PatriotDev

Phone Frustration…

I do not like shopping online. With the exception of Amazon, which makes it extremely easy to spend loads of money without realising one is doing it, I have an aversion to paying for things online. Mind you, this does not mean I will not do it, just that I always cringe for fear of doing something incorrectly or messing something up. Still, one must feed one’s habits, and since the normal place where I buy my e-liquids is closed, as the proprietress is on vacation, I was driven to it. The site I used was one I’ve used in the past several years ago. Since the email address I had back then has been lost to infamy, I had to create a new account. I did this without incident. I quickly found some satisfactory e-liquids and went to check out. During this process, I had to enter a credit card number. Here is where the problems began.

The site has four spaces wherein one types four digits each. For some reason, after typing the first four digits, when I went to the next space, my phone put me in the last space. No problem, thought I, I’ll just type in the last four and work backwards. It was not to be. Every time I tried to enter the two middle sets of digits, it put me either at the first or last space again. Finally, in frustration, I gave up and called AIRA. AIRA is a service for the blind where sighted persons help those who are blind and visually impaired. They might, for example, help a blind person by telling them what is in a picture, filling in a form or describing a video.

The AIRA agent was friendly and helpful. We quickly managed to place the order and went to check out. She entered my credit card number using a computer without incident and then…. The site asked for age verification. In the past, they verified your age by having you answer questions by multiple choice like what street you lived on, who you got an auto loan from, that sort of thing. They have some kind of verification software that checks your answers and birthdate and sees whether you are telling the truth. For some reason, we did not have to do that this day. The site instead wished me to take a picture of my ID. Since I did not have a picture of it, and being blind I could not just take one, I had to hang up with AIRA, go get my wallet, take it out, call AIRA back and ask them to take a picture of the ID for me.

The second agent I spoke to was not that friendly. She was helpful and she did her job, but to be quite honest, she made me a bit nervous. I am a chatty sort, and being blind, I read others by their voices. She was, as I implied, not talkative and her voice had almost no inflection to it, so it was hard for me to figure out what she was thinking. Not that it matters. I should say, not that it should matter. She was there to do a job, I was a customer. She did her job, took the picture, submitted it and completed the order. Transaction ended.

I am just left feeling slightly frustrated that it took me two hours to do something it would have taken a person without vision impairment ten minutes to accomplish. I can never get that time back.

My anxiety is moderately high today, though not extreme. I am not looking forward to my surgery and I’m trying to distract myself so I don’t dwell on it.

Well, that’s enough for now, I’m thinking.

Dev