Do NOT Mess With My Bookshelves!

I had a bit of a cyber-meltdown yesterday.

When I arrive at work each morning, I set up my laptop, open our practice management program, and then check the clinic email, my various emails, and my hometown online newspaper. Yesterday, I needed to venture out of my comfy office and spend the morning up in the clinic tracking and monitoring appointment flow. I’m trying to determine how the same staff that can rally and totally kick butt on a busy day can forget how to communicate or complete tasks efficiently on a day that is much less busy. Naturally, I was unable to uncover the answer, because everyone did a perfectly wonderful job with a moderately full schedule. It was neither busy enough nor slow enough to reach any sort of conclusion. I did, however, manage to read two issues of Animal Wellness magazine.

Upon completion of my semi-productive morning, I retreated to my office for my lunch break. My trusty laptop was waiting patiently, displaying the screen saver slide show of my dog pictures interspersed with ones of Cross Canadian Ragweed. (Mmmmmm, Cody…!) I checked my email and saw that I had a friend request for my Goodreads.com page. This seemed odd, because the person only had one book on his list, and it was nothing that I would read. I clicked on the “approve or deny” link, and instead of taking me to my Goodreads profile, it brought up a screen that said “Lori’s profile is set to private.” News to me. I purposely set my profile as public so I can meet other readers who enjoy the same types of books as I do. The welcome message at the top of the page seemed convinced that my name was Ilya. Puzzling.

I clicked “sign out,” since none of my personalities is called Ilya. Then I clicked on “sign back in,” and someone else’s email address automatically loaded into the sign in screen. Goodreads now believed I was Dave. Ooooookay. I went back to the sign in screen again. Now I am Kate. Since I am not, in fact, Kate, I began to get a trifle concerned. Repeat process (numerous times), and I am Olga, then Steve, then Robert, then Terresya. Holy Identity Crisis, Batman. I am now moving rapidly from concerned to alarmed, because I realize that while Goodreads thought I was Dianne (or any of my other alleged identities), I had full access to that account! I could add, edit or delete books, change reviews, change profile settings, add or remove friends, or even delete the entire page! I could have deleted a hundred people’s pages if I weren’t the honest, book-loving person I am.

Alarm gave way to full-fledged distress when I realized that countless random people had access to my account! This was Not Acceptable. Worse than that, it was Completely Unthinkable!

For at least a dozen years, I kept a book journal with authors, titles and brief descriptions of everything I read. I stopped two years ago because, as with most things, I tended to put it off until the last minute, leaving me digging through my book bag, under countless old date due slips, to locate the journal and record ten books as I sorted them on a table at the library before I could return any of the books. It got tiresome. Goodreads provides me, essentially, an online book journal. Since I’m pretty much always online, I’m much better about recording them, and I can quickly type up a full review rather than a hand-scrawled one-sentence summary. Even better, it gives me a way to share and compare books with friends.

To have someone tamper with my carefully recorded books, ratings and reviews would seriously piss me off. I have all my “bookshelves,” where I have lovingly sorted books into “to read,” “currently reading,” “read,” “fantasy,” “mystery - dog,” “vampire,” “just plain creepy,” etc. To have some clueless stranger messing with that is no better than having them dog-ear pages on my actual books, crack the spines, get cooties and boogers on the pages, or commit even worse atrocities against the written word.

I sent a series of increasingly agitated emails to Rachel (aka my son’s wonderful girlfriend, aka the friend who introduced me to Goodreads, aka my grand-dog’s mama… and I’m not sure which one of those “aka-s” is the most significant), who alerted me to the fact that there were business books showing up on my book list. I rarely read non-fiction, and if I do it will be about dogs, dog people, or memoirs by hilarious individuals who make me snort Diet Dr. Pepper out my nose. You know: GOOD books. Certainly not a business book, no matter how much Dr. Vet-Friend One tries to encourage me to do so.

At one point, by deleting someone’s email address that was automatically showing up in the sign in screen, I entered mine and was briefly signed in as myself. I saw these impostor books on my shelf, but the first time I clicked on anything (“edit,” “home,” anything!) Goodreads decided I was once again someone else. I couldn’t access anything about my account, but sure could access everybody else’s!

Panic time. Frantic email to Goodreads support staff is now in order.

“What's going on there today???? I got a friend request that I don't think is meant for me. Also, every time I click on goodreads, it signs me in automatically as other people! I've been Ilya, Betsy, Dave, Brian, Robert, Theresya, and about ten other people, and I have full access to these accounts! So who has access to mine??? I can't sign in normally, it assumes I'm someone else. I can't sign them out and sign in as myself, either! Help!”

Their reply followed:

“We tried to upgrade some software this morning, and I think this happened to everyone for about 5 minutes. We then flushed the sessions and rolled back the upgrade so it should be fine now. Sorry for the scare!
sincerely,
Otis”

No, Otis, I’m sorry, it is most definitely NOT fine now! And, honestly, I don’t think you sounded all that sincere. Clearly you do not understand the severity of the problem, and that it must be resolved immediately. I am just not hearing any sense of urgency in your simplistic, too-perky techno-nerdy reply.

I sent a few more emails, as my panic grew, because every time I tried to figure out what was going on, I discovered some new horror. Rachel tried to calm me down, but it wasn’t working. I even removed the Goodreads link from the Fermented Fur page, because doG forbid that someone would click it and get the impression that I read business books! Or that my name is Olga. Geez, I have a reputation (of sorts) to maintain, here!

I finally got another “reply,” only it wasn’t for me. Apparently someone named Kimley sent Goodreads an email describing the same experience that I was having (though admittedly in a less frantic manner). But since she was logged in as ME when she sent it, I got HER reply. Guess that did her a lot of good. Her reply from Otis, while otherwise word for word the same as mine, had one additional tidbit of information. He suggested that she try restarting her browser.

Oh.

Why the hell didn’t Mr. Otis Goodreads suggest that to me, like a half hour ago? Because it was a really helpful suggestion. It did, in fact, work. Of course it was so simple that it never occurred to me, because I went straight from rational and logical problem solving to hysterical damage control with no stops in between. I come in to my office, set up my computer, open the day’s required number of browser windows (three), as well as my practice management program and Windows Media Player (a girl’s gotta have her Ragweed), and get on with my day.

I spent the next fifteen minutes (logged in as my very own self) purging unwanted icky business books from my lovely, fiction-filled shelves, resetting my profile to public, and changing my password.

At last, crisis averted. I was able to post my informative review on “Dog Days,” (three out of five stars) and announce that I am currently reading “Like a Charm,” a paranormal story featuring a young librarian who can see and speak with ghosts in the small town of Sweet, Texas.

The cyber-world is once again safe for bookworms. No thanks to Otis.