For the first time in a long time, I nearly raised my voice at someone this week. Current events are enough to shorten anybody’s fuse, but on this occasion, the irritant that nearly started the bonfire was Amazon customer service.
I’d been having a pretty productive morning, but because I’d done some Zoom calling, I was on my Mac rather than my PC, and without thinking about it, I tried to log into my Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing dashboard. Stupid, stupid, stupid… Amazon saw me on a “new” (nine year old) device and demanded that I change my password. What is the FULL NAME associated with this account? Grace Ann Burrowes.
Wrong. The name under which I created the account ten years+ ago was simply Grace Burrowes. Amazon’s system did not make the leap, and lo… when I went through all the two-factor-nope-not-that-code-the-other-code, all of my books were gone. No Lonely Lords, no True Gents. Forget Julian and Violet, nothing. Not a novella. Never published a word much less a book.
I rolled up my sleeves and started with author support. “Could somebody please help me find my books?” Author support laughed politely. “It’s a log in issue, and for that you have to deal with Amazon customer service.” Round and round I go, unable to make anybody understand that I can log in, but my books are gone. Finally, I get some lady in an overseas call center, who also did not grasp the issue.
She kept crooning two things at me: “Calm down,” though my voice was never raised, I never resorted to profanity, and never made a personally disparaging remark. Over and over, “Don’t get so upset. Calm down…” while she did nothing to help but put me on hold any number of times. The second thing she said in several ways was, “I am going to solve this problem for you. Don’t worry. I will resolve this for you.”
She, of course, did not solve the problem Amazon had created, but resorted to that old dodge of, “Let me put you on hold while I verify some information…” and five minutes of horrible musak later, some clueless guy in another call center picks up, and informs me, oh, so sorry. “That’s a Kindle Direct Publishing problem We here in customer support really can’t do anything about that.”
I might be a little less crispy about 100 books–my livelihood, that I cannot replace–going poof, were it not the case that Amazon is making record profits by the billions, yet again, some more, how wonderful. I might be even less crispy about it if I hadn’t gone through multiple iterations of, “Call back is not working at this time,” and “The chat bot is not working at the time.”
The problem is still not resolved, but I understand the wrong turn. Amazon could not tell the difference between “never heard of this person before so this must be a request to set up a new account,” and, “I just got the correct PW and email from Grace Burrowes and then asked her to change her PW. Now she gives her name as Grace Ann Burrowes. Might be Grace Burrowes? Better ask some more questions…”
All the hype about AI, and a simple password change takes days to resolve at one of the biggest tech companies on the planet. Yeah, I’m steamed. Don’t be so upset. Calm down. Don’t worry. Billions in profit above even the projected billions but you have to stiff my print readers over tariff increases?
It’s a good thing she was on the other side of the planet. Telling me what to feel and what not feel when I am legit upset, and wasting my time while lying to me. That there’s a class one, ten years to life, no parole collection of felonies in my book…. or it would be, if I’d written any books.
What are the things nobody should ever, ever, ever say to you when you’re upset?
PS: The images this week are from my citizen journalist sortie to the front lines of the horrible crime wave affecting national parks in the DC area. This is the C&O Canal towpath, and you can see mad chipmunk cartels have doubtless run amok, undocumented butterflies have flown at will, and flowers are popping up where nobody planted them. Call out the guard! Oh… wait.
There is a long list of things that will set me off depending on the situation.
Quoting Scripture at me will do it. The Bible has a few things to say about being angry.
This will pass.
What can YOU do about it?
Patience is a virtue.
“But did you die?”
I returned my first ever parcel to ebay and have been impressed with the chill way in which it was handled. I also wrote tech support about a glitch in a game I play and received prompt, easy-to-follow help. It can be done.
Scripture… as if a few rounds of Bible ping-pong ever solved anything!
Calm down and/ or take a breath…those are my triggers.
Work these week was busy. My supervisor has no clue what my department does…none. She poked at me a few times this week and I did it take the bait. Husband said sit outside for a minute …that’s what I needed to reset. Glad he chose his words wisely.
Take a few deep breaths–take them quickly enough and you’ll be hyperventilating. That’s always helpful. Not.
And a clueless boss is very hard for me to deal with. If they are willing to be educated, fine, but if they know everything and are arrogantly convinced of their own omniscience, they are precisely the kind of people who sent me into business for myself.
Calm down. You’re upsetting yourself (in response to me saying, “you, or what you just said, is upsetting me”). There’s more but now I am actually upsetting myself so I’ll stop.
You are totally justified in your frustration and I wish there was something we consumers could do against these behemoths that know they don’t really have to pay attention to us because we have no choice. And it’s only getting worse every day as corporations are allowed to swallow up more small businesses so there is less choice. My preferred healthcare system has been bought by another one and now I have to create a new login/password because, of course, in 2025, it’s too difficult for them to write a program to take care of it.
Thank you for the lovely pictures of my birthplace. The takeover really upsets me and I appreciate people like you proving that it was not even a little bit necessary. One thing I don’t understand is that they’re using the attack on that DOGE kid as a reason and blaming it on DC, but the perpetrators are from somewhere else!
We could go on so many riffs… about the perps being apprehended and held accountable, which is exactly what functional law enforcement looks like. About the media insisting it’s a takeover when it’s a) appointment of an advisor who can make requests of the DC force only, no taking over permitted, because the judge promised a big fat injunction unless the feds back down, and b) wasting taxpayer money AGAIN policing chipmunks and pigeons for the sake of looking tough, and c) only convincing more people the Epstein files must be awful…. I need to hug a dog or something.
I love the bit of levity at the end about the park offenders!
I’m so sorry to hear you’re having to deal with this. Large faceless corporate “help” is anything but, isn’t it?! It’s infuriating to ME, and I’m not even an author. I can’t imagine keeping my cool if I were in your shoes.
We can all be a little proud of me because I did not say to the twerp: Would you tell a MAN to calm down? Would insist that a man should not be so upset when 138 of his books just disappeared? Would you darn near baby talk to a grown-arsed guy while you put him on hold five times?
Very near thing, though. I’m still stomping around the house muttering those questions and getting dirty looks from my cats.
Grace, in response to your comment to Make Kay, I honestly think we need to start saying those sorts of things to these people. Maybe it will make them stop and think how they are treating people just because they happen to be female. What’s worse, of course, is that a female was telling you that. I have over the years always told customer/technical support people who tell me that “it’s the computer’s fault” that I have an advanced computer degree and it’s people who program the computers, thereby telling “them (the computers)” what to do. I used to tell my first class for Introduction to Computers each semester that the students were more dangerous to computers than the computers were to them (this was way back in the 1980s when lots of people were very new to computers and were somewhat afraid of them) because, unless the computer fell down on their foot, there really wasn’t much else the computer could physically do to a human, whereas a human could do many malicious things to the machine. I always hope that it’s ignorance that causes people to do and say these sorts of things and learning something different can help (one of the few ways I’m optimistic about humans).
I have also done the Amazon cs dance–not as an author, but I feel this. I have one item on Amazon–and they claim the EPA co-wrote it. I wish I’d known that was happening while I was in grad school actually writing it. (smh)
It’s amazing what a rep will say (or type) with a straight face. And they will believe what their algorithms says over sworn eye witness testimony by five Eagle Scouts and Mother Theresa. Scary.
It’s known as Customer DIS-service around my house. And hearing that’s an issue for Sales & the current division where I’ve finally reached a human who cannot transfer my call because the two corporate divisions have no way of connecting or communicating… BOOM! There goes my temper.
Another source of fury is the lack of US, UK, Australian, New Zealand, Canadian or any other dialect of English fluency amongst call center employees. After existing in 22 countries on 4 continents so far, I can puzzle out most accents overlaying my native tongue. But when the call center waste of space speaks a dialect so obscure that I can’t puzzle out what they thought they meant they said, my rage could fuel an interstellar probe. WHY would any company supposedly serving English speakers hire…? Oh yeah. Gotta make those extra billions off some obscure peon willing to work for pennies a day. Grrrrrrr!
Glad to hear His Lordship will be gracing us with more adventures. Happy sigh!
Sing! It!
My husband has the habit of saying “that’s easy” when trying to explain how to do something that I don’t understand and/or have been trying (for too long) to figure out by myself. Well, that just makes me feel really stupid. If it were truly easy, I would have figured out how to do the something by myself!
And yet, he keeps saying it… he must like to live dangerously?
So frustrating! My sympathies, Grace Ann: I’ve been there. One time with Amazon, I was sent back and forth numerous times between the US and Canadian companies. Fun.
And you are the only customer ever, ever in the whole world and especially North America to be caught in that do-loop. You feeling special yet?
I am so sorry and hope that all of this gets put back together soon. I wish these customers would hire more trained people who *can* help and stop relying so much on artificial intelligence.
I am back on line, with all my books present and accounted for, but c’mon, Amazon. Geesh.
Um, I meant hire more companies not more customers.
I have had a similar run in with Amazon. Fortunately I am a nobody and was able to tell the rep on the other side of the world “forget it” and hung up.
I completely abandoned the situation and started over as if it didn’t exist. Amazing but it worked perfectly.
I am guessing you got your work back on line but I will hold out and only purchase from your web store.
I forget who said it, but she observed that unplugging, walking away, and trying again later works with a lot of devices and most people too. Sounds like an Ann Lamott kinda strategy.
It’s not just Amazon, Grace.
Every phone call I made yesterday was a lesson in frustration & others stupidity. & automated responses have limited selections to rarely apply to me.
There is no such thing as “Service ” with the big companies, & it’s worse if Ur not a techy or your computer is not working right.
& more & more companies don’t have a phone-in customer Service, everything is on line & chatbox. & some accents are impossible for me to understand.
I was on hold for 30′ & finally gave up, will have to go to the loval store & see what they can do.
I’ve done that with Apple, and even there… they kinda take the computer into custody and give me a number. I know the problem is not getting resolved in that store, so where, exactly, are they hiding the people who can actually service the product making the company so much money?
And what do you think about this one?:
“Don’t ley It affect you”.
Meaning, “In your shoes, I would be a quivering mass of furious, gelatinous protoplasm, but I’m perfectly willing to say the one thing guaranteed to show a complete lack of empathy and emotional intelligence just to make your sitch a little bit worse.” Yeah. Those people.
I fell your pain! First, Social Security simply can’t deal with a name that doesn’t fit their narrow parameters. My given name is Tina Ann Armato and no, “Ann” is not my middle name. My parents were told they couldn’t baptize me “Tina” as there is no saint Tina (and I surely won’t be the first….), so they tacked on Ann as part of my first name… no middle name. Like you, I couldn’t remember how I’d originally set up my login (did I lie and say “Ann” is my middle name? Did I run them all together with no space (Tinnann) because their form couldn’t deal with a space? What does Billy Bob Thornton recommend? Who knows? So for years I haven’t been able to log in to my Social Security account. Whatever….. I still get my statements snail mailed every year and dutifully pay my taxes. And then, recently my husband’s medical records seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth (or at least off any servers). And when I tried to set up a new account I was informed that his ID and birth date didn’t match. Well, for the last 47+ years, we’ve been celebrating his birthday on the same date. Tech….. Can’t live with it, Can’t live without it. And “Calm down” is my least favorite command and the most likely to have the opposite effect. Stay safe. Stay well everyone!
Welp, Tina Ann, we’ve been meaning to tell you, he’s not really your husband. He’s a cyborg doppelganger produced on an alien planet twenty seconds after your husband was born, but because the intergalactic calendar meridian was crossed in those twenty seconds, and because borgs cannot lie… but the system has spotted him now. Tune in again next week for Tech Stole My Man…
Dear Grace,
I am so sorry to hear about your terrible experience with Amazon. I think the last thing you would feel, under those circumstances, is calm. My husband often came away steaming from such calls, be it B T, British Gas etc. Now I sympathise with his frustration first hand. I hope it all gets sorted out soon.
Best wishes
Ursula
I also had a problem this last week trying to buy some of your older books for my Kindle! It would not accept my Name or my password.
This summer, I have gotten the new Covid that starts with headaches and has a lot of brain fog two times. After the infection is gone you are very tired for weeks.
I think I have reread everything you have written this summer while I have been sick. Your books have cheered me up and passed the time while I slowly recover.
Margaret, thank you for those kind words and my apologies for the tech glitches. Sorry to hear about that nasty old long COVID. If you will email me at [email protected], I will make SURE you have ALL the books you tried to order.
Oof, what a mess. That sounds awful; I’m sorry!!
You do have readers on Kobo, if you ever decide to jump the HMS Amazon entirely. I know flow of income, print vs. ebook processes, and the percentages of your audience that you can reach might vary by platform, but I suspect I’m not the only one who would follow you wherever you choose to dock. <3
For me, I find it especially difficult when someone makes me sound irrational or acts as though what I clearly recall happening (and have evidence for) did not happen. Especially around the state of things, right now. I am so weary of being labeled a pot stirrer when I’m just trying to respond to the fire in the kitchen.
I do more than feel your pain. I feel my own angeralong with yours. We believe (wrongly) in instances like this when you are under the impression these companies are really happy for your business and immediately ready to HELP you solve the issue.
Please every customer rep, if your are reading this, Please don’t tell me again not to be upset or your tone of voice is very impolite, or I’ll solve that issue in one moment, and 15 minutes later you are listening to what is now considered music blaring from your phone disturbing your peace and the rest of the world.
I agree with you, I do emathize with you, I would love to solve your issue but again you are speaking to another frustrated person on the waiting end of the phone,fumming. Your buterflies are beautiful and hopefully the “butterfly ice police” won’t find them. Good luck
Dear Grace, many years ago, an executive secretary working for a senior exec at a very large company offered the following advice. If you have an apparently unsolveable problem with a company, send a letter (perhaps an email today?) to the CEO. He/she has a large staff devoted to solving problems. Someone will have your problem added to a to-do list, the problem will be tracked, notice of the problem resolution will be required, and you should see speedy results. Best of luck!! This is such a waste of your energies when we need to see Atticus set on a golden path to a bright future!!
Thanks for Sir Julian, Leslie
Roving gangs of chipmunks are definitely to be feared! As for what ticks me off, younger male sales person, do not look at me like you are humoring me when I have specific questions about what you are trying to sell. I am not an idiot.
My dad’s family, especially my dad’s mother, God rest their souls, excelled at saying things that would start anyone up. Two favorites I remember right off hand: “I don’t know why you’re so upset” and “You’re just like your mother.”
I wish now that I had kept a journal of all the craziness. It would have made a great book, or at least source material for a great book! Actually that would make a great character, someone who always manages to say the most irritating or insulting thing possible, while claiming to be always right.
A third: “She/he’s not really sick.” (And I heard this said of someone who was dying slowly of COPD/emphysema.)
Well, first of all, this site was a wonderful discovery to free myself from A*****.
I have over 1300 books in my K***** (many form Grace) and the last policy change, that blocks the download, was to much for me.
Anytime I, in Italy, have to interact with customer care, I set myself in the mind frame of “this is a high qualified young person who cannot find another job” and try to be patient. People does not use Bible quotes here, but the information seeking and asking another guy with bad music is the same. Sometimes, being Italians, we team up and search a way around, and sometimes even find that. Have a nice day, love ^^
If you look on the internet for things not to say when in an argument, “Calm down” is one of the first to come up. You’d think they would at least have that much training for these poor souls that are required to help customers with legitimate problems.
One thing that frosts me is when I state something and someone asks “How do you know”. Sometimes it’s OK, but I have a PhD in molecular biology and if I say something within my field, don’t question how I learned or know something. Assume I know what I’m talking about. I think this is another of the things that males are not asked in similar situations. Aggravating!
Oh dear Grace
I am very sorry you had to go thru this. I hope you are able to breathe and aee a way ahead that works for you.
I am sure there will be a better way and you will find it.
With kindest love
Rose Costelloe
Sometimes I want to throw the phone against the wall and scream.
I’m a bit behind on reading your blog posts, so I hope you’ve been able to resolve what must be a very stressful situation with your books. I hate AI. Sure, sometimes it’s handy, but most of the time I don’t believe it anyway. It’s not worth wasting a 16-oz bottle of fresh water every. single. time. I do a web search (what the average AI center needs for cooling). I’m pretty even-keel, so I don’t have a particular hot-button phrase that will make me cranky, but certainly I don’t enjoy when it’s obvious that people are placating me.