This is a scream of anguish and a shout of anger and a whine of self-pity. When all systems are GO (which is seldom) Life and Work are a dream. Everything goes smoothly. You get a lot of work done. Pleasure comes without pain. BUT
glitch noun (informal): a sudden, usually temporary malfunction or fault of equipment: a draft version was lost in a computer glitch.• an unexpected setback: the only glitch in his year is failing to qualify for the Masters.• Astronomy a brief irregularity in the rotation of a pulsar.verb [ no obj. ] chiefly US: suffer a sudden malfunction or fault: the elevators glitches. ORIGIN 1960s (originally US): of unknown origin. The original sense was ‘a sudden surge of current’, hence ‘malfunction, hitch’ in astronautical slang.
Glitch is NOT informal; it is NOT slang. It is diabolical. It wrecks days, weeks, years and life. And there is no human help.
I'll go back a bit, not to other horrible things but to one thing among them that led to this. For reasons I will not go into, I had two e-addresses. When I cancelled one (it took a while and it cost me time and effort and confusion and money and loss of faith in a helper who shall be nameless (but he knows who he is), it took a while to clear it and let everyone know. I think that's where the initial confusion came from. I had a digital daily subscription to the New York Times, taken out in 2015 when I went on my Round-the-World-in-180-Days trip (shortened to 79 days owing to circumstances beyond anyone's control), because I couldn't have a Paper delivered to my cabin door at sea.. Okay. I was being billed monthly on my Apple/iTunes account and everything worked, until my e-address was changed, as I say, some time last spring.
Then the NYT became capricious, on and off, forgetting who I was and disappearing or thinking I was a monthly candidate for subscription, to be lured on with 10 free-to-read columns a month, and so on. My Cooking document must have been erased. This started in June or July and I couldn't seem to find an e-address to tell them what was going on. It takes time and patience to tackle a problem like this. You have to set a day and stay dogged. I had work to do and couldn't spare much time and my doggedness was in short supply. Finally, near the end of the year my beloved computer guru came and fixed the glitch - sort of. She cancelled the subscription and I actually was credited with two refunds (for two months of the nine or ten I had been charged with and paid.) She advised me not to start a new subscription until the new year when all might be resolved and clear. Okay. I waited and took out a new subscription. I guess it was good for about a month and then the old tricks started turning up: on again off again; ten free columns and qui; or on for a brief time each day, and no mini-crossword in sight. This went on for a few months - all the while I was being charged a monthly fee - until it it quit altogether.
Yesterday I booked myself for an all-day frustration session to try to sort it out. I had found a magic phone number (previous emails to subscription departments and on line searches through iTunes had been unproductive). I called an 800 number putting me in direct contact with the NYT. NOT direct. A series of mechanical voices asked for my complaint ("digital only"), account number, the phone number I was using etc. IT (still not human) said I was billed through iTunes and told me to get in touch with my Apple account. IT actually gave me a phone number.....maybe, maybe I was going to get a human voice? NO such luck.
First, it wouldn't accept my Apple ID. First, Second and Third, too, but finally it acknowledged me and I progressed to another obstacle: finding my way through iTunes to my account and the record of my expenditures. This is all online, still no human voice. Finally, after several attempts I got a record of my expenditure: a year's subscription paid up until January 2019. If that was so, why was I being charged monthly? If that was so, why was I not receiving my daily digital news? IT said (online, print only) that I could cancel and my subscription would resume in January 2019. No possibility apparently of ever opting OUT forever.
Still no human voice.
Has anyone noticed how easy it is to sign up for something? Has anyone discovered how hard it is to get help or out?
The day was a no-good, horrible, frustrating, useless, unproductive day. I don't feel any better now that I've told you what I went through and I still don't have my NYT digital daily. I'm too old for this. I wish I were a Luddite.
This is not a blog.