Coming Soon, but When?

July 26, 2013 by Let's CUT the Crap! 36 Comments

Over weeks (or has it been months?), I received a couple of reminders from Microsoft Account Team: account linking will soon be discontinued. To prepare for this change, ‛coming s-o-o-n (not when—but s-o-o-n),’ I was to setup all e-mails from Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo in one place. . . yada, yada, yada.

Soon? When would Soon arrive? Who, in business, says Soon without a specific cut-off date?

July arrived and e-mail continued as usual. I expected Microsoft to be reasonable. Within three days or a week of the actual deadline, I felt confident they’d send out a final warning. I imagined a calendar and a red-circled absolute drop-dead date.  I am so loopy sometimes.

Microsoft Clipart

This past Monday morning I worked back and forth, in and out of my four Inboxes until…I could not. My menu of emails evaporated and only my sign-in account was still active. I thought I’d log into one of the missing ones after I tracked down my login. Nothing doing. All accounts were erased, gone, no longer accessible, vaporized on that infinite highway somewhere in Sputnik Land.

Take any bill you pay. Doesn’t it specify a due-date. If you’re late, don’t you get a warning and one last chance before your hydro  is cut off, for instance? If not, they used to send reminders. (I pay my bills as soon as they arrive in my Inbox so I haven’t noticed in recent years).

ALL my fault. I gasped and didn’t bawl too long. I accepted total responsibility for this flaw in my character. I sucked it up and set to work for I am the Reigning Queen of Procrastination. I suppose, at last I’m queen of SOMEthing.

Microsoft Clipart

To replace the lost accounts I kept the working account in Hotmail and opened another one as a backup. In Gmail, I already had an account and set up an alternate also. For two days, I struggled and gave up, came back with new inspiration, and proceeded to the finish line. Whew.

Yay. . .

I setup a new e-mail account for my blog. Ha! Microsoft scoffed, and told me that account did not exist after I had input all the information for Let’s Cut the Crap. And on and on my week deteriorated. I hate arguing.

A friend of mine told me today she had once received notification from G-mail about some unusual activity taking place on her account; someone from Mexico tried to hack her. They warned: change your password. This notification made her feel special, cared for, a valued user of their service.

I received a similar forewarning from Microsoft a year ago, but it appeared as a yellow banner above my ‘Add A Message’ box when I tried to send a note, and was immediately blocked. Three months of requests, begging, hammering my head against the wall made MSN tone-deaf and blind. To me.

My accounts are working now, but appear unstable. That’s for next week. I can’t live on the wild side for more than a couple of days without a long rest in between.

My ranting done, I’m ready for a nap and a cold compress, or maybe an Excederin.

Perhaps a nice glass of Rioja…?

~ * ~

By the way, the request for help I sent out my blogging friends on how to change my blog e-mail has proved to be most helpful. Thank you to those who contributed instructions. Without them I would have pulled out all my hair.