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.