A few months back I made a special trip over to Kaleidoscope Coffee in Pt. Richmond to get a latte. Not only is the coffee shop locally owned and very literary, (they used to host regular open mic nights and such) it always has a rotating display of local artists’ works on the walls. I enjoy going to this little neighboring town, where not much has changed in over 100 years, to get this delicious treat.

However, this particular mid-morning, a woman older than me, wearing white spandex pants fresh with embroidered lotus logos and glow-stick adidas shoes picked up her pace to be sure to get in front of me, both in through the door and up at the counter. She must be in a hurry. Luckily, I was not.

Then she tried to pay with her Apple Watch.

Now, I love a good usability study, it’s what I do for a living as a matter of fact.

Plug and Play – Out of the Box – these are terms she was testing, right in front of me. The barista was adorable in her technical illiteracy, because for a young person in the Bay Area, that is a rarity. She offered no help, and went about making the coffee drink, before being paid. Lotus Spandex just kept trying, by pressing things on her wrist and checking back at the iPad at the counter, glancing my way furtively as I perused the bulletin board near the cashier, clearly the next customer in line. I am a patient person. I was trying not to pay attention to this transaction.

But I couldn’t help it. The woman kept asking the barista to help, and despite everyone’s attempts, this darned Apple Watch would not emit any dollars to pay for the drink, nor the quiche, I might add, which was heating in the conveyor toaster, drink already made.

Finally, Lotus Spandex acquiesced to the fact that this new fangled technology was not going to help her out of a jam, now that there was a customer behind me queuing up as well, and her quiche was ready. That’s when – from a side-thigh pocket, she pulls out a Chase credit card, and inserts it in the chip reader on the iPad, transaction complete.

I was relieved, honestly – and even writing about it and giving it any more attention than it deserves is a bit aggravating. I bring it up because I couldn’t believe how many times she tried. I had concluded that she must not have any other payment forms on her, I know I wouldn’t have been that patient with the watch – ahem – I don’t own one…. but … I would have whipped out the cc after the 2nd unsuccessful attempt. Overhearing her talk through what she figured she needed to do: connect the credit card to the apple watch, or enable an apple pay feature within the watch because it is hooked up to your credit card elsewhere….all stuff I do not want to know.

Yet here I am, carrying an iPhone X, blatantly signaling that I am in the 1% if you reference Scott Galloway’s The Four Hidden DNA of Amazon Apple FB and Google. (which, sadly, I must admit I do)

And, in observing this whole thing without the ability to unsee it, realized how deep my workaholism goes. Thinking about tech companies, their hold on our wallets and our hearts and our behaviors, gets me in a spiral. Sometimes good – sometimes bad. A different day, I might have seen this differently.