Monkeys Typing Shakespeare

An anonymous tip came in from 26-year-old John Mistretisky of 174 Main Street in San Jose, California (John’s wife’s name is Cynthia and he has four kids, a boat and a credit card ending in 2412). This anonymous tipster called to tell us that seven of our monkeys were working for the Yahoo! Music Service. That explains a LOT!

We use their service during the day. As you know, music soothes the savage beast. However, recently, each time the Yahoo! Music Jukebox would switch from one song to another it would cause our computer system to come to a near stand-still. As you can imagine, this does not bode well for an organization trying to get monkeys to type a Shakespearian sonnet. You have no idea how much monkey poo would get thrown at the computer monitors each time the system would stall.

In any case, I did what a lot of savvy Interweb users do when confronted with a technical problem from a major Interweb company. That is, AFTER throwing poop at the screen. I went to their website. On the website I found a help screen. On the help screen I found a form. The form wanted Active-X. It told me it needed Active-X AFTER I filled out the form with all the details of my problem (the music problem — not the problem of being a scientist in charge of a monkey typing lab). I was using Firefox. I switched to IE (IE is lame) and filled out the form again. I agreed to install the active-x. I filled out the form and submitted it. The Active-X began to do its thing. It took 5 minutes. After 5 minutes it told me it couldn’t complete its thing. My message wasn’t sent.

I called Bongo over and asked him for help. He came over to my computer and tried. It didn’t like him either. We started searching Yahoo!’s website for a phone number to Yahoo!. There are no phone numbers to Yahoo! on Yahoo!’s web site. So, we did what savvy Interweb users do when they can’t find information on Yahoo! We searched Google for phone numbers for Yahoo!

By the way, I’m not that excited. It’s just that Yahoo!’s name includes an exclamation point.

We found a number for Yahoo! and called them. That number is 866-562-7219. Use that number if you want to call Yahoo!

That wasn’t the right number for our problem. The right number at Yahoo! for our problem was 800-318-0631. This is the number for the Yahoo! Music Service. We got that from Tom. Tom is a customer support person who was reading from a script that we think was written by one of our monkeys. When I told Tom I had tried submitting my problem through their Web form and that I had also tried to re-download and install the software, Tom was very helpful. He suggested I submit my problem through their Web form or that I could try re-downloading and installing their software.

When I was a kid I used to watch the Twilight Zone (in reruns — I’m not THAT old). I was now in the Yahoo! Zone. I didn’t like being in the Yahoo! zone. I think Tom was making fun of me. I don’t think Tom’s real name was Tom but that has nothing to do with this. In any case, I asked Tom if he was reading from a script.

Tom forwarded me to Raymond. I don’t know if Raymond’s real name was Raymond but that’s beside the point. Raymond was twice as helpful as Tom. Yeah, do the math.

I told Raymond what I had told Tom. Raymond was a much better listener. I think Raymond is the kind of guy I could drink a beer with and talk about programming. Tom was just lame. Raymond was very sympathetic to my problem. Tom feigned sympathy. Raymond put me on hold for 3 minutes to find out how he could better help me. Tom had put me on hold TWICE and for about 5 minutes each. Raymond came back and told me that before he could escalate my call and help me I would need to send an email to yahoomusicengine-feedback@cc.yahoo-inc.com. I’m not going to invite Raymond to drink a beer with me and talk about programming. I don’t like Raymond anymore. I don’t like Yahoo! anymore.

We are going to send one of our chartered busses to Yahoo! to pick up our monkeys and bring them back here. Tom and Raymond will have to do without our monkeys preparing scripts for them. Bongo just threw poop at the screen. He doesn’t like Yahoo! either.

To recap: Yahoo! is lame. To reach Yahoo! call 866-562-7219. To reach Yahoo! Music call 800-318-0631.