Getting the October 2011 issue of Forever Nocturne formatted and sleek was an effort in frustration. I had nothing but problems with formatting and links being stripped out, paragraphs being rearranged – and then it happened on my personal blog a week later. So – being me – I decided to contact WordPress Support. 

Here’s my support request (demand?):

OK, I’ve held my tongue for a week now, but this is ridiculous. WTH is going on with WP lately? In some of my pages I was formatting last weekend, paragraphs were rearranged – and not by me! I pasted them in correctly. Widgets wouldn’t save correctly (one widget contained links, and when I hit save, all or some of the links would be stripped out). This was on my blog forevernocturne.wordpress.com. Now on my other blog sharongerlach.wordpress.com, I just formatted three footer widgets with images and links, went to view the blog to see how it looked – and the widgets had reverted back to the old widget content despite the fact that I SAVED THE THINGS THREE TIMES!!!!!!! I do not have time for this!!!!!

I received this reply today:

Hi there,

Sorry for the trouble. I would like to get some more information. Can you please walk me through the problem?

1. What’s the issue? Please be as specific as possible.

2. What web browser and version are you using? Please try using a different browser like Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox.

3. Where are you encountering the issue? Please send specific links.

Screenshots are a huge help – can you please send screenshots of the issue so we can better understand the issue? Please see http://en.support.wordpress.com/make-a-screenshot/ for information on making screenshots.

Kind regards,
[technician’s name withheld] – Happiness Engineer
Automattic | WordPress.com

SAY WHAT?!?!?! My jaw dropped, bouncing off my marble table and sending excruciating pain through my entire head, which is, no doubt, why I keyed this reply without second thought:

Dear [technician’s name withheld],

If you were indeed a Happiness Engineer, you would not have sent me that response, because it did not engineer any happiness in my frustrated little heart. Did I NOT already explain the problems I experienced and where they were happening? The only thing I omitted was my browser. I was using Google Chrome. I tried Firefox – which gagged & puked on your widgets. Internet Explorer does not get fired up on my computer. At. All.

If you were indeed a Happiness Engineer, you would not have asked me for screenshots of these problems, because what could they tell you? That yes, indeed, my paragraphs were rearranged and my links as well as the formatting on another page were stripped out, and that my widgets didn’t save with the information I just put in them.

If you were indeed a Happiness Engineer, your response would have included these words (or something close): “WordPress was experiencing some highly frustrating technical difficulties which made us wonder if stone tablets and chisels weren’t a better way to communicate after all. But everything is back to normal now, and the technicians who had to figure out the problem are now undergoing psychotherapy for extreme frustration and technology rage, as well as seeing eye specialists about correcting vision problems caused by hour after mind-numbing, eye-crossing hour of searching code for the culprit.”

Because, [technician’s name withheld], I’d rather hear the truth than be asked canned questions that demand I explain what I’ve already explained, which tells me you didn’t bother reading my complaint to begin with.

Now you can try to be a real Happiness Engineer by taking this message back to your boss: “I understand the need for certain questions and information that aren’t always forthcoming in the original complaint. So instead of having your Happiness Engineers copy & paste a standard response, please have them read the complaint in full first, and have them actually – gasp – engineer an appropriate response from scratch. THAT is true customer service.”

I baked a chocolate cake. Two layers. With cream cheese frosting. I served it, making my kids, my husband, and my granddaughter smile. You see, [technician’s name withheld], that makes ME the true Happiness Engineer.

Sincerely,
Sharon Gerlach
Writer on the Edge

Although I felt better after writing it, I didn’t send my response. 

Because it’s so hard to get good help these days.