Message Board Fuhkup Part 1

Tuesday night I decided to switch over the message boards to an upgraded version of the software after months of looking it over. I was bored with the old message boards, and I was frustrated by the limitations it had regarding uploading photos, and a lot of other cool stuff I wanted to do. So I took them down after reading and re-reading the instructions.

What I didn't count on was the limitations my own webhost had placed on me. Understandably, though, they have some very serious security protocols that I'm grateful for. I was confused, however, by the lack of support when it came to fixing the screw-up I'd single-handedly created. Now, don't get me wrong. I didn't expect anyone to drop everything they were doing and tend to my needs, but I was very confused when the people helping me gave the message boards I was using such bad reviews and suggested a third-party board hosting alternative. I was confused because it was the owner of the company himself who had originally suggested the specific message boards I was using, and he was very VERY helpful when it came to the topic of these message boards.

Now I'm being helped by some guy I'd never talked to, then by yet another stranger who sent me the obligatory "we appreciate your patience" email. I felt like I was reading the script for some nightmarish Verizon telephone recording right before I was connected to some overseas support desk. It's Saturday night now, and the last email I got was yesterday telling me they were still trying to figure everything out. I decided Thursday to say "fuck the upgrade" and I loaded everything back the way it was.

I've been able to access the administrative parts of the message boards, but I can't update anything, or unlock the message boards because of server settings that aren't letting me do what I need to do. This has really got me to thinking. I realize now this is not the sort of customer service I want. I realize now the degrees of separation between the owner of the company and myself have been great enough to leave me feeling less important a customer than when I last talked to the owner. In other words, I'm ready to cut back on the service I'm relying on these people for, and I'm going to start looking at third-party folks. Since I'll have to put the money on these 3rd party people, I'm going to cut back what I'm paying my current webhost and scale back their share of my website load and bandwidth. Everyone tells me I pay too much, anyway. When they told me this, I always justified it to them (and mostly to myself) that the price was worth every penny because of the customer service. Now that I'm not as important as I once felt I was, I cannot in good conscience continue this business relationship.

Step 1: Switch the emails.

More of this coming soon...