Zoe Girl
6-21-11, 7:30pm
Okay I cried. and it started an afternoon breakdown where off an on I have cried (and i DO have therapy next week, have some idea of the core issue in this)
So I need to find out what my 401K at Target is worth. Somehow this is a totally craptastic process that has taken 3 days, i still don't have the information and I am so frustrated I could scream, okay instead on call #7 I just cried.
I write down ALL my passwords and even the answers to the information retrieval questions. This is in my secure place, won't share where on the internet after all, but in any case this information is not lying around. I found years ago that sometimes I wrote down the name I gave my first car and other times I write down the make and model so I couldn't get a new password set up over this. Other sites will ask you different questions if you don;t get them correct the first time and I have never had a major issue getting a password re-set until now.
So i tried to get to my account and had my user name and password written down and it said wrong. So I realized I had to change a password at the Target store for work and tried that, still wrong. Then I went back and tried my previous password, still wrong. I tried each one twice to account for typos. Still wrong and now account locked. So I wait until proper business hours and call. I give them my information like 3 times typed into the phone system and when I get a person I get asked for my name. Yeah right, okay I do that (wondering why do they ask for my team member number if they don't know it when they speak to me). The person tries to reset my password and all she can do is type in the same information I do. So they are going to send me the re-set in email.
Okay they sent it to Target email which I have never used and didn't know I have. I checked in the HR benefits system which I CAN get into and my primary email should be my yahoo account. I try the Target email and the page says to contact the sys admin with no information about who that might be. I call the Target store and talk to HR who hangs up on me once and then gives me yet another number. She also says that of course I knew I had an email address, um yeah. I didn't make this up that I didn't know. I call the number and find out that the ONLY way to set up and use my Target email is from the store, and I don't work until Sunday. Meanwhile the HR person checks and sees that all my communications are supposed to be to my yahoo account but we cannot do anything about it. Another passive and unfixable system.
About this time I cried on the phone. I mean really. I just need to get my 401K info so I can see about paying off a bill so i can quit this job where I had a horrible weekend and I am so exhausted that I can't think straight. But I totally embarrassed myself by calling back my HR to ask if there was any email or mail address where i could send concerns to corporate, not about people at my store but about systems that have no ability to be fixed when there is a mistake. (and I was upset when I talked to her and confused in what I was saying) I see this when we do returns or gift registries. We can point out a problem and yet no one can fix it, it simply isn't available.
It seems that this is more the norm than anything in a lot of places. It is becoming what we expect, I tried to ask a question of a microsoft product the other day and got a referral to their forums instead of an answer. No matter how I try this is complicated and being more simple seems impossible. I ended up asking very specific questions so when I re-set everything it will be correct. Like my HR password requires a new one every 3 months, but the 401K is different and never needs to be changed. The 401K password ID is case sensitive however the password is not. The system will also not recognize that the word teamwork and team work are the same thing in the answers for retrieval. And I earn under $10 an hour from this place but no one else thought of any of this during any of the 7 phone calls.
So I need to find out what my 401K at Target is worth. Somehow this is a totally craptastic process that has taken 3 days, i still don't have the information and I am so frustrated I could scream, okay instead on call #7 I just cried.
I write down ALL my passwords and even the answers to the information retrieval questions. This is in my secure place, won't share where on the internet after all, but in any case this information is not lying around. I found years ago that sometimes I wrote down the name I gave my first car and other times I write down the make and model so I couldn't get a new password set up over this. Other sites will ask you different questions if you don;t get them correct the first time and I have never had a major issue getting a password re-set until now.
So i tried to get to my account and had my user name and password written down and it said wrong. So I realized I had to change a password at the Target store for work and tried that, still wrong. Then I went back and tried my previous password, still wrong. I tried each one twice to account for typos. Still wrong and now account locked. So I wait until proper business hours and call. I give them my information like 3 times typed into the phone system and when I get a person I get asked for my name. Yeah right, okay I do that (wondering why do they ask for my team member number if they don't know it when they speak to me). The person tries to reset my password and all she can do is type in the same information I do. So they are going to send me the re-set in email.
Okay they sent it to Target email which I have never used and didn't know I have. I checked in the HR benefits system which I CAN get into and my primary email should be my yahoo account. I try the Target email and the page says to contact the sys admin with no information about who that might be. I call the Target store and talk to HR who hangs up on me once and then gives me yet another number. She also says that of course I knew I had an email address, um yeah. I didn't make this up that I didn't know. I call the number and find out that the ONLY way to set up and use my Target email is from the store, and I don't work until Sunday. Meanwhile the HR person checks and sees that all my communications are supposed to be to my yahoo account but we cannot do anything about it. Another passive and unfixable system.
About this time I cried on the phone. I mean really. I just need to get my 401K info so I can see about paying off a bill so i can quit this job where I had a horrible weekend and I am so exhausted that I can't think straight. But I totally embarrassed myself by calling back my HR to ask if there was any email or mail address where i could send concerns to corporate, not about people at my store but about systems that have no ability to be fixed when there is a mistake. (and I was upset when I talked to her and confused in what I was saying) I see this when we do returns or gift registries. We can point out a problem and yet no one can fix it, it simply isn't available.
It seems that this is more the norm than anything in a lot of places. It is becoming what we expect, I tried to ask a question of a microsoft product the other day and got a referral to their forums instead of an answer. No matter how I try this is complicated and being more simple seems impossible. I ended up asking very specific questions so when I re-set everything it will be correct. Like my HR password requires a new one every 3 months, but the 401K is different and never needs to be changed. The 401K password ID is case sensitive however the password is not. The system will also not recognize that the word teamwork and team work are the same thing in the answers for retrieval. And I earn under $10 an hour from this place but no one else thought of any of this during any of the 7 phone calls.