So much for online convenience

One thing about online convenience: Every way it makes your life easier contains the potential to make your life infinitely harder. Eventually you’ll find yourself cursing at your computer screen in impotent rage. Because the very thing that makes the internet so convenient — no human contact — is what makes it so maddening when the magic goes away.

Today I find myself locked out of my online bank account. This has happened before. Ever since the swine at Capital One 360 took over my former online bank ING, my sign-in number appears to be good for only one or two accesses. Then it quits working and the account gets locked and I have to go through this long process to reset the number. I’ve done it four times now. I answer a bunch of personal questions, like who was the secret lover of my third-grade teacher, and I get a code via e-mail allowing me to change my sign-in number yet again.

The problem today is that the e-mail with the code hasn’t come. Capital One 360 says they sent it, but it’s been an hour and there’s no e-mail. So I have no code. So, for the time being, my money and my tax information does not technically exist. I’m trying to be calm here, but just writing this makes me want to put my fist through the monitor.

It’s my fault, I suppose. This morning I woke up and said to myself: “Today I will do the taxes.” I assembled the pertinent materials on the kitchen table and poured a cup of coffee and went to work. I quickly discovered some shortcomings in my filing system: I was missing important documents like my wife’s W2, and the Form 1098 showing mortgage interest paid. Then I realized I needed some documentation for the infinitesimal amount of interest income generated by my meager accounts at Capital One 360. Hey, it’s all available online! And of course, that’s when my sign-in number was rejected yet again. The tax-doing is now on hold.

I call it Dave’s Law of Cascading Glitches: One tiny glitch leads to a medium glitch, which leads to a big glitch, which, in the fullness of time, makes every small task Sisyphean in nature. You go to replace a washer in a faucet and end up replacing the entire damned bathroom. It’s starting to feel like that. I hate the IRS and I hate Capital One 360 and I hate the North Koreans, who are no doubt responsible in some way. I’m frustrated, angry, pissed off and thoroughly unamused.

And if I ever reach a sentient being at Capital One 360, I will find it very difficult to be polite.