Biting the Hand that Hosts Me

Blogger has an issue that prevents people from leaving comments on some blogs (but not all apparently) that use word verification to reduce spam in their comments. To rectify this problem on my end, I have turned off word verification temporarily. You should be able to leave comments now. This brings up a larger issue and that is that if you encounter problems in the use of the blogspot site, or with your hosted blog, there is no way for you to contact blogger/blogspot/google directly with your problem. You must go to the discussion boards for blogger and just leave a comment. No one seems entirely sure how or if blogger staff are actually monitoring these boards or not. Guess who is getting bent over in this deal? It's us. The users. I was reading an article the other day asking if Google was getting too big. Perhaps, it is.

But Google/Blogger isn't the only ones with these customer service issues. Just this morning, I had to contact my doctor to explain to them that I have already paid their bill, have the check receipt to prove it, have verification from my bank that it was cashed. What more can I do here?

Oh, perhaps I can call ESA to find out what happened with a grant I applied for in May 2008. No award winner was announced at ESA last year. I have received no letter indicating that someone else got the award, and I have emailed the contact for that award twice with no response. I have made two phone calls so far to ESA to try to find out what's going on. During the first, I was told that the person I needed to talk to was not in the office today. No offer was made to take a message or transfer me to voice mail. The second call this morning, I was told that the person I needed to talk to was out to lunch. I asked if I could leave a message since I had already called more than once. I was told that the person I wished to talk to didn't have voice mail. I felt like saying, "Hey! Miss Entitlement! I didn't ask to be put into voice mail. I asked to leave a message. You know. Like with you! While I know that you grew up in the digital age, the idea is you take out a piece of paper and a pencil and you write down my name and number and when so-and-so comes in from lunch, you hand it to her. It's called, taking a message."

Is it laziness? Incompetence? Employment for air heads? And for God's sake, this is the same bunch that puts on one of the industry's largest conventions each year and they don't have voice mail? Seriously?

OK. I realize that I walked uphill both ways to and from school and I'm pushing the limits of becoming my grandparents, but arrrrrrrrrrgh.