Surviving Frustration

 It was a beautiful morning-chilly but with the promise of a sunny warm afternoon.  I was looking forward to working on Crochet and Crumpet book 3 now being called  FALLING LEAVES, TEA YARN AND MURDER or maybe just TEA YARN AND MURDER.  I just had to do a Zoom meeting first.

I have met with this person before with no problem with the logistics and was expecting it to be the same.  I like to do meetings in the room we call the studio which used to be the garage.  Instead of a dark enclosure, it now has windows and glass door that let in light.  The walls are white and it is nicely furnished and not a mess.  At the moment it is still decorated for Halloween.

I set up my computer and confidently clicked on the email to take me to the meeting.   It gave me two options to sign in and neither of them worked.  I kept going in circles, trying again and getting nowhere.  Eventually, the person I was meeting sent me a text and then tried to help me sign in.  Nothing worked and we set up another time and she gave me the number of their tech support since she had set up the meeting.

When bad stuff happens with computers, I always feel it is my fault.  Even though since this always worked before, it is either some change that Apple made or the place that set up the meeting.  I wasted way too much time and all I figured out was that it might have worked out on my phone.

It took a while to shake free of the frustration of going in circles and getting nowhere and then I  checked my email and there was another missive from the settlement  for my books stolen by the AI company.  It was long and hard to make sense of, but it seems I have to fill out  the same form I have filled out and then refilled out twice.  And I'm not even sure what it is that I need to change.  And I thought the email was going to be about the payments they are supposed to be sending out this month.  Again, it feels like my fault that I didn't fill out the form correctly even though there instructions were  hardly clear.

I was not up for dealing with it right away.  I needed to build up my tolerance to frustration that is sure to be part of filling it out.  

 Just the other day, my husband forwarded me an email about renewing a URL he owns.    It appeared to be an automatic renewal for three years and to have already been charged to a credit card.   There are too many scams out there and even though it looked legit in that it had his user name and some other information, I didn't trust it.  Instead of calling the number in the email, I looked up the Company's number and contacted them directly.  The email my husband got was not sent by the real company and there was no automatic renewal etc.  More time wasted, but at least  it was taken care of.

There are a lot of nice things about the Internet and being able to do virtual meeting.  But only when they work.  AI is nice when you can get an answer to a question you type into a browser, but not when they steal creator's work.  Even worse when they make it hard for them to get their compensation. compensation.

 Finally, I  just put in a load of laundry and was relieved when I pushed the on button and heard the water turn on.  Finally, success at something with no wasted time.  A cup of coffee and I will go back to Annie Sara and Gray's latest adventure.