Life is good? Maybe...

Resumendation.com is ready to go live. Not that it is completed, I am aware of some improvements waiting to be done, and some changes are needed to better handle scalability, and I am fairy confident that early users will have plenty of requests and suggestions, but it is good enough to go live.

Resumendation.com is finally live. Yeah!!! Now what?

It's time to hit google Adwords. As many of you know, google will gladly give any new account $75 worth of free advertising. It is a great deal, especially since this is not co-advertising but a real gift. I am free to use it to purchase $75 worth of google AdWords, no strings attached. Great? Maybe...

So I am signing up for a new google AdWords account, entering my credit card information, entering my newly received coupon for free $75 of AdWords, hit the magic "Continue" button - an error message appears right next to the coupon code "Sorry, this is an invalid code!!!". No big deal, I must have mistyped. This time I am copy-pasting it right from the email - same problem, invalid code. Ha! That's strange, but I will deal with it. Luckily, the same email that included the $75 coupon code also includes a telephone number - it's time to call. I am calling google... the answering machine starts telling me their office hours... that's not a good sign. A quick look at the clock, it's five minutes before 9AM. The solution is obvious - I will wait a few minutes, have my morning coffee, and call after 9.

It's 9:10AM, I am calling google, this time a very courteous voice starts asking me 20 questions, so she can transfer me to the right person to assist me. I am patient... two minutes later I am talking to a very nice gentlemen. He offers to help me with anything related to AdWords. Any questions I may have, any problems I may experience - he is here for me. He wants to help me with keywords and ad copy... Great, I am describing my problem to him - the code is not valid. The guy is very nice, sounds like a professional, and suggests I copy and paste the code instead of typing. I am thinking "stop wasting my time", but I follow his instructions - same problem. Next advice, try typing the code manually - I follow his instructions, type the code manually, same problem.

A few more futile attempts, then I start thinking... What kind of programmer at the mighty google would be writing this page? Probably not one of their mighty super-programmers. So what kind of error/bug/mistake a not-so-super-programmer would make to cause my code not to work? I am thinking that he would probably handle all the normal things but might not properly handle exceptions, user errors or data validation. I am thinking that the error message might be misleading, perhaps it is not related to the code? Something is probably wrong, but not what the error message is telling me. The error must be somewhere else... I ignore the error message and go over the rest of the information on the page and BINGO - my credit card expiration date is wrong. I fix that and everything works fine. Life is good? Maybe...

A couple hours later my credit card company calls. Mr. Rubinstein? Did you use your credit card to pay google.com today? Yes... Was the amount $1? Well, I didn't think it was supposed to cost me anything, but I can live with a $1 charge for $75 worth of advertising. Not what I expected, after all free should be free, as in $0 not as in $1, but still a good deal. I approve the charge and move on with my life? Maybe...

Ten minutes later my credit card calls again. Mr. Rubinstein? Yes... Can you approve a $1 charge from google.com? Hm... I just did, 10 minutes ago... (Wait, here comes the surprise) "No, Mr. Rubinstein, this is another one. Another $1. In fact, you have eight $1 charges from google.com"

Eight separate charges for $1 each? That is not right. At this stage I feel like something wrong is happening. I am asking to cancel all those charges, but my credit company cannot cancel a charge until it appears on my monthly statement. I ask them to record a note and decide to call google.

The call to google was way too long and too complicated for an eight dollar mistake. Apparently, they too cannot cancel a charge until it appears on my statement. They asked me, very nicely I must admit, to give them a call once my account is charged and they would take care of it. Life is good? Maybe...