Friday, December 21, 2007

Happy Festivus

In a departure from both Da Count and Friday 55 I will celebrate Festivus with an airing of grievances. Technically I am supposed to tell my family all the ways they disappointed me this year but I figure if we can have a completely made up holiday I can make up my own rules regarding who I target with my grievances. Let us gather round the Festivus pole...

Dontcha just love being on hold? Isn't it just the most productive and enjoyable way to spend your day? Currently I am having just a dandy time trying to get Yahoo to sort out the mysterious disappearance of the account I use every single day to email, chat, and upload photos to a paid Flickr account. I've had this account for 5 years and all of a sudden POOF it doesn't seem to exist anymore.

Now I know folks enjoy complaining about Blogger. I have been known to cast the aspersion or two at the great Googly Monster myself (If aspersion casting were an Olympic sport surely I could at least qualify and not due to pity received like the Jamaican bobsledders.) but let me tell you, so far, it can't even compare to Yahoo and the ineptitude and lack of helpfulness of its people. First of all, good luck with the unhelpful pages on the site. They are clearly designed to be useless. Obfuscation is the key here. The only reason I found a phone number to attempt contact with a humanoid was because I spoke to a friend who had abuse problems with someone on Yahoo and she had 5 numbers I could try. Interestingly, her problem was less than 6 months ago and yet 3 of the numbers were no longer in service. One of them was still connected to Yahoo but not helpful. Finally, the last one redirected me to a new number that it said was actually functional.

After connecting I found myself in the midst of a labyrinth of automated systems such as I have never quite experienced before. There were about 4 layers of menus I went through and my problem didn't seem to fit any of the options. I went through a few times before I got to talk to a person with a pulse. Each prior time I'd make my selections, get to the end, then hear a recorded message about who to email for some answers and be disconnected. If obfuscation were an Olympic sport, surely Yahoo would be the Soviet team in damn near anything back before communism fell into disarray.

When I finally hit the right combination of numbers in the menus to get my piece of cheese at the end of the maze speak to a living breathing person I spent forever on hold first. The maddening strains of Muzak were boring a hole straight into my brain stem and threatening to pith me like a frog in the bio lab. While I was under the influence of such inanity, a woman with a southern accent kept repeating her gratitude for my patience and telling me if I needed immediate attention I could send an email to Yahoo Help. I kept waiting for her to finish with, 'Bless your heart, you hopeless wretch, our next available customer care rep will bisect your brain.'

For all that waiting, when I finally did get a human on the line what was the advice? Send an email. When days went by and I got no response I went through the brain pithing process again and was told, "Respond to the autogenerated email response." Ok, fine. I did. A whole lot of nothing again. Back to the mind numbing Muzak, but hey, at least now I know how to get through the maze quickly. I am a rat who can learn! For my efficiency I am rewarded with the information that I was terminated due to a violation of terms of service (which is an absolute load of crap) but if I was sure I hadn't transgressed in word, thought, or deed I could ask them to re-examine my case by....you guessed it...sending another #Q#!@#$!!! email. Grrrrr...... No information as to when the medal ceremony in Olympic Obfuscation will be held.




Now to complete our Festivus celebration there must be feats of strength where the head of the house wrestles each challenger. Wish me luck as I go for a pin. Feel free to air some grievances in the comment section.

24 comments:

G-Man said...

"Festivus for the rest of us"
I'm having Festivus dinner for everyone today!
You bring the cookies!!

Happy Festivus..wanna wrestle?

xoxoxox

Unknown said...

I just popped by with seasonal greetings..press 1 for Merry Xmas
press 2 for Happy New Year press 3 for ....No? Ok then, A Merry Xmas and Happy New Year to you, Mr.Lime and the limelets. Now sit down with a large drink of your choice and email your grievance to....lol

smarmoofus said...

hahahha! Pauline, that's an awesome comment!

I was just going commisserate with you... add hearing impairment to the list and watch your frustration level rise. I can use a phone, but I prefer not to. You know how your ear gets tired after being on too long, so you switch to the other side? I no longer have that option. So I'm clutching my poor tender good ear at the end of all that. :/

Really, though? No 55? *disappointed* B-but.. I got you one. It's here. No, don't worry... you don't have to get me anything. *sniffle* I'll be fine. *choked sob*

furiousBall said...

some say being on hold is purgatory, i'm actually convinced that's hell

Queenie said...

All our operators are busy at the moment, your call is very important to us......................................................All our operators are busy at he moment, your call is very important to us...................................................... All our operators are busy at the moment, your call is important to us......................................................BRURRRR,CLICK, "Merry Christmas Lime to you and all your loved ones".

Anonymous said...

No grievances here to air, just good wishes in all your future phoning, emailing, and limey wrastling endeavors.

Happy Christmas, Ms Lime.

Anonymous said...

So............that's where you've been! Reminds me of an old Kingston Trio song:

Well, let me tell you of the story of a girl named Limey
on a tragic and fateful day.
She wrote out an e-mail, kissed her hub and family,
went to ride on Yahell, yay!

Chorus:
Well, did she ever return? No, she never returned and
her fate is still unknown.
(What a pity! Poor ole Limey. Shame and scandal.
She may ride forever. Just wanted time in the sphere.)
She may ride forever in the servers of Yahell.
She's the girl who never returned.

Limey sent out her e-mail to the Sunnyvale Station
and she wished for a quick reply, plain.
When she got her reply the reply told her, "Please e-mail."
Limey couldn't get off of that train.
(Chorus)
Now Limey got in the phone maze, Muzak dazed and
crying, "What will become of me?!!
Can I afford the time to fix my problem
or feed my kids clearly in need?"
(Chorus)
Limey’s hub come in to the Yahell war station
every day at quarter past four,
And through smoke and phone haze he hands Limey a sandwich
as Limey stamps across the floor.
(Chorus)
Now, you citizens of Webdom, don't you think it's a scandal
how the people have to wait and pay?
It’s your time, not their time in this labrynth of Yahell!
Get poor Limey out of Yahell, hey!
(Chorus)
She's the girl who never returned.
She's the girl who never returned.
Ain't you Limey?

(my apologies to The Kingston Trio)

Mona said...

O You poor thing! (((Hugs)))

May your male ..er.. MAIL issues get sorted out fast enough!

Take care !

Breazy said...

I hate making those kinds of calls. Our telephone company is like that, they have dozens of menus yet nothing on there is even remotely close to your problem and then after you have waited for half an eternity to speak to someone with a heartbeat they don't help you out much or in my case I can't understand a word they say.

I was actually just stopping by to wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

HUGS!

I hope it gets better for you girl, also I have a Christmas card for you however I haven't made it to the PO yet.

SignGurl said...

Ugh! That can never be fun. I hope they get things worked out quickly.

Anonymous said...

LOL... Happy Festivus! BTW... mine is finally up.

Charles said...

IVRs, love 'em and hate 'em. Hopelessly unhelpful people, I don't love 'em. Since you're paying for the Flickr account, you'd probably be better off to call them and have them change your credentials and use a gmail account. I know, you don't harbor much love for the big G company, but I've been using mine for years and have had very little trouble from it at all.

Commander Zaius said...

Never try to do the right thing when it comes to Veteran Affairs when it comes to a surprised check in your mail box. I got one and did not cash it knowing that it wasn't mine. I called up the VA and navigated through the phone maze hell several times looking for the address to send it back. I got some guy who gave me and address to send it back and the next day the uncashed check was in the mail. A few months later I got a nasty letter from the VA saying if I didn't pay the money back all sorts of nasty things would be done to me credit history and accounts. It took the undead senator Stroms Thurmond's office to solve the problem with some chief flunky in Atlanta calling to apologize.

david mcmahon said...

There are no humanoids left in any of these corporations - just soulless robots!

Thank goodness for fellow bloggers who care!

Flew home a few hours ago, so will be doing my regular visits in Blogland soon!

Keep smiling

David

Anonymous said...

oh...i had one at work today that was seriously driving me to homicide. i called a number, the automated system asked for my fax #, i received a fax and it said to call another number, so i called that number, followed the prompts and it sent me back to the automated fax back system where i started back at the beginning again!

Happy Festivus!

Casdok said...

Good luck!!

cathy said...

grievances!

I woulkdn't know where to start and would probably never finish. LOL

Better just wish you and your family a merry christmas.

(how was that for self control?)

Anonymous said...

Happy Festivus celebration and when your done with that: God Jul :-)

RennyBA's Terella

Jeni said...

Thankfully, I've never had to deal with Yahoo -Peoplepc.com - my wonderful provider though is I think a distant relative of theirs in the communications department.
One thing I love (NOT) is when you get a phone call from a bill collector usually, you answer, there is no one there and you're saying "hello, hello" over and over till they finally come on the line and ask for whoever is the offending party. I hate dealing with buttons and phone messages and more buttons and more recordings and all that crapola too!
Now, hope you have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year!

S said...

HI Lime! Gary will be here tomorrow morning! I cant wait.

Stiky keyborads again argh! LOL

XXX

The Zombieslayer said...

If I could go back in time and kill one person, it would be a tough one - Stalin, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Hitler, or the person who invented telephone menus. Hmmm...tough decision.

Happy Festivus!

GAB said...

My problems with Yahoo arent as bad as yours. BUt it really ticks me off. All my mail is screwed around. What does that mean you ask? Well all my good mail is in the bulk or junk mailbox while all the junk mail is in the main box or the good box! I contacted them and all they could say was mark the good ones as not spam and they will go to right box and mark the others as spam nd they will go to the bad box. LOL ya right, I did that and they still are going to the wrong boxes. NOW they are mixed some that are suppose to be in the right box is there and some that are good go to the wrong. Sigh
Merry Christmas

Flash said...

It's amazing how far Festivus has come...There's actually a guy in California who sells festivus poles.

Anyway, I hope you have a fantastic X-mas!

Rick Rockhill said...

now don't get me started about being on hold/google/blogger/computers/microsoft/ah whatever..

happy festivus!