Being the sceptic I am when anyone asks for my password, I waited until I got home to investigate the issue.
I hate opening my old computer which… since I’ve been using this fancy thin, silver laptop with the glowing apple on the front… has become the kid’s computer. I’ve not transferred any of my old files or emails to my Mac so from time to time have to go back in… at the very least to download the few hundred emails I’ve already viewed from my Blackberry. I swear one of these days I’ll have a chance to do the full transfer!!!
So… on arriving home, I opened the computer that for some reason was greasy from nacho cheese (guess what Spiderman had for lunch) and hit the Send/Receive button to see if I could sort things out. After forty minutes of messing around with technical crap I no longer have any business messing with… I phoned Bell. Turns out the the Halifax server had been down all day and I foolishly wasted 40 minutes of my time!!!
I was told that they were working on the problem and hoped to have it fixed in a few more hours. Grrrrrrr…..
Yesterday… still no email… and while others didn’t seem to have the same issue, I placed a second call to Bell explaining my dilemma
I was told by the woman, I’ll refer to as Bell Lady, that she was unaware of the server being down the day before but she’d be happy to get my mail up and running again. We then went through the standard, multitude of questions to “verify my account”… name, phone, address, postal code, email and birth date followed by the following conversation….
“Do you have another account with us?”
“Nope… just this one.”
“Can you give me your email address again?”
“CANTHONY@ns.sympatico.ca”.
“Maam…. are you sure there isn’t a dot between the C and the A.”
“I’m sure.”
“It’s just that there’s no such email address so you obviously must be spelling it wrong.”
“Ummmm…. no…. I’ve been using the same one for fifteen years so there’s something wrong on your end.”
“Bare with me for a moment while I put you on hold.”
“No problem.”
The irony of Lionel Richie’s instrumental playing of “Hello” in the background was not lost on me until SEVERAL minutes later…
“Hello? Are you still with me… OK… sorry about that. Let’s change your password and see if we can’t get this thing working. What would you like your password to be?”
“So my account is there?”
“Yes… just a small glitch in the system.”
“Oh…. well… ok then… ummmm… how about “SASKATOON”, I said finding it strange that she wasn’t in fact giving me a password then suggesting I go in and change it later… which is what would normally happen. And actually… that’s not really what I said but you don’t think I’m giving you my real password do you? Duh? Anyway… back to the conversation…
“How do you spell that?”
“S-A-S-K-A-T-O-O-N”
“With an F”
“No an S”
“Did you say Yes?”
“No I said S… S… as in SASKATOON”
“It’s not taking your password Maam.. damn… just a minute. Are you sure it’s not a zero.”
“What’s not a zero?”
“The O?”
“No it’s two O’s and I’m not sure why you’re asking me how to type in something I’m telling you to spell.”
“Maam, it doesn’t take. Are you doing something wrong?”
“Are you asking me? You’re the one at Bell typing in the brand new password so it’s got to be something you’re doing… I just picked a password and told you how to spell it! How are you entering it?”
“Gee… I’m not sure what’s going on but the system doesn’t like your password… maybe it’s one you’ve used before. Can you pick another one?”
“Alright… I’ve not in fact used that one before but I’ll pick another anyway. Is there a certain number of characters I’m supposed to use?”
“Oh yes Maam, between 6 and 8.”
“OK Bell Lady… that would be the problem…. SASKATOON has nine characters… how about you just spell it with one O.”
“Oh funny! Sorry… let’s just call that a brain fart on my part. HAHAHAHA. Oh MY GOODNESS! You sure you’ll remember to enter it with just one O.”
“Actually I have a feeling I’ll never forget this conversation.”
“OH NO! I forgot to verify your account so we had better do that before I get in big trouble and get fired. Maam, can you give me your complete mailing address?”
“I actually already gave it to you?”
“You did? Oh…. HAHAHHA… what’s wrong with me today?”
“Bell Lady, is there anyone else I can speak with?”
“No no… I’ll get this up and going…. I have great success at getting people’s email working. Can you tell me what the problem is?”
“Oh My God I told you… I usually check my email on my Blackberry… haven’t had email for two days… went into my home computer to check what was going on and it says there’s a problem with the POP3 connection… it won’t download the hundreds of email from the last two weeks even though I’ve already read them so I know they exist… and I’ve not received anything at all for two days.”
“Oh that’s the problem… if you’ve already downloaded your email to your Blackberry then they won’t show up on your computer. You can’t have them in two places.”
“Yes I can. They show up in both places… I’ve been doing it this way for three years.”
“Oh that’s cool. Can I put you on hold for a minute?”
At this point, I’d pulled out half my hair and while listening to more instrumental music, wishing I hadn’t made the call from my cell phone, I sent myself a “TEST” message to see if, at the very least, my email with the new password now worked… which it did.
“Hi… sorry about that… yeah… I’ve consulted with a few other people here and we don’t know why your email isn’t working. I can’t get it to work. Maybe the server is down.”
“OK… well, I just sent myself a Test message and it came through so the server isn’t down. To be honest, I don’t really care about the email from the last two weeks as I’ve already read it but I’d really like the stuff I’ve missed from the last two days.”
“Well… I don’t t think you’ve had any messages for awhile… there’s nothing there.”
“Yes I have… I told you… I view them on my Blackberry! I don’t really care about the ones I’ve already seen but I would really like the ones from the last two days.”
“Can I put you on hold?”
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“Hello… you still there? We’re really sorry but we don’t know where they went. Have you moved recently?”
“Moved? No… and why would that have anything to do with it?”
“Maam, I’m just trying to figure out what could have happened. All I can suggest is that you wait for another twelve hours or so and see if they show up. Maybe they’re just hanging out on the server or something… chances are they bounced back to the people who sent them. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”
“Wait… could changing the password have something to do with it? Or the fact that you couldn’t even find my email address?
“No… those were my mistakes. I have no idea what’s going on and I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful.”
“So….. that’s it? My email works now but two days of emails are just ‘lost’? I have to tell you, that’s totally unacceptable?”
“Yes… it looks that way. Again… I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful but maybe if you go ahead now and validate your password on your Blackberry they’ll all show up… my understanding is that they appear on both the Blackberry and the computer!”
Click.
That's totally unbelievable! You're not serious!
Total Airhead at the other end!
Good for a laugh,though.
Mary
It's pretty close! I actually took notes while she was talking to me… things felt a little stupid. Wish I knew what happened to my mail though!!