All I wanted to know is if I paid my Macy’s bill. Pretty simple right. Wrong.

This should be a quick look at the online Macy’s site. Except, for some reason, my browser no longer seems compatible with Macy’s credit card payment information even though it will still show me all the marvelous things I can buy at Macy’s – page after page of sale items but every time I depress the credit card history link — a spinning hourglass. OK. No problem. I will just go to another browser.

The new browser doesn’t have my saved password and user ID. I can, however, see all the marvelous things I can buy at Macy’s but my personal profile which would lead me to my payment information is off limits. OK. A bit of a problem because I rarely use my Macy’s credit card and I don’t have the user ID and password memorized. Contrary to all security recommendations, but absolutely essential because there is no way I can remember all the password and user ID’s I have, I locate these details in a separate Word document.

I attempt to log in. Except the password and user ID don’t match Macy’s records. OK. Maybe I made a typo. I try again. No luck. What to do?

I go back to the old browser that will allow me to log in but will not display my payment history. I go to the log in screen. My password doesn’t display but I can see my user ID but not my password. Now I have one out of two items I need. The password is hidden by *. I can however count the number of * and from that I deduce the correct password. Bingo.

I am in except I can only see the marvelous things I can buy and not the actual amount I owe on my credit card. I eventually, after randomly depressing every link I can find, stumble across the credit card history page. Success.

I paid my bill.

This all could have been handled with a quick phone call to customer service but, as we all know, there is no such think as a quick phone call to customer service. A phone tree will answer with numerous questions about why I would like to talk to customer service and, while I am on hold, frequent reminders that this could all be handled much more quickly if I used the online site. Some of the time, this is true. This wasn’t one of them.

If I can use the online system, I will use the online system. But, sometimes it is easier for me to just talk to someone. The problem isn’t easily routed through phone tree analytics. So, if I am calling, I really need to talk to someone. Any one would do. Just let me talk to someone. Please. Pretty please with sugar on top. It will take them seconds to understand what I want and give me a reply.