In effect this is a minor thing, but it tells a story.
We have three e-mail accounts with some entity that calls itself att.yahoo, meaning that, along the way, AT&T must have acquired some piece of Yahoo, or gone into one of those mysterious partnerships. Trying to keep current with these matters requires absurd levels of concentration, like tracking the paths of fleas on a mangy dog. In any case, what once was Yahoo is now att.yahoo, or maybe the other way around, but the fact remains that of the three accounts we use, one we never use. The two we use are a kind of his and hers, Brigitte gets her mail on one, I get mine on the other. The third, the unused one, however, is part of the set up on both of our machines.
This morning? Error messages. Suddenly the unused account no longer functions, and the error message sits there, obstructing habit. I’ve just spent the better part of an hour feeding the old settings and passwords (preserved in a humble spiral-bound notebook) back to att.yahoo. No luck. Disgusted, I’ve just punched the REMOVE button on both of our machines. I reason as follows:
There must be some algorithm in att.yahoo’s silicon cerebrum which, by fiat and automatically, disables an account after, say, five years of inactivity. But, then, because no humans watch, and none anticipated my irate reaction, the automaton does not dispatch a message which says:
We’ve noticed that over the last five years you’ve never used xxx@sbcglobal.net. For this reason, to conserve an infinitesimally tiny area of our silicon Cerebrum’s memory, we’ve deactivated xxx@sbcglobal.net. If this displeases you, apologies. Press the UNDO button we have provided here so that our Automat can reverse its algorithmic interference in your lives. Con Amor, att.yahoo.
No such thing. Now, of course, there are consequences. I feel impotent. Some few people, reading this, will nod. Having repeated att.yahoo frequently enough so that my ire will stick to the words, the reputation of att.yahoo will suffer a wee, tiny bit. The network that binds us all together will weaken. And the next time att.yahoo wants to sell me something on the phone, I will waste the time of some innocent woman paid for result with a stream of angry memory before I conclude that, if I had a choice, Lady, I would sure go somewhere else. And I would, too, if I believed that there was somewhere else to go. Alas, the Chinese have not yet decided to offer e-mail. But when they do, baby, they’ve already got themselves a customer!
Filed under: Business Culture, Communications | Tagged: AT&T, Yahoo
