Microsoft should be ashamed (as corporations
so often are). One year ago next month I had
my service suspended on the current $10 per
month iteration of a Microsoft Office account,
MS365, I guess it’s called. No warning what
soever. Since then, I’ve spent over 80 hours
online trying to get my account back, I’ve read
and reread their guidelines, and most of all, I’ve
tried very hard to get a clear answer on what it
was exactly that merited such a suspension. I
have received no information regarding why,
except a list of vague reasons given that are in
no way even related to each other, at times.
I even had to dispute with my bank the extra
$10 a month that Microsoft stole from my bank
account for four months after they suspended
my account. During the 80-some-odd hours
I worked with Microsoft representative to get
access to my files in OneDrive, each person
with whom I spoke assured me with confidence
that I would soon get access to all of my files.
Except for a file that was purportedly taken out
of my drive (this I was told directly after the sus
pension transpired), which I was fine with. What
ever file it was that so claimed my account up to
this point (because, as if I even have the time to
do this, I will continue to fight this absurd screwing
this monopoly has so successfully given me), I’m
glad it’s gone. I certainly didn’t upload anything
intentionally that fits any problem in the guidelines
for storage. Nor was I sharing any of the files in
my entire drive, save a couple of smaller files that
I shared with my partner, which only included our
own silly files, and all of the information we’d been
through thus far toward getting his citizenship here
in the United States so that he can live with me.
I lost all of my material possessions when I was
50 years old, about a year after I’d been evicted
from my home of 13 years and held all of the
belongings I’d managed to take from my old
place—before being assaulted by my old property
manager, I should add—after storing them for a
bit over a year, before the money for storing dried
up, and all of those possessions were apparently
auctioned off. I missed none of these things much,
perhaps my bookshelf filled with hundreds of books
of poetry that I’d read in their entireties, each book,
that always served as a backdrop behind me or who
ever was sitting on the living room couch at any given
time. Because, for one thing, it turns out that I’m not
that materialistic. But, also, all of my old photographs,
those my grandmother had given me, and all of my old
journals and the four or five boxes of flat memorabilia
that I had dragged with me from place to place was
photographed and made into electronic files that I
could keep, all of which were in my OneDrive, and
now I have access to none of that, for reasons that
after nearly a year of not having access and those
dozens of hours of working with reps in earnest who
were each trying to help me retrieve these files. Or
that is what the latest letter I received from Microsoft
says. Decision final. Suspension upheld. But why?
And what about all of the folks who assured me I’d
get it all back, absolutely no problem? And what of
the fact that these were all that was left of all of the
actual physical possessions I’d accrued over 50 years
of living. It wasn’t much. But it was mine. And it was
all I had. And I trusted Microsoft, for whom I’ve spent,
or been the primary responsible person who has helped
them accrue tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars
over the years for each product I’ve been responsible for
whomever I worked in upgrading or getting from them,
and for each personal product I’ve actually used, practically
since the inception of the Microsoft Office platform. How
does one begin to fight such vague bullshit claim as theirs,
when I am just a poor guy made poorer by their heinous
act against me, and they have the hands inside of my
old and brand new laptop in such ways that almost no action
that transpires doesn’t pass through them in some way. I
will fight this, even though to build up to getting in touch
each time is a war I have with anxiety, each and every time.
It feels like corruption and class bias in ways that have become
a natural occurrence in this last few years. If anyone has even
the slightest educated notion of what I should do next, please,
I’m an easy person with whom to get in touch. But right now
I’m at a loss, stalling too long until my next attempt at getting
all I physically have of my history. Which spanned for over 50
years and back beyond that at least a century from my family.























