Bowling for Benefits

Whoever had the brilliant idea that putting things online would save paper and streamline operations was very clearly under the age of five, or on drugs that are not covered by their employer's health plan.

I have a long, bitter history with doing things online. This is hilarious irony, as I've been working with computers for a lot of years. Ok, be fair; the ability to work with computers really doesn't reflect the ability to go online and attempt to navigate the gauntlet of a purchasing transaction, be it concert tickets, a t-shirt, or doing Work Stuff.

Inner Security Guy

Way back in the days when the web was new, the idea of online transactions started to surface. Without even checking out the plans, my Inner Security Guy said, "No. You will not put your personal and credit card information online." Inner Security Guy only talks to me because if anybody else hears him, they laugh and call him Tinfoil Hat Guy. He wouldn't even let me or the wife order things over the cordless phone because anyone with a receiver could hear it. He also said NO to wireless for computers because once the signal left the wire, it was no longer mine alone. He was not kidding.. one day he drove me around a bit with a police scanner in the car. We got to hear quite a few people talking on their cordless phones, from outside their houses and down the block. Later on, he drove me down an interstate with a laptop and a 'sniffer'. This allowed me to see wireless system names and whether or not they were locked down, all the way down the road. Go ahead - make fun of Tinfoil Hat Guy, just like the rest of them did.

Not only was Inner Security Guy correct, but one doesn't even have to use web transactions to have their information stolen: thieves around the world just break in through the site or otherwise, and POOF - your information is on the Dark Web for purchase. Inner Security Guy was years ahead of his time.

So it's the 2010s and we discovered that although wireless connections are quite hackable, they're reasonably untouched. It's a tradeoff. Online transactions are actually reasonably safe, except from the NSA, but they are not interested in your financial information. Again, this information will become available when the site gets hacked or some idiot leaves their Cloud account's front door wide open, like the recent Equifax breach.

Doing Stuff Online

One day it came to pass that I had to set up my work benefits online. Although I can't prove it, I suspect my employer is a dude in an office somewhere, with a secretary. Dude in an Office is shocked to discover he has to run payroll and benefits for thousands of people. Neither he nor his uber-competent secretary (the brains of the outfit) can manage payroll and benefits for themselves, no less thousands of others, so they do what every employer does these days: outsourced it. To The Cloud.

The end effect of this exercise is that I cannot call my employer (or his potentially very attractive secretary) for any questions on payroll or benefits. They simply refer me to the Online Folks.

So I fired up my browser and went to the site.

Sidebar, Your Honor: my operating system is linux. I have seven web browsers, all in different states of lockdown. The thing I don't have is Internet Explorer, because it does not run on linux, is a pain in the ass, and is so full of holes, they should call it Swiss Cheese Browser. Technically I can run Windows, but it takes time and I don't want to have to fire it up every time I need to perform an online transaction.  None of this really matters, because the web is built on standards; where any browser on any operating system on any device should display everything the same way. I will now ask people familiar with this concept to stop laughing, as it's drowning out my ability to think.

To recap, I should have no trouble surfing or performing any transactions online - we're all equal on the web. They say the good thing about standards is that there are so many of them.

Right off the bat, the site comes up with huge holes in it, where pictures and other stuff will not display. Why? Because I'm using my number one browser, Firefox, and it's completely locked down for safety reasons. Javascript is disabled by default. This 'breaks' websites because they 'have to' use javascript to perform their magic tricks. Some pages will not display pictures without it. Pictures.  Ok, I own this issue, because I choose to surf safely. Javascript can perform many evil tricks and I won't use it unless I'm familiar with a site. After grudgingly enabling javascript, the next error will be cookies. I also turn off cookies, which gives sites fits. Cookies are used to track you online. The only positive use for them is to remember information between pages when you're ordering. A site's shopping cart will not work without cookies (it will not 'remember' items you put in there).

Since the web runs on standards, Firefox should display the site just fine, once I've completely disabled all the things I use to keep myself safe online. Of course this is pure bullshit theory.. the site now shows pictures but looks like it was done in crayon, with huge parts of it missing and messed up. The irony here is that the site recommends Firefox, as they know about Internet Explorer and are sick of it too.

So I give up on Firefox and bring up a less safely-set browser. After making sure javascript and cookies are enabled, I head to the benefits site. Yessir, I'm gonna set up my benefits. And that fast, the site still won't display correctly.

So I'm now at Browser Number Three, which finally displays the site correctly and lets me browse without grief. I go to check out benefits options, put in all my information, fill out the benefits information, then hit SUBMIT. And the site stares at me. No motion at all. Hmmmm hmmmmm hmmmm I go, waiting and attempting to be patient. This is a struggle I cannot accurately describe, except with the stock television footage of a volcano, complete with lava moving around, getting ready to erupt. My wife and a whole legion of doctors and therapists have tried for years to help keep the volcano at bay, with only minor success. And I distinctly feel the lava.

So I close down the transaction and start again. And wind up exactly where I was before, with the SUBMIT button pushed and the website openly mocking me. Yes, this 'should' work the same in any browser.

Finally I bring out the Big Gun: the completely naked browser, with no security whatsoever, open to the world, with all protections turned off, waiting for a bad site or Evil Hacker to get me. A browser so unsafe, it could almost be Internet Explorer. And did I get my benefits going? NFW - it couldn't even make it to the description page. A totally stripped down browser, right out of the box.

Having forgotten or unlearned everything the doctors (and wife) told me, I am now audibly cursing and banging on things, well on my way to Raving Lunatic. Any fairly sane person watching this would say my reaction to a bad website was unreasonable, given that this is a stupid website, not a rental car stranding me in KKK, Maryland. I counter by stating that this is a completely reasonable reaction, given that it happens every time I try to order something online.

So I give in and fire up Windows; heavy breathing, cursing, and with blood starting to leak from one eye. I'm yelling that these online idiots obviously have something against linux (or me personally - it's hard to tell). Internet Explorer brings up the site just fine, like most of the other browsers. When I hit SUBMIT, it too stares at me. HA-it's not linux and it's not even Windows and Internet Exploder - it's a horribly coded site! Even Firefox under Windows won't complete the transaction.

Now I sound like the Tasmanian Devil from the cartoons. Everything is a growl, modulated to resemble words, but completely unintelligible. Every now and then a nasty word will pop out in English, surrounded by growling, louder growling, and the occasional flying keyboard or broken vase. Did you know that a laptop keyboard will fail catastrophically if you bang on it repeatedly during a Tasmanian Devil fit? I didn't, but eventually I figgered it out.

You know I'm defeated when two operating systems and ten browsers will not allow me to complete a transaction. But wait - the humiliation was not complete: I had to pick up a phone and talk to an actual PERSON. This was both terrifying and embarrassing. Who talks to people these days? Fortunately (or unfortunately) for me, this occurred during the two hour period in which the phone operators were available, so I reluctantly made the call. The automated operator said that the call may be recorded for training purposes. I figured that by the end of this call they wouldn't be able to use the recording, as the system that records spontaneously burst into flames.

After hearing twenty seven choruses of Happy Christmas Music, an alleged human got on the line. She was cheerful, like the rest of them. This is not a good strategy for a customer service person because people hate a cheerful representative. No one is that cheerful, even from Canada or one of those countries further north, like North Dakota. This has little effect on me, as I can imitate a person of sane behavior, who does not abuse customer service personnel. I give her my brief story and she soothingly tells me that other people have been complaining about this.

Has it ever occurred to anybody to actually fix it?

We walk through the process together, hand in hand, which is supposed to make me feel reassured. All the while I'm figuring out how to hurt the company by finding out where its children live.

Did I mention logging in? Oh, I didn't?
After I logged into the site, it threw up a box, telling me it sent a verification code to my email. I was to check my email and put the verification code into the website if I wanted to actually do anything other than look at the box asking for verification. This makes me feel every bit as safe as an airport body cavity grope by our friends from the TSA. Why does verification happen? Because I didn't bother to retain the cookie from last time I logged in (a year ago). This is how you're tracked, as I mentioned earlier. The site asks me if I want to avoid this next time by checking this box. This laughingly insane process is for naught because if I say yes, the site will drop a cookie in my browser, which will be cleaned out when I close the browser, causing me to have to go through the whole process again.

Are we havin' fun yet? I sure as shootin' am.

Mrs. Cheerful Customer Service slowly and methodically walks me through the process. This makes me prickly, as most things do, because she's moving slowly and methodically. This tends to make the top of my head want to explode, but I continue to impersonate a reasonable person, as this criminal website coding is not her fault. As we get to the point where I want to fill in the order form, she tells me to stop and hit the button up top, that says ALT. Ok, I'll play along.. I hit ALT and the system took me to a different page, allowing me to complete the purchase. She apologized. I politely suggested they PUT A GODDAMN BLINKY RED LIGHT THERE, TELLING PEOPLE TO JUST USE THE ALT BUTTON. I warmly opine that if this many people are going to have to use this site, they should probably make it less user-hostile.  She agrees, in the way that attempts  to assure the customer that she's Very Concerned, but in reality, will do nothing and continue to answer customer service calls made by people even less pleasant than me, who cannot do a credible impersonation of a sane person.

This was a year ago, during which time I was advised to open a FSA (Family Savings Account), which pays for $2500 of medical stuff before taxes. They told me that I need to make sure to spend all the money or I'd lose it. We laughed hysterically, as $2500 is two months' prescriptions.

So we went to the pharmacy, where the transaction was immediately denied.
So I immediately gave up and called a completely different Cheerful Customer Service lady.  She cheerfully and helpfully let me know that she was aware of the pharmacy and we should try again. The next day we tried, with the same denial. Following the general theme here, I gave up. After a while, I officially notated the events and sent them an email. The response was that the pharmacy was not covered.

WHY COULDN'T THE FIRST CUSTOMER SERVICE LADY HAVE TOLD ME THIS? Why can't two different employees of a service dedicated to benefits agree on policy?

I was advised to list all our purchases and put them in for refund. Because the whole thing is my fault and I have to clean up after them. I got a printout from the pharmacy, which was better than last year, at only the size of one phone book. We're all getting healthier, you know.

I experienced what can only be described as Great Internal Resistance to going online and performing this task. It took a few hours to actually open a browser. It's like my body knew something the rest of me didn't.

To be fair, I got right into the site with only one operating system and one browser. I felt blessed.  I smiled when the site had to send me the authorization email. I found the correct part of the site after only twenty minutes of looking. I felt like the Favorite Son.  With the phone book sized pharmacy printout, I proceeded to get to work. I hit the START button and it took me right to the error page - no delay at all. The little box said that the transaction failed for No Particular Reason and I should try again. If it keeps failing,I should get in touch with my administrator.  Wait - I thought they were my administrator....

So it failed again. Then it failed again with a different browser. Then I took a screenshot and sent it to them, outside of the two hour window in which they read email, so it'll take a week for an answer. They'll probably tell me that all benefits must be signed off on in person, but they forgot to notate that on the site. Furthermore, they're a division of Microsoft, so they enjoy causing pain.

This happens every time I try to order something online. Tickets, t-shirts, even requests to dispose of bodies all fail miserably. My wife leaves the house and takes the dog if she even suspects I have to do something online that day.

Emphasize the Positive

It is possible that this procedure could be taken as a medical cure for low energy or depression. If you're having trouble getting out of your chair, try to purchase something online. You not only won't be able to purchase the item; you'll be so ungodly frustrated, possibly homicidal, that you have to get out of your chair and do something you hate (like cleaning), or you will surely hurt someone very badly. This is the reason you have to email the company with any issues instead of calling: fear of you reaching through the phone and pulling their liver out through their nostrils.

I once went to my doctor after attempting an online transaction. My blood pressure was up so far, my heart was in danger of bursting though my ribcage and attacking him. When I explained, he wrote me a note, saying that I was not allowed to perform online transactions; I could only use a phone or do it in person. This works to everybody's benefit, in that my heart stays in place, as does my blood pressure. If it didn't, they'd have to pay out a hospital claim and possibly life insurance. Depending on how she's feeling about me that day, my wife either urges me to do things in person or 'just try it online'.