Web CT hates me

Neek, originally uploaded by wherepineswhisper.

According to the Urban Dictionary Online, a "neek" is a cross between a nerd and a geek. I needed one today.

I was happily reviewing and returning proposed bibliographies to my Personality class, when I logged out for something or other. When I tried to log back in, it wouldn't let me! I could get into WebCT, and from there to my Ethics class, but clicking on Personality just got me a blank screen. Not even an error message.

So. I'm proctoring the Ethics exam and so can hardly get on the phone. I go to the Support page and start a Chat. The first fellow tells me my problem is because I am using Mozilla Firefox (not). So, knowing it will do me no good (I mean, it's never been a problem before, and I can get into one class, so how could it be Firefox??), I log off, close Firefox, and open Microsoft Internet Explorer. Of course, it does not work.

So I log back into Chat and get another fellow, who asks me to wait one while he reads the report I just filed. Which identifies me, by the way, as the Instructor for this course. So I wait. And wait. And wait.

And then I get a message from him asking, "We haven't heard from you in a while. Do you still want to talk about this problem?" I answer politely that he told me to wait. I think, what, you want me to whistle or something while I wait?

So I wait some more. Then he asks me if can see the "My Computer" icon. I'm a bit of an impatient person, so I fire back, "What does the 'my computer' icon have to do with anything?" A reasonable question, in my opinion. We exchange a few more lines, and then he asks if I'm sure the Instructor has given me the necessary permissions to access this class! He tells me that it is up to the Instructor to do that.

I'm betting if I had logged on with a man's name he would not have said that.

Again, more polite than I'm feeling, I respond nicely: "I AM the Instructor!" OK. Sort of nicely. I only yelled one word. And I didn't call him names.

We finally got on the same page, as it were, and he had me do something esoteric in Java, and it works fine now. But good Lord!