuclear in a meltdown. So I’m a proponent of this whole delivery/ order ahead/self checkout stuff.

That being said, some of my worst, but necessarily reoccurring bad experiences is going shopping at the Walmart near my home on Long Island. They expanded to have a supermarket section, but lack the space compared to some of the other chains on the Island. It is always crowded, customers and staff are frustrated and rude, no one is mindful of others, the lines are terribly long even in the express checkout because they only keep four out of twenty check out lines open at any time. It has been increasingly frustrating to go to that particular one, but it is the closest. It has gotten to a point where my mother would rather take the trip further out east to another Walmart because it is less of, for lack of a better term, a shit show.  It makes me wonder as the other ones not only have bigger space, but also self-checkout stations, while the space cannot be change, perhaps automating some of the lines not used and made into self checkouts could help the crowding by improving on the outflow than the current moment. Since I think that might help customers be a little less stressed and rude, as well as the workers (corporate situations and the like aside). I don’t know, but I am wishful thinker.

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As for my experience with Dom, Domino’s “Pizza Bot”, I wish I could say it was pleasant? I got through to it on Facebook’s messenger app but kept getting errors when I attempted to login to my Domino’s account. Again I’m proponent of online ordering so I had long since hat the Domino’s App on my phone. So I tried to access Dom through there, with a little more success, now that I had access to my account. I made my order, then  went to go remove a multiple, so that instead two of one item, it was one. It removed both instance of the item, forcing you to go back again. I also had to delete my debit card that was linked to it due to it being cancelled last month over suspicious activity. Domino’s won’t let you change it the info until you make the order through the site or app, not through Dom. So, fed up after the whole chat bot, I just went directly through the app in a more painless way. It was made and delivered to the floor without any further trouble, and I suppose I’ll leave it at that. Don’t fix what’s not broken. Besides, you can access coupons and deals through the app and not through Dom…so like further proving (in my opinion) it’s uselessness. It’s cute and well designed, I’ll give it that, and I guess it’s kind of novel chatting with a chat bot for someone who doesn’t really have a near constant contact with their like, but coming from being an ITP and having experience with chat bots…it’s kind of like “Meh.”

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