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'.

It's of No Benefits To All

I changed employers recently. It was a pretty good move... all of the sudden I'm an actually wanted employee, with actual Benefits And Stuff. No more Obamacare!

Yesterday was time to fill in all the electronic paperwork relating to Benefits And Stuff. I enjoy electronic paperwork, largely because if there's paper paperwork, it will force me to write stuff. Since I've been using computers for umpteen years, I haven't been writing much. My handwriting, never really legible for the most part, has gone completely to hell. Moreso. So online works better for me. That is, until I try it.

It was a dark and stormy day. It's usually a dark and stormy day, and you can take it for granted that any day I post a blog entry, it's a dark and stormy day. In fact, when you think of Philthydelphia, your first thought should be 'dark and stormy day.'  This more than adequately sets the tone for any story.

There is nothing quite like the joy that is logging into some random site to purchase something or worse, to perform some job function. The level of stress and agitation approaches knife fighting. My wife and I have had three-day arguments that were much more calm than logging into certain sites. Usually the first issue is that I'm using linux. I am not sure why this is an issue because a browser is a browser, regardless of operating system. Some sites require Internet Explorer, which is heinous in the first place. Even Windows users shouldn't be messing with Internet Explorer. In the early days, Clever Folks found a clever way to run Internet Explorer under linux, but not lately. Speculation runs to these Clever Folks killing themselves in the most frightening and painful ways possible.

Fortunately, Internet Exploder is not a requirement for this site. How do I know this?  Because I could not log into the site, regardless of browser or operating system. When I called the site's 800 number, I was told that I had locked myself out, a handy security feature to keep everyone, including me, out of my account. Mind you, I had locked myself out by trying to log in with the credentials they provided. This is what the very nice customer service lady told me. I asked her if it wouldn't have been nice to indicate that I was locked out, but she said no, it was a safety feature. Well, it certainly kept my account safe from me accessing it. She told me that Internet Explorer didn't behave correctly in certain spots so they recommended something else, like Firefox. Firefox is my favorite browser, so this was good. In fact, Firefox works on most operating systems, including Windows, linux, and android. Not sure about iDevices.

Once logged in, I proceeded to the benefits section. Or rather I tried to proceed to the benefits section. The site told me there was an authentication error. Since I keep Firefox pretty locked down, I tried a different browser. Still the error. At this point, in spite of the dark and stormy day, the neighbor across the street decided to do some minor construction. This inevitably involves cutting things with a Very Loud Electric Saw.  In fact, I don't believe they construct anything; they just like sawing things outside.

I tried four more browsers, including one so wide open it's probably a red flag that says HACK ME. Nothing. No authentication. Cursing the existence of Windows, I fired it up in a virtual machine.

The dog, realizing this is a Very Important Activity, tests us by interrupting in his own delightful way... he walks up to me, puts his snout on my knee, and whines pitifully. If I stop petting him, he turns around, comes back again, and continues the whining. This will go on until I get up. (Foolishly) assuming he needs to go outside, I proceed to the door. Almost as if he's laughing at me, he positions himself next to his food bowl. He's having fun, trying to interrupt and annoy me, seeing if I'll get up and feed him. This normally starts an hour or so after he gets fed.

Using the evil Internet Explorer, I log into the site, only to discover that the same error occurs here.

This seemed as good a time as any for my wife to suspect that the noise she hears is mice. She stands absolutely still, waiting for the noise to occur again. Leaning against something turns out to be not as good an idea as first thought - while quietly waiting, she falls over on top of a pile of something or other. My wife is gifted with the grace of a pregnant hippopotamus (that's ok, she has her charms. I'll let you know what they are when I discover them). This fact is documented in her medical charts and is referred to as Positive Tilt. One day at the doctor, he wanted to test her balance and told her to close her eyes and put her arms out. This happened very quickly so I didn't have the chance to tell him this wasn't a very good idea. I made it out of my seat just in time to catch her as she went over. This seems like a very dangerous test and should only be performed in a hospital setting, where she can stand on a hospital bed so she'll be in great shape when she falls down.

Continuing with mice, this activity is not passive. It requires constant vigilance, in case there is more Mouse Noise. HINT: this will become a recurring theme.

Screaming, clenching my fists, and throttling my accelerating urge to throttle someone or something, I know it's time to call the nice people in Support. Again. This nice lady (they all seem uncommonly nice for some reason), without much interaction from me, proceeds to ask me if I'm getting precisely the same error I'm getting. AHA - a known error!  The nice lady tells me yes, this is known to happen sometimes. So why, I wonder out loud, don't they make some sort of notation that this happens? She does not know, but guides me to an alternate way to get where I want to be. This is also not noted, making the site what web designers call user friendly but I call User Hostile.

So I go forth, again, to sign up for benefits. First up is health insurance. This is very important to me, as it's generally expensive and generally required. We're essentially betting a huge corporation that we won't get sick.  I am presented with a choice of ten insurance options, all of which start with Aetna. I've heard horror stories about Aetna, but I've had good luck in the past. Fortunately in the User Hostile mess is an option to compare plans. This is even more fortunate, given the plans all have coded names, completely impossible to understand by normal humans, no less insurance industry types. AETNA QPS1000 was one, followed by AETNA HMO25.7 - are you seeing where this is heading yet?

I pull up a comparison of four insurances, selected because I like some of the numbers in the title, and start trying to figure out the benefits. I was assisted in this by a screen that told them what was important to me. I unchecked random selections like hysterectomy, birth control pills, and mammogram (because I have external plumbing, as you guessed). Trying to figure out the chart was an interesting exercise, even when I put it on a 26" monitor so we could both see. I went to ask Wife a question when I discovered she wasn't there. She was, however, on Mouse Patrol again. This forced me to ask questions loudly, hoping she'd recognize it was a question, as opposed to me just randomly screaming at something. Mostly she failed. After asking a time or four, I got her attention and her answer was "I don't know." I got through most of the comparison on my own because Mouse Patrol seemed to include stopping at random places and cleaning. Cleaning is wonderful, but not when I need somebody sitting next to me, providing a second brain.

The tv was on, which was a shame as nobody was watching it. As I got to a particularly frustrating question on the form, her phone rang. That was about IT for me and I let loose with a tirade that still scares the dog and the neighbors, after many years in the same house. The ringtone, which is the intro from Aerosmith's Back in the Saddle, thunders out of the phone at a volume that scares the shit out of me and causes the phone to walk itself right off the table. The phone is never with my wife when it goes off; it's always near me, as if to provide comic relief to the universe. She looks at me angrily and demands to know why I'm shouting. Well, it's not like I don't complain about the phone every time it shakes the house. Plus I have attention deficit disorder, which makes too much input VERY frustrating (tv, mouse hunting, power saw, phone ringing, and the internal children watching the tv with their mouth instead of their eyes).

The dog, through repeated experiments, has learned that the "Get Daddy off the couch to feed him more" routine only works two or three times.

Four hours later, with the occasional help of my wife, I have selected health insurance. I expected to feel elated with the accomplishment, but I just felt sad and relieved it was over. And then I saw the NEXT button.

NEXT dealt with life insurance. This is where you bet a huge corporation that you won't die. The joke's on them, as you always die. The joke is also on you, as you always die AND if you do so at an inopportune time, your beneficiary won't get paid. I do not know what happens if your beneficiary kills you, thus it's always better to follow the Eleventh Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Get Caught.

As I'm no longer twenty (physically anyway), life insurance is important. Not for me, but for my wife. Structuring it smartly, I will never be worth more dead than alive. Life insurance comes in many types, with many options and many prices. Never having had life insurance before, every single one of them was foreign to me. There's term life, whole life, half life, and variable universal studios life. Some have premiums that go up. Some can be borrowed against. Some can't be paid out at all. And some allow you to visit Universal Studios at a small discount, in the middle of winter, in years that end with three. I asked my local expert, who, at that moment walked out the door for a smoke break. Unsure how that was going to help, I perused some web links, looking for prices. When there were prices at all, they were for several more types of insurance that I could not understand if I spent my entire life in life insurance. And they were all rated for thirty-year-old non-smoking women, of which I am only non-smoking. The other option was to ask for a quote online, which would no doubt result in constant calls from life insurance salesmen, which is only slightly less annoying than having to use Internet Explorer.

Where was my Subject Matter Expert? Simultaneously cleaning and on Mouse Patrol. I considered myself lucky that she was at least on the same floor as me. If I needed her on an emergent basis, I could always stand near her, gesticulating wildly and screaming at the top of my lungs, in hopes she'd notice me.

As it turns out, you can make your dog sole beneficiary.
If you have any questions, please ask. When she reads this, and she will, I'll be spending a lot of time on the couch, so I will be able to answer inquiries at all hours.

If you get nothing else from this entry, I hope you get a giggle and my single piece of wisdom around insurance: When the going gets tough, quit. It's better for your blood pressure and well-being in general. I did, and survived to write this blog entry. This will no doubt be a problem when I have to log back in (if I can) and re-fill out the same information all over again. I now need to sit with people much smarter than me (football players with traumatic brain injuries and rappers) to figure out which options I need.

Next week I'll tell you about my 401k. I anticipate the experience like I anticipate a dental visit - with me running as fast as I can in the opposite direction. And when I can't come up with any other new material, I'll tell you about the dream I just had. It was kind of like The Bachelor, but with eager women in skimpy black lingerie. Perhaps it was just like The Bachelor.

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Remember when signing up for benefits involved someone from Human Resources handing you a pamphlet and forms to sign? I do not want to be accused of being a Luddite, but the electronic way just doesn't work.