While Carol was in the ICU, my auto insurance came due. I wasn't paying enough attention to the "pay me now" notices in Carol's email, so I didn't pay it until a week late.

So, I went online to check that they'd received the payment, re-instated the insurance, get the little paper, etc.

And failed.

Carol took care of the financial things, but luckily, she kept all her passwords in the browser so I can access her accounts.

However, the AAA website kept giving me a "This action can not be performed." message when I tried to get a printable copy of the insurance. Then it failed to show me the billing/payment info. Then the AAA site just went offline and died.

Next day, I tried again, and could log in, but again could not get my certificates.

Ditto the next day, but this time I got a "Customer Satisifaction Survey."

I usually don't do these things. My huffy attitude is that my business is to test, analyze and configure computer stuff. If you want me to test and evaluate your system, you can pay me.

This time I filled out the survey. On scales from 0 to 10, I gave everything from "Did you accomplish what you wanted to do" to "Would you recommend this site to others" a 0. In the "Other Comments" I filled in the list of things I'd failed to do and suggested rather pointedly that they hire competent programmers and maybe a tester or two.

The next day everything worked.

Two days after that, I got hardcopies of all the paperwork I'd been trying to download via US mail.

I guess squeeking helps the wheel after all.