My email company dumped me onto Yahoo several years ago. They must have gotten tired of carrying email from former phone customers. It was enough "fun" dealing with the new format (though the address stayed the same), and adjusting to losing my archives. File was there, just empty. Apparently not everything transferred. Let's just admit too, that as a geezer I'm increasingly irritable at being presented with changes in software being sprung on me with no notice, no training, no knowledge of the new lingo and different techniques needed to accomplish the same things as before. Even worse when some of the things from before that I'd liked no longer have equivalents.
Not all improvements qualify as such.
Yesterday was one such example. I'm used to getting the "prove you're not a robot" challenges that spring up periodically. Usually they confine themselves to websites I'm not familiar with. I'm free to decide whether it's worth my time to continue on in my task or skip it. But this time it was just logging in to my own email. From my own computer. The exact way I've been doing it for... well since I was dumped over here by Frontiernet.net. So far the only real issue with the "dump" - since I don't even remember what I had archived so don't know if I miss it - is that more and more places do not recognize my address as valid and put up their own firewall. That particularly happens if I use a mail link. If I can get a full email address instead of a short link, I can get through. Otherwise....
Suddenly Yahoo demands I prove I am not a robot. (I've got a cold right now. Would a juicy sneeze do it?) What they give is a small box of 9 pictures, 3 rows of 3. They are kinda dark, and pretty fuzzy. Really poor quality. It wouldn't matter if all the objects I am supposed to click on in the category requested were fairly full sized in the boxes. It does happen. But more often the object is a tiny piece of the background. Palm trees were a good example. You'd think living surrounded by them in neighbors' yards I'd be able to pick them out, right? I flunked. There were a couple shots of whole bunches of trees along a street, and there may have been a palm somewhere in the cluster. I couldn't tell. I couldn't find all the boats either. When they asked for cars, I had to dither for a bit wondering if some trucks in a dock area (I think) were technically considered "cars" or not. Or whether the front bumper of a school bus which squeaked into the next box of a picture counted as a bus? I thought yes. Apparently I'm a robot.
Anybody got some spare batteries?
I have had the misfortune of getting familiar with live chat "help" when I have a problem online. I gave it another try. When I got a window to type in I tried to complain politely, concisely, and clearly. I got a Brittany. She demanded to know my account number so she could help me.
Account number? What number? So far as I know I have no account number with Yahoo. Never seemed to need one. Could she explain?
It was on my bill.
Bill? I don't get a bill. Email is free. At least so far. So she wanted the old phone number - landline - my email was originally set up with. I knew the area code, the exchange, but the last 4 digits???? It's been well over a dozen years since all in the Minnesota house switched to cells and dropped the landline.
What was my email address then? (She couldn't ask that first?) I gave it to her, for whatever help it did.
I also asked why we had to go through that robot stuff. Couldn't we just chuck it? Waive something to get it removed? Nope, no joy there. She suggested, in that kind of a superior tone one hears when they know they are being talked down to by somebody more knowledgeable (true) that it would be a good idea for me to just zoom in on the boxes to see them better.
First, why can't they send out clearer photos? Second, zoom in? I added about 11 question marks after that to indicate my inexperience with zooming in on anything within my mailbox. Or my laptop, for that matter, aside from very particular websites. Her solution was to go use another search engine. Which did I have? Keep in mind that she'd already told me not to leave her window. I was wondering how I could do both simultaneously, like the dilemma of when the cops tell you to keep your hands up and get out of the car at the same time, when first you had to unbuckle, turn the key off, unlock the door and push the handle. It was moot anyway, since I only use one search engine. It's the KISS version of using a computer, emphasis on the last "S".
Some of my answers / return questions to Brittany took a couple minutes. Invariably she'd send a "You still here?' while I was in the process. Finally I just sent her another long reply, informing her I was trying to keep my temper in our communication. Moreover I'd been raised to be polite and would she please stop asking, I'd let her know when I was going away. She finally suggested I do go away... just to try logging in to my email again. Use another tab while keeping her window open. (Already done.) So I went back and this time I found all the hydrants. Apparently there were no tiny ones hiding in the long distance street scenes. I'd never have spotted any if there had been. But lucky me, I got in! Good to my word, I returned, gave her my progress report, and encouraged her to pass along my strong negative feedback. Then I said "Good-bye."
Now that I wasn't a robot any longer, I clicked on the X up in her corner and went back to my email.
Who knows about next time?
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