Tomorrow will be better

Today I:

• Spent four hours on hold, waiting for technical support.
• Absorbed every nuance of a Bollywood cover of Madonna’s “La Isla Bonita”, complete with sitar solo. But only one verse and chorus, because that’s all that was on the loop for those four hours.
• Learned that telling a voice-recognition system “Oh, for fuck’s sake” at an appropriate volume and level of vocal stress will elicit the response “I think you said, ‘Please let me speak to a customer service representative.’ If that is correct, say ‘yes’ or press 1. If not…” etc.
• Discovered that the support email contact form was coded to use a GET instead of a POST, so if describing the issue you’re experiencing requires more characters than will fit in a URL, you’re out of luck.
• Found that the Live Web Chat support connects you with a customer service representative who is clearly forced to have at least five simultaneous chat sessions active at any one time, and who is allowed to communicate with you only using macros which alternately apologize for the issues you are experiencing, and repeat the phone number of the customer service line you spent four hours waiting for earlier in the day.
• Ascertained that calling the sales line to bitch about a support issue will get you absolutely nowhere, even if it’s the only other contact information available.
• Went outside, took a very deep breath, spent half an hour watching a songbird watch me watch the distant contrail of a 747 slowly dissipate into the sky, and took another very deep breath.
• Dropped a butcher’s knife on my foot while cooking dinner, by chance blunt end first.
• Will maintain a constant input of ambient and experimental music to prevent any recurrence of Madonna, and of chianti to prevent recurrence of anything else at all.