As a valuable and highly-trained Internet Tech worker, I hop jobs frequently. When I worked at AOL I had an AOL email address that I used as a business and personal account. When I quit that company I had to change my personal email address. My next address was something like dude@netscape.com. Then Netscape folded, and that address was no good too. So I used my next work address for personal email. Until I quit that company and was once again orphaned. At that point I decided that enough was enough and I ought to get my own goddamned domain name and email address that I would never-ever change. Ever. I went to GoDaddy.com because it was cheap and featured Danica Patrick in few clothes.
Lies. The hot chicks are all lies. At GoDaddy there is only sadness and despair.
Because I’m a witty dude, I picked “Mr Victim.com.” for my domain. So my address is paulmurphy@mrvictim.com. Which is hilarious. Except when I have to give it to somebody over the phone, then it’s unmitigated torture. The conversation always goes like this:
Phone Dude: And what is your email address, Mr. Murphy?
Me: I’d prefer not to say.
Phone Dude: We need it to verify…
Me: Yeah, yeah. Okay, it’s Paul Murphy at Mister Victim dot com. Let me spell that out for you.
Phone Dude: Mister… Tim? Could you please spell that out for me, Mr. Murphy?
Me: I just said… never mind. It’s ‘p a u l m u r p h y at m r v i c t i m dot com.’ Got it?
Phone Dude: M r v i c… Mister Victim…?
Me: Miserably. Yeah. It’s uh, kind of a joke.
Phone: Oh, ha ha. Very funny. Could you repeat that please?
And on it goes. I’d love to change it, but I’d rather fry my eyeballs in lard than have to tell everybody that I’ve got a new email address. It’s just too painful to contemplate.
The other day I wanted to add a new email address to my domain. (To run a new Twitter account. Long story. Not very interesting.) In order to do that, I needed to log into my account at GoDaddy, which I hadn’t done in about a year. The process went something like this.
GoDaddy Website: Hi! What is your customer login name?
Me: Is it this? Typetypetype.
GoDaddy Website: No.
Me: Then I forget.
GoDaddy: No problem! What is your customer number?
Me: I have no idea.
GoDaddy: Hmm. What is your password?
Me: Is it this? Typetypetype.
GoDaddy: No.
Me: How about this? Typetypetype.
GoDaddy: Hardly.
Me: Then I forget.
GoDaddy: Here’s your password hint. Does that help?
Me: Typing and cursing. Apparently not.
GoDaddy: Sighs. What is the email address you used when creating the domain? “
Me: I dunno. Let me test several dozen possible addresses and go through your horrid “captcha” robot test for every one.
Long angry pause filled with more typing and more cursing.
GoDaddy: You got the captcha wrong. Again.
Me: Eat me. Type.
GoDaddy: You got the captcha right, but we have no record of that email address. Jesus. How many gmail accounts have you abandoned over the years anyway?
“You can tell I’m not a robot by the way my eyeballs are bleeding while trying to interpret this chicken-scratch.”
Me: Shut up. Typetypetype.
GoDaddy: Wow. At last. That one works. Christ you’re an idiot. We’ve sent a password reset link to that address. Do you think you can find your way there to click on it, you bonehead?
Me: Die why don’t you? Typetypetype.
Gmail: Welcome back to the email address you used for 20 minutes that one time three years ago when you were setting up your GoDaddy domain and haven’t thought of since. Do you remember your password?
Me: Is it this? Typetypetype.
Gmail: No it is not.
Me: How about this? Typetypetype.
Gmail: Not even close. Want us to send you a password reset?
Me: Sure. Why not?
Gmail: Do you remember which email address you gave us when you set up this account?
Me: Silence.
Gmail: You don’t, do you?
Me: [Brain explodes messily.]
I'm Just Sayin' 