Hello, world. That fucking Monday is back again. Don’t make eye contact, don’t engage with it, maybe it will go away.
After yesterday’s horrifying trip to Alabama to dole out some tech support, I’m not being social for at least a week. Mom warned me, “he’s fucking stupid, he wasn’t always this stupid, but he’s that helpless stupid.” I’ve done tech support for ISPs and a major national bank’s online banking system. I was only going to help order a birth certificate, how bad could this be?
It was bad. He’s lived down here for a couple of years now, and has been using his Rhode Island license. As near as I can tell, he had a problem trying to get an Alabama driver’s license. He doesn’t know the exact reason Alabama couldn’t set him up with the RealID stuff using his current I’d. The closest answer we could get from him was something about a name not matching records. Based on that info, and two hellish hours experienced in an old man’s rocking chair, it could’ve been due to any of the following:
- He doesn’t know how to spell his middle name
- He’s pretty sure that’s his middle name
- Maiden names are confusing, because he’s not sure whose last name that is supposed to be, his mother’s or his grandmother’s
- Conversely, changing names with marriage is also confusing, especially when there’s a “last name after marriage” option for both parents.
However, we eventually ordered a copy of his birth certificate. All set, right?
Pennsylvania’s vital records system requires backup documentation to verify you when you order copies. This brought up two new problems. First, I’ve ordered everything using his laptop, and it wants me to upload photos of the supporting documents. That’s not happening on the laptop because it was already and absolute ordeal to get that far. I ask him to log into his phone’s email for the link. Whatever faith I had that this man is anything more than a sentient bag of meat is gone.
He has an email, but doesn’t use it. Naturally, he doesn’t know the password. If I’m to believe the three sheets of printer paper he handed me, he actually has at least three email addresses. The papers were lists of his email addresses, passwords, and PINs.
On top of that, he uses Yahoo. The Yahoo email app needed him to log three times – once for his Yahoo account, once for the phone, and then finally the email. The Yahoo account and the email are the same, but the passwords were different. I think he had a stroke somewhere around halfway through the entire ordeal. When it asked for his phone’s password, he suddenly couldn’t figure out its unlock code.
I locked his phone. “Unlock it”, I said. He did. “Now type that code in again.”
Unfortunately, in the 60 seconds it took him to unlock his phone, the app’s screen had refreshed and locked him out.
Again.
At the end, I’m still not sure if he’s going to get his birth certificate.
I’m going to put pants on and go workout some of yesterday’s remaining frustration.
Well, my fingers are crossed that the BC was successfully ordered.
Wow that’s awful. I have found that anytime I need to ‘scan’ something and provide a PDF I just take a pic with my phone 1 email it to the email my computer can access and then paste the photo into word. Then you can save it as a PDF. But just think you’re moving to Canada and you’ll be too far away to have to worry and help soon! Hooray!!!!
I considered that, but I was doing everything I could to avoid using anything that required me to go through his files out of fear of what I would/could find.
Naturally, that desire backfired on me and I ended up getting a good look at his bookmarks yesterday 🤢🤮