Finally!

After almost two weeks of almost ‘tearing my hair out’, spending countless hours attempting to contact a real person at Google and writing more emails to the Help staff and Help Forum – with either no response or a programmed response that took me in circles – my blog is up and running again.  I was surprised one morning to read an email from a family member advising that my blog had disappeared.  Again!  This happened last year about this time.  My custom domain expired even though I had found someone to help me last year, and I was assured that the problem had been fixed and reset to auto-renew.  This time I was able to make a payment and was assured that my blog (that was locked) would be reinstated within twenty-four hours.  But it didn’t happen!  I watched and waited – and checked my bank account to find that my payment had cleared my bank.  Still, no blog.  I paid for services that I did not receive.  I left messages on countless help screens, begging and pleading for help and for a real person to contact me.  Two nice people at the company that manages Google/Blogger custom domains, helped put me in touch with some helpful information.  Something on my blog indicated that I had cancelled my blog and indicated that I did not care to renew my domain.  Finally – early this morning, my phone rang and a nice lady told me she had been assigned to work on my situation.  She stayed on the phone with me and carefully, patiently walked me through a process I supposedly should know – with passwords assigned over three years ago, which I didn’t know.  When she reached a dead end she asked if she could call me back.  And she did!  She had spoken with someone who could unravel the complicated ‘unusual’ situation.  Then she carefully guided me through the process until she could ‘see’ my blog again.  I don’t know what she did but suddenly – my blog was back.  I felt that an old, long-lost friend had returned.  I sat here and smiled and thanked her endlessly.  And then – I wished her goodnight!  You see, this sweet lady was in Eastern Europe.  Part of the Google ‘Enterprise’ billing staff.  She – who had originally told me she was about to go home for the night – stayed over a bit to return the call she promised to make with the information needed to solve the problem.  She stayed with me until the problem was resolved.  And then she wished me a good day.  Two ladies on opposite sides of the world – in flip-flopped time zones – spoke kindness and appreciation and words of friendship for a few moments.  And my faith in humanity (and Google) was restored a bit.  One early morning in Oregon.  One late evening on the other side of the world.