Quid Novum Infernum

So.... I've struggled to write a short version of this story, but that combination of anxiety and disbelief leads to me keep piling on evidence. So this is  not  brief. I work as a contractor. Not what I planned, but that's the economy I've found myself in. My agency has had me at one particular employer for the last year and a half; I knew when I began that the contract was due to expire in 18 months. A few months after I began, the woman who supervised me asked if I'd be interested in a full-time position. Forbes rated this organization the best employer in my state: naturally I was interested.  Every two months or so, I checked in with her or she checked in with me: process continuing, normal, of course slow. Early in this process, I got a very good offer from another organization: between salary and benefits, about 92% of what was being proposed at the contract workplace. I didn't tell the supervisor -- it felt manipulative -- but I did tell her they h...

 A year. An actual year. A bit more than, actually. What a crapshow.  The pandemic, obviously. But in addition: The unexpected death of my cousin. The unexpected death of my friend. The not-quite-so-unexpected death of my other friend. A week in hospital and two months in rehab. A week in hospital for TDO. The marital turmoil, and the aftermath of the marital turmoil.  Some tide has to have turned, yes? Some corner? Because life is ordered and all losses are redressed, of course. 

I could not --   c o u l d   n o t   -- get their website to allow me to order. This was probably down to the universe eying me askance at the cost, but even knowing that, after multiple failures I was still sufficiently irritated to hunt down their "contact us" page and send the following Your website is lovely. However, when I try to check out, it displays a message informing me that there's an error, without specifying what error or even which field is the issue. Please snap at your developer for me: this is terrible UX design, losing you not only sales but also goodwill. (For example, I would not normally encourage verbal abuse of anyone, even in IT, but am quite frustrated and out of patience after struggling to place this order.) Also, "wishlist" is consistently spelled "whislist". I'm an American, it's true, but this is a spelling variant I've never encountered before, and I strongly suspect it's merely wrong. You may not care --...