relentless

 jesus, four days of this nasty whatever-the-fuck-this-is and not being able to sleep periods of perpetual coughing and nose-blowing and difficulty getting enough oxygen and i am sooooooo over it.

it feels like there's always something preventing me from getting a good night's rest. if it's not covid or this shitty running nose / chest infection thing, it's muscular discomfort or nerve pain or anxiety or just about anything.

i need to fucking sleep.

...

yesterday (as in sunday, i'm still in the middle of last night), to my wife and son's delight, i picked up "chipotle chillis" that promised to a) be entertaining and b) make my sinuses flow. over dinner i took out a large one, chewed through it (it's chewy) and it set my mouth and throat ablaze in a painful yet satisfying way. gd finally has a recording of me in tears hiccuping uncontrollably, and my son (i hope) now understands that concept of a non-dit ("we're going to get ten thousand likes on youtube!", he yelled enthusiastically while gd was recording).

i got through that first one without needing anything to wash it down / soak it up with food or drink. it was pretty hot, though, enough that my tongue actually felt like it was damaged burned.

after lunchtime breakfast yesterday (now i mean monday, because it is past 3am after all), i decided to give the chillis another go. i took small ones, and i was... disappointed. like, i barely tasted or felt anything. like, i was pretty certain that i'd burned off my tastebuds.

then in the late afternoon, convinced that it was barely going to have an effect, i picked up another little one. my wife and son were tooling around in another part of the apartment and being loud and couldn't hear me, but this single bite was the most powerfully hot chilli i've ever eaten in my life. it seared my tongue and cheeks and the roof of my mouth, it burned me so badly that i stomped my feet and hiccuped and cried and gasped for air and was entirely incapable of speech for a while, and boy was i grateful to learn that the half-cup of barista oatly we had left in the fridge could suppress the fire, even if i did have to hold it in my mouth and not swallow because the moment i swallowed all the pain returned instantly.

jesus.

i don't recall the last time i threw away an unfinished chilli, the entire thing was two teeny tiny bites and there was no way in hell i was going to take the second one.

...

i suspect this one might burn on the way out :(

...

after a month and a half of trying to make contact with my credit card company, i opened their app yesterday morning and browsed through their fake offer of a loan with good terms (i'd seen their promotions for it and was considering taking out a local loan to pay off my overseas debt). quickly realizing that it was just another bullshit corporate scam, i closed the app and forgot about it.

a couple of hours later, someone called me to "help me out" because they'd seen that i'd reviewed their advertising.

of course.

i told the guy i'd talk to him about the loan after he helped me sort out my incorrect phone number, without which i've been unable to communicate with them because every communication channel of theirs requires an authentication code via sms only and their systems - for some reason - cannot send an sms to my twilio number.

so anyway, he put me through to a support agent directly. and i was stunned when someone answered almost immediately - i actually needed a moment to compose myself!

the agent wanted me to authenticate myself. fine. i answered his questions with no hesitation until he asked me to give him an example of a recent transaction. i wracked my brain, remembered a purchase from friday.

"no, not friday. before friday."

wtf?! i have trouble recalling what i did yesterday without looking at my own blog (or scrolling through social media, my calendar and emails hunting for evidence), so in frustration i open the app and manage to pull up a list of my recent transactions. but no matter what i tell him - and i'm reading from the list of transactions they maintain - the agent tells me "sorry, i don't see that".

at this point i lose my composure entirely, because their systems are obviously broken if i'm seeing stuff that my agent cannot. i yell for his manager, he informs me that his manager was unavailable just now.

right.

i offer him a couple more transactions to no avail, then eventually he has an epiphany and triggers a voice authentication code to my phone. the same number they've called me on, the same number they cannot send me smses to, the exact functionality that is unavailable via website, whatsapp or the telephone call menu system.

holy shit.

so i put the agent on hold to switch to the call, catch the number on the second listen (i was beyond flustered at that point, and struggled to keep four hebrew numbers in my head while half-convinced that he'd hang up on me before i could switch back), say it back to him and *boom*

authenticated.

he agrees that i'm me, he updates my number. he agrees to send me an sms authentication code just to make sure that he's got my number right. i get the sms.

*whoosh*

a month and a half of messages and calls and visits to my bank and pure kafka-esque frustration with these morons is over.

achievement unlocked.

so.

me being me, i say something along the lines of "right, now you're going to do two things. first, you're going to escalate to anyone who will listen that your systems are broken..."

"that's not something i can do. and besides, our systems aren't broken."

"how do you explain that you couldn't see the transactions i was referring to?"

"what's broken? nothing's broken. the system only shows me a select few transactions, not all of them!"

a part of my mind exploded right there on the sidewalk.

"what the hell is the point of that?! how does that help anyone???" [and why the fuck didn't you say that in the first place, you stupid fuck?]

"they can't just show us everything, do you want us to be able to just give you the answers?!"

holy shit. the combination lack of iq and basic education that could generate such a stupidly illogical statement. i simply could not wrap my head around what i was hearing.

"and besides, sir, let me stop you right there. why are you even going on about a problem that we've already resolved?"

brilliant. he'd found my big red button.

"because i don't want to have to go through such a ridiculous challenge in the future! because i don't want other people to have to go through it either!"

"i can't escalate that, i don't have the authority."

"you don't have the authority to do your damned job? or you're small minded?" [in hebrew: "you have a small head", it sounds much better]

"i'm not small-minded. it's not my job to..."

by this point i'd really lost my temper. i yelled at him for "having the smallest head there is" and did the "you have a good day now" thing, drawing some smidgen of satisfaction from his confused "you too" before hanging up on him.

...

i was utterly blown away.

i'm still blown away.

i somehow managed to put the episode on hold for a few minutes and took care of the errand i'd been on, but on my walk home, i mulled over our "conversation" and this past month and a half of fighting with these cretins, and eventually came to the unsatisfying conclusion that CAL visa is a financial company built on broken / badly designed systems held together by the earwax and drool of their otherwise unemployable employees.

...

i'm so tired that i want to just slide back into bed, but i'm so frustrated that i'm put off even trying to sleep. and this is the second last "sleep" before our big meeting on wednesday...