The year is 1961. Thanks to Joseph Heller, the term Catch-22 first enters the American lexicon, and becomes firmly embedded there. The entrapment of its circular logic was a thing of pure beauty.
A character in the book – an Army airman during World War II – would be crazy if he continues flying any more highly dangerous missions. To stop flying them, all he has to do is ask to be grounded, under that obvious mental health pretext. Ah, but therein lies the rub. To ask would be the action of a rational mind, therefore proving he’s really not crazy at all, and is indeed fit to fly. But if he flies, he’s crazy, and can ask to be grounded. Catch-22. As I say, a thing of pure beauty, never to be equaled.
Until now.
Fast forward to 2013.
Step into a world of computers, websites and 12-year-old code writers and customer service reps that Mr. Heller in his worst nightmares could never have conjured up.
I had signed up for a year of on-line service with a particular company that shall remain nameless – nameless, that is, except to Griselda, my Voodoo High Priestess, who is at this very moment fabricating life-size, anatomically-correct dolls of everyone who works there. I’ve ordered 12,000 boxes of two-foot pins, and we’re planning a rousing game of jam-the-pin-up-the- oh, but I digress. Sorry.
Apparently, this company took it upon themselves to enroll me in “auto-renewal,” so that they could keep me and my credit card captive forever. They notified me the service was about to renew – no doubt by accident – so I immediately went on their website to cancel it.
“Please enter your User ID and Password.” I dutifully type that in.
“Invalid entry. Please enter your User ID and Password.” Okay. It’s possible I made a mistake. I carefully type it in again.
“Invalid entry. Please enter your User ID and Password.” Okaaaay. One more time, using just one finger like a five-year-old, I really carefully type it in again.
“Invalid entry. Please enter your User ID and Password.”
Trying to remain calm, I notice a button at the bottom of the screen. “Click here to reset your password.” Stupidly, I click.
“A new password will be sent to the email address registered to this account. Please check your email.” I go to my email and find a message waiting.
“Please click on this link.” I click. It returns me to the same screen where I was originally.
“Please enter your User ID and Password”. I dutifully type that in. Again.
“Invalid entry. Please enter your User ID and Password.”
I’m not quite so stupid as to get into that particular loop again. I see a button for “Contact customer service.” This should be good. I click that and am given the option of calling or emailing. I opt for a good old-fashioned phone call.
Recorded voice. Of course. “Thank you graciously so very much for calling to us here at ____. Yes, all of our operators they are currently so much helping the lots of other customers. Your call it is so much very important to us. In matter of fact, it is so much very important that we will be going to leave you on the hold for – 2 – 8 – minutes until our very next operator be off her break here in Mumbai. In mean time, please listen to this scratchy selection of the American jazz, played at full volume.” Then it hung up on me.
So, I tried email. Realizing I was “shouting,” I typed in all caps that I wanted to cancel my service with them, that I never signed up for auto-renewal and that I couldn’t get into their stupid website to do anything about it because their stupid website wasn’t recognizing my password and wouldn’t send me a new one.
In response, I received an “incident number.” I had now become “an incident,” like CSI. A Computer Stupidity Incident.
The next day, I got another email. “I understand you have forgotten your password and would like to reset it. I can help you with that. Please log onto our website, enter your User Name and your old password, then enter the new password you’d like to change it to.”
Wait. What??
“…enter your User Name and your old password, then enter the new password you’d like to change it to.”
I emailed back. I admit it, I was still “shouting,” and I even highlighted everything. Using the simplest terms possible, I tried again: A) I didn’t forget my password. B) I don’t care if I ever reset it, because I don’t care I ever go on your stupid site again. C) I just want to be certain that the auto-renew that I never authorized was deactivated, and my credit card isn’t charged. And then, because I simply couldn’t resist, D) Do you realize how illogical it is to tell someone to enter a password that doesn’t work in order to reset a password!?!
In response, I received a new incident number. I felt less important this time. The next day, I received another email, from a different rep.
“I understand you would like to deactivate the auto-renewal feature on your account. I can help you with that. Please log onto our website, enter your User Name and password, find the account pull-down menu, click the preferences tab, re-enter your password, then at the prompt enter your mother’s maiden name and shoe size, which takes you to a sign-in screen, where you’ll be asked to change your password to one with 12 lower case letters, six upper case letters, five numbers one symbol and anything on your keyboard that looks like an amoeba playing jump rope.
At that point you’ll see a security screen with a long string of incompressible letters that nobody can read. Please enter all 73 letters exactly as you see them to deactivate the auto-renew. If you miss any of the letters, the screen will freeze and exit you from the cycle, and we’ll assume that you want the auto-renew feature to stay activated permanently.”
Still shouting – this time in the largest font my email program had – I emailed back. “CANCEL MY ACCOUNT. COMPLETELY. PERMANENTLY. MAKE IT SO I DON’T EXIST IN YOUR SYSTEM. ANYWHERE. PERIOD.” I thought that was clear enough.
In response, I received a new incident number. The following day, I received another email, from a different rep. Surprisingly, it contained the following message:
“I understand you would like to cancel your account with us. I can help you with that. We’ll see that the changes are processed.” Finally, I thought. I hated to be so rude, but at long last I got through to someone.
A week later, they charged my credit card for another year’s service.
Now I’m just waiting for Griselda and the pins.