To whom it may concern:

[conuly]

Some of us do not do well talking to people in real time. Some of us would prefer to make our complaints via email or snail mail, not live chat and phone. Make these options visible on your contact page.

(Also: Anne-Marie, note hyphen, is a valid first name for shipping. The hyphen is a valid character in English orthography. Shape up!)

Comments

[nostalgia]

YES.

(And although my name has no hyphen my address does and a surprising number of websites don't accept that.)

[steorra]

My street address used to be 414 1/2 E 14th Ave.

Figuring out how to get electronic systems to accept it took creativity.

[agoodwinsmith]

Yes. What you said. With angry jingling noises on.

[conuly]

I'm not quite sure which annoys me more, but.

[kengr]

Had a friend with a hyphenated last name and not only would the website for the local con not accept it, they had a "so what" type response to her complaining about it.

*way* too many "designers" of online forms and various computer programs get way too aggressive about filtering inputs. Except when they don't filter at all. :-(

[conuly]

And yet, if you're famous you can have your name legally changed to a symbol and force everybody to call you "The artist formerly known as Prince" and nobody bats an eye.

[redbird]

Well, you can try. The Washington Post (passive-aggressively?) reverted to its stylebook and called him "Mr. Nelson."

[conuly]

Good for them.

[archangelbeth]

IIRC, didn't he do that to get around some annoying contract? His music producer had rights to his name-as-Prince, so he changed it? *checks Wikipedia* Well, something like that. It was a weird protest thing, anyway.

'In 1993, while in a contractual dispute with Warner Bros., he changed his stage name to an unpronounceable symbol (Logo. Hollow circle above downward arrow crossed with a curlicued horn-shaped symbol and then a short bar), also known as the "Love Symbol", and began releasing new albums at a faster rate to remove himself from contractual obligations.'

[conuly]

If any of the rest of us tried that, the judge would laugh us out of court.

[archangelbeth]

I suspect it's less the fame and more the "has the money to send a lawyer to go down and slap that weird symbol on every form, by hand, at city hall" part. If wikipedia is right, name-changes in the US are more Tedious Jump Through Hoops than Convince A Judge It's Okay, with a few carveouts to keep people from naming themselves trademark violations.

[cesy]

It really annoys me when websites tell me my name is invalid.

[conuly]

Sigh.

[sallymn]

Good idea... some of us who are to be contacted/complained to would much rather do them by email too....

[conuly]

I bet!

[redbird]

I grew up in Queens, where all street addresses are hyphenated; the post office coped, but that was in the 1960s and '70s, before they started stripping apostrophes out of official place names. (One of my loves considered changing their name on marriage largely because they'd gotten so tired of computer systems that couldn't handle a name with an apostrophe in it. Irish computer systems, where they should be used to names like "O'Neill.")

[conuly]

You would really think that the programmers would've figured that one out by now.

[malkingrey]

Some of us do not do well talking to people in real time. Some of us would prefer to make our complaints via email or snail mail, not live chat and phone.

Word. I get to do most of the household phone work because I dislike it marginally less than Himself does, but it's a slim margin at best. I have to write out a point-by-point script for myself ahead of time if I don't want to sound like a stammering idiot.

The worst, though, are the ones where they give you a contact number, and when you phone them, you get a recorded message asking you to leave your number so they can call you back. Because their time is worth so much more than yours, and because they want to make sure you're aware of exactly who is calling the shots in the transaction.

[mama_kestrel]

I actually find I mind that less than the interminable hold accompanied by annoying "music" interspersed with "your call is important to us. Please continue to hold for the next available representative." Well, no, after I've been holding for 20 minutes my call clearly isn't remotely important to you. I would rather that they say right on the website that they will call you back. I think it's Apple that asks that you enter your phone number so that they can call you back within 2-5 minutes. I'm fine with that version.

[conuly]

Would it kill them to offer email, ffs?

[malkingrey]

Then they'd have to hire people who can actually read.

[spikethemuffin]

"The answer to 'Why don't they...' is always, 'Money.'"--- Robert A. Heinlein. That page was designed by Tammy in marketing's nephew Chad, who is studying web design at community college and will put this on his resumé/ portfolio. Tammy et al. have not figured out that: 1. Itzel in the call center can already do a much better job, even though Itzel and her supervisor have been pointing this out to HR for months and has sent a mock-up to Rob, the CEO (Itzel is great at web design but her understanding of corporate hierarchy may need a bit of tightening up); 2. They don't have to pay extra to employees who are on chat while they are on the phone, but they can charge extra for employees to "chat."

Guess in which field I most recently worked?

[dark_phoenix54]

This. I fucking hate the phone, and having to make my way through 15 minutes of automated phone tree just makes it worse.

[conuly]

I KNOW.

[zyzyly]

If I were to write a novel, a suspense novel, I would name one of the characters Hyphen, since the hyphen is a valid character.

[conuly]

Oh, ha ha.

[monanotlisa]

AGREED.

For my local delivery service, I literally had to put STOP CALLING ME AND JUST COME TO THE DOOR into my profile itself.

[conuly]

Given that "fix doorbell" is so far down our to-do list that it's barely even on it, I'm glad they do call now - but still.

[siderea]

Oh god oh god. I had a patient with a name very like "Anne-Marie", but in some computers she didn't get to have a hypen and in others she did, and our billing people once spent six months trying to figure out how to get bills through her insurance because the motherfuckers in the insurance IT field require the name fields to match, not just the policy number. Turns out somebody had managed to enter her somewhere as "Marie Anne". *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk*

[conuly]

Did insurance finally pay up?

[siderea]

Yes, apparently. Took some months.

[lusentoj]

Haha, about shipping.

I ordered a background check from the FBI and chose to get an electronic copy. Put in my Japanese address, it showed me a confirmation page, everything was fine. Upon opening my results a few days later, I found they'd removed ALL non-English characters from my address, literally leaving me with only the few digits in the address. I had also found out I had to get a physical copy of my results, but there's apparently no way to contact them so I can't just request a physical version of the results I already have and now I have to go through the whole process again.

But I'm damn glad I did the electronic copy first, so I know I have to write my address in English!

[grammarwoman]

WORD to the talking to people. I had a digital subscription to a newspaper that I could only cancel by calling or doing a live chat with someone. So much hate!

[conuly]

They do it on purpose to keep you from unsubbing.

[grammarwoman]

Ayup. And for the last-ditch effort to hard sell me on something else. Nope, don't want your podcasts either!