And don’t even think about trying to change your password.

I’d like to begin today’s post by wishing a very Happy Birthday to Furious Jessy. Be sure to wish her one as well. If you know what’s good for you.

Now, on to the topic at hand.

I want to talk about the Google.

Normally, I can get behind the stuff that the Google does. They are slowly taking over the world. And I’m, on a whole, okay with that. But yesterday, I found the line in the sand of which I cannot cross for the Google.

It all started simply enough.

Le Duc asked me to help them put a couple of his music videos on the YouTube. Which is super easy. Or so I thought. First, I came to the realization that they, meaning the Royal family of Lippincottonia, did not actually have the aforementioned videos. They wanted me to get them from Seasaw Shawn’s Vimeo page. Also, easy.

So, after locating the videos, I downloaded them to La Duchess’s laptop. This is where they stayed. But, I’ll get to that.

The next step in this uploading process was to log in to Le Duc’s YouTube account. Err…rrr…riiiiighht…

According to him, the login and password were on a Post-it note. Once I located said note, because that’s what I do, I quickly realized that I was, in fact, doomed. He had the same thing written down for both username and password. Crap.

So, I think about it for a minute and realize that he only has one email address, so that would be the obvious choice for the username. So, I type that in and then try the password that I found on the sticky note. Wrong. I then try every password combination he has used in the past 15 years. Also, wrong. Shit.

No worries. I’ll just reset the password. That was another moment of my underestimation coming back to punch me in the face.

What I failed to realize was that when Le Duc (meaning I) created this YouTube account, the Google hadn’t changed everything to be that whole “one username for everything/ united we Google” thing yet. So, it let him sign up for an account with his existing email address. Here’s how I became educated about my naivety:

Step one: Click “need help”

Step two: click “I don’t remember my password”

Step three: enter email address

Step four: click “continue”

Step five: verify my (Le Duc’s) cell number

Step six: ask the Google very kindly to send a verification code via text message

Step seven: wait patiently for the next fifteen minutes for a text that never comes

Step eight: Repeat steps six and seven three more times

Step nine: feel rejected by the Google

Step ten: click on some button that says something about “trying another method to recover your password”

Step eleven: type in the last password you remember using

Step twelve: type in an email address that the Google can contact you at if they need to

(This is the part where I become angry.)

Le Duc has one email address. That’s it. One. I type in that email address for the contact email. The Google kindly informs me that I can’t use the email address on the account that I am trying to retrieve the password for, seeing as how I can’t log in to check the email. That would be solid logic, the Google, if this were actually a Gmail account. But it is not.

No worries, I’ll just give them my email, which I can check, and we can move forward.

They accepted that.

Step thirteen (required): provide the dates of the last login to the account and the date the account was created

(FUCKING SERIOUSLY?! THAT IS SOMETIME BETWEEN FEBRUARY OF 2011 AND NOW!!! ASSSSSHHHHHOOOOLLLLEEESSSS!!!)

Step thirteen and a half: guess wildly at the dates that were requested

Step fourteen (not required): provide a list of up to four devices that utilize this account and the dates when you started using this account on those devices

Step fifteen: pound fists into desk as you read the statement about “some of the information you entered not matching the information in your account”

Step sixteen: pound fists into desk again, then switch to waving them toward the heavens as the Google suggests you “try resubmitting your request for a password recovery” (read that as start back at step one.)

I did this so many times that it stopped letting me try to send text messages that never came.

So, I asked the Google for help. The FAQs and the support center both pretty much redirected me to the process I was just doing and failing at, in about thirty different variations. All ending back with step one. I finally found something that didn’t send me back to step one, although, it wasn’t much better. It was the written equivalent of the Google shrugging their shoulders at me and telling me to just create a new account because they are never ever ever ever going to let me back in to this one and I should just cut my losses and move on with my life.

It was at this point that I just gave every computer in vicinity the finger and walked away.

The Google thinks that Le Duc’s email is a Gmail account that was used to set up everything in his Googleverse. Which it was not. Since it is not, he never got the notifications to constantly update his account info over the course of three years, therefore the info in the account is all wrong and stupid and I hate it.

And that is where I draw the line. That whole “well it’s your fault for not staying up on the changes that we made to our corporate policy as we take over the world” thing. Give me Google cable any day of the week, but let me change my fucking password without having to submit a fucking blood sample, you jackasses.

See ya’ tomorrow.

More soon. ~SC