For those of you who maybe aren’t aware, last year I got married and moved from the Boston area to the Atlanta area. The backstory is long and complicated (no, I did not mail-order myself a nice southern man; I simply ended up marrying one of my oldest friends), but when it came down to planning our lives together, the move was a no-brainer.

He works at a university. I work at my laptop. I was free to move because I can work wherever I am, whereas he’s rather attached to his students and colleagues and seems to think he needs to be here. Okay. I moved, and was glad to be able to do so more or less without a hitch where my career was concerned.
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Last week my business was taken out of commission for three and a half days owing to a huge outage at my former hosting provider. I promised you that I would tell the whole story and also that I would tell you who the provider in question was.

The summary of the tale can be found over here, and I’m not going to say it all again because with just one click of your magical mouse you can go read it for yourself without me having to repeat it. If you want the sordid details, go read the whole thing. If you want the summary version, just stick around here.

Here’s the Cliff Notes: The provider was WiredHub, and I am talking about it not because I’m out for revenge or holding a grudge, but because I think it’s important to spread the word about gross failures of customer service like the one I experienced.
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So, I’m not going to lie to you. The last three days have been tremendously awful. My hosting provider’s “little problem” has still not been resolved, which means the only data I have from my previous web presence is a month-old database back-up (which, by the way, will require that I open a ticket with my new hosting company to actually install, which I am holding off on because just maybe my data will still be recovered).

But as of right now, everything else is… gone.

For a control freak like me, this is beyond devastating. I’m losing revenue, yes—lord knows that financially this is going to be a nightmare long past whatever site restoration I do—but more than that, I watched my business, my baby, vanish. And there wasn’t anything I could do.
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Hi. How are you today?

Me, I’m completely bald. I have pulled out every hair on my head. Because yesterday, my hosting service went kerflooey and my web sites—my largest source of business and income—were offline for the entire day. In fact, it’s been 20 hours as I write this, and everything is still down!

I sat at my desk, trading emails with the so-called customer service department, becoming progressively more and more frustrated and angry. And not just because I was offline, but because the customer service department was completely useless. If I hadn’t actually participated in this exchange, I would’ve sworn it was a joke. Because you can’t run a business that way and thrive, can you? I mean, really?
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.

Or, “Things I would’ve responded with if I really did say everything that pops into my head.”

Once upon a time, I got my very first job in corporate blogging. It was my first steady writing gig, and I was tremendously proud to have landed it. My ex-husband learned of this job and chuckled, telling me, “This whole blogging thing is a fad. Enjoy it while it lasts, because it’ll be over before you know it and then you’ll have to get a real job.”

That was two years and several dozen jobs ago—jobs I got either for or through blogging—but I will never forget those words. Or the small, inherent joy in proving my ex wrong every single day.
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When I started freelancing for real (that is, when I stopped doing everything else, and hung out the little shingle that said “will write for food”) a couple of years back, one of the first things I did was buy a new computer. At the time I had a limping desktop and a moderately-reliable laptop, and I reasoned that if this was going to be my business I needed a reliable and up-to-date machine.

I found myself a great deal on a refurbished Gateway desktop and have been happy with it ever since. Coincidentally, my laptop hasn’t been quite right ever since the new desktop. It’s unrelated, and the laptop is so old it really owes me nothing at this point, but I reasoned that I would get my reliable desktop and then in a couple of years I could replace the laptop.

I had my new laptop all picked out about a year ago. And I decided to put off buying it, both because it cost a lot and because I was getting married and moving and oh, by the way, I married a Mac Guy.

(No, not this Mac guy.)

“Maybe you should think about buying a MacBook,” he suggested about a year ago, when the topic of a new laptop came up. I argued with him. All of my stuff is on my PC! I don’t need a Mac! I like having a mouse with two buttons! He didn’t push it (well, he did point out that Macs can do everything PCs do, because he couldn’t resist), and we let the matter drop.

Well, the problem is that it’s time to replace my laptop (a Sony Vaio, should you care, which ran flawlessly for about four years before it started having a nervous breakdown), and my desktop computer—which ran wonderfully for about a year and a half—is giving me fits.

My husband very graciously agreed to help me back up all my data and wipe the hard drive and reformat and I’m not even going to mention that it took the better part of a Saturday (oops, I think I just mentioned it), but the computer is still ill. It works, but it freezes up a lot. I don’t know what’s wrong with it, it’s out of warranty, and paying to have someone fix it would probably cost half what it would cost to just replace it.

Meanwhile, my limping laptop is now periodically refusing to boot up at all.

[As Pepe Le Pew would say: Le Sigh.]

“I can order you a MacBook today, if you want,” my husband helpfully offers nearly every day. “You can plug it in to your big monitor when you work at your desk.” My attempts to glower at him go unnoticed. “You know, I’ve had this computer for years,” he’ll continue, patting his PowerBook fondly. “No problems at all!”

I’ll admit, I’m almost ready. But last night I was using the Click-N-Ship on the US Postal Service site to print out some labels—that I needed for business purposes, I feel obliged to point out—and because my computer is still refusing to connect to our home print network, here, I hopped onto my husband’s Mac to get it done.

And I went through all 307 steps and clicked “Print” and… nothing happened.

It turns out that the USPS website doesn’t like Mac’s Safari browser. (We got the labels done using Firefox.)

I’m just not sure I’m ready to make the leap. Even though, once upon a time, I got all through college with a Mac Plus and two floppy drives. I don’t know why I am clinging to two computers that only seem to work well on alternate Tuesdays when the moon is full, but it feels precarious to switch.

My Mac Guy has promised to hold my hand. And possibly the Apple Key.

I was all set to tell you an exciting tale of triumph, today.

I was ready to tell you that they kept laying out those hoops for me to jump through, and although I railed against their directives and balked at what was required, I did it.

I went to the Planning Office. I got a zoning permit. I called the IRS. I verified that I don’t have to have a separate EIN. I took my zoning permit to the County Office and applied for my business license. We had a brief discussion that went like this:

Them: And you have to put your EIN here.
Me: I don’t have an EIN.
Them: You need to have an EIN.
Me: No I don’t. I use my social security number when I do my taxes. That’s good enough for the IRS; is it a problem for you?
Them: Well, uhhh, I just don’t know what we’d do with that line.
Me: I’d be happy to fill in my social security number.
Them: No! Don’t do that! We’re not supposed to take those.
Me: Oh.
Them: Yeah.
Me: So, can I still get my license?
Them: I guess so. Here you go.

I am now 100% legal to work out of my house in my town, county, and state. It’s also legal for me to use my business name. So everything is great, right?

Well, it was.

Yesterday I took a month’s worth of paychecks to the bank. I had been refraining from depositing them because my bank accounts are still so completely screwed up that I am about to start over with a new (local; NEVER AGAIN will I deal with a “big national chain” based upon the utter lack of customer service I have received with this institution) bank. But I have bills to pay and I figured I could at least get these deposited, pay some bills, and then do the big switch.

But guess what I’m off to do today. Go on, guess! Why, I’m on my way to my new bank to set up new accounts, after which I will go back over to Big National Chain and tell them to bite me.

Go ahead and ask me why.

Well, yesterday I headed over to the bank at 4:15 to deposit a month’s worth of income, only to discover that the bank closes at 4:00. I find that stupid and annoying, but whatever. I’m not in charge. Maybe they break early for ice cream. Who knows. Anyway. I decided to deposit my checks at the ATM machine because the machines have all recently been upgraded to a system where they take each check individually and scan them and display then onscreen and on your receipt. That had to be safe, right?

I whipped out my brand new ATM card—because it took about three tries to even get this bank to send me a card, and I’m still waiting for my checks—and I popped it into the machine.

The machine stopped displaying PLEASE INSERT CARD and instead displayed THIS UNIT OUT OF SERVICE. PLEASE TRY ANOTHER LOCATION.

And there sat my ATM card… sticking about 1/16 of an inch out of the slot. Try as I might, I didn’t have tweezers handy, and so was unable to retrieve it.

So much for my tale of victory. I started out with “Hey, I’m finally official” and somehow ended at “Dude, I’ve only got $3 in my wallet.” Pitiful.

I consider myself an educated person. I navigate my day-to-day life with my fly zipped and matching socks (usually). I hold some fancy degrees from expensive schools. I qualified for (but did not join) MENSA.

And yet I cannot seem to triumph over my current accounting woes here in my new life.

For years I happily freelanced from my home in New England, deposited the checks written to me, reported the income on my personal tax returns, and all was well. Hey, there’s nothing to this whole freelancing thing when it comes to keeping the books, I stupidly thought, I don’t know what people are complaining about!

Now I’m here in Georgia and the bank keeps screwing up my business account and I want to switch banks. But before I do that, I figured fine, I will go get that DBA certificate so that there’s no problems, this time.

So I called the appropriate county office this morning and this is what I was told to do:

1) Call the IRS and get myself a new tax ID number. I have been filing under my social security number and that’s the logical way to do it. But today I was told that no, I need a business tax ID number in order to…
2) … report to their office and fill out paperwork and pay money to obtain a business license. Which I can only have if I have a new tax ID number specifically for my business. But wait, I can’t do that until after I…
3) … go to the county zoning offices and request a zoning permit to work from my home. Yes, I need to go pay money for a piece of paper allowing me to sit at my own computer in my own house. Brilliant.
4) Once I have a new tax ID number, a zoning permit, and a business permit, then the county will happily grant me a DBA license, which I need in order to straighten out my bank account. And by the way, that costs money as well. Of course.

To say that I’m feeling frustrated, angry and bitter at the moment would be an understatement.

I’ve just moved my family over a thousand miles. I’m trying to unpack and settle in to a new house, help my children adjust, find my way around a new town, squeeze in some quality time with my new husband, pay three mortgages (don’t even get me started) and oh yeah also maintain my more-than-full-time business commitments at the same time. To have to run all over town to jump through all of these hoops just to get a functioning bank account may just be the straw that break’s this camel’s back.

Because this? Is starting to get ridiculous.

When I started freelancing as my business (as opposed to the occasional job on the side), I made two important decisions:

First, I decided that I wanted to open a business checking account, to keep my books easier to manage and have an easy way to track money coming in as a result of freelancing (as opposed to, say, child support I was receiving).

Second, I decided that I wanted to conduct business under my maiden name.

When I made this decision I had legally been Mir Exhusbandslastname for a dozen years. I knew nothing about the legality of operating my business under a name other than that which I’d been using for so long, so I went to my bank and explained to them what I wanted to do, and they allowed me to open a business checking account as Mir Exhusbandslastname DBA Mir Kamin.

That was all fine and I have happily been receiving work-related payment to Mir Kamin for years now.

As I prepared for my move to Georgia, I switch my accounts to a national chain bank, and I had a terrible time getting them to duplicate my business account. They wanted me to have a county certification of my DBA, which I’d never done before and wasn’t sure I wanted to pay for just a few weeks before I moved. After going ’round and ’round, we finally got it all set up.

Or so I thought. Upon arriving in Georgia I discovered that my business account was, in fact, set up improperly. It didn’t contain my business name anywhere, and furthermore, the Georgia branch of the bank insisted they couldn’t touch it; it would need to be changed by the New Hampshire branch. The only other alternative would be to close the account altogether (nevermind the five different places I have doing direct deposit to that account already) and open a new one. Just as soon as I procured a proper county DBA license.

Aside from the annoyance of not wanting to start a new account, and really not wanting to do the DBA license thing at this point (because I am now thinking of just going ahead and forming an LLC, which is a topic for a future post), through this process I learned that for a month my bank has been cashing checks written to someone who they claim doesn’t exist.

And so I have been arguing with these people—people who run one of the largest banking conglomerates in the country—because they don’t want to give me checks that say Mir Kamin on them, yet they have happily been taking my money for close to five weeks and depositing it to an account which they swear doesn’t bear my name. They keep saying that it’s for my own protection that they cannot issue a DBA on the account, yet when I point out that for my protection they have been cashing checks to a—according to them—fictitious person.

And I am letting these people handle my earnings. I think it may be time to find a new bank.

The only problem is that I’ve heard some horrific banking stories from other freelancers that make mine sound like small potatoes. Why is it so complicated to administer a business account to a sole proprietor? In an age where more and more people are opting out of the corporate slog, I’d think banks would be getting better at this stuff, not worse. And don’t tell me I’m the only person doing business under a different name, either. I don’t buy it. I think plenty of people (and particularly women) do business under a slightly different name to protect their privacy.

Maybe I’ll just start keeping my money stuffed under the mattress.