Day of reckoning

Last night (Tuesday, November 8, 2011) I wanted to set up an online bill-pay to National Fuel, our monthly gas-bill.
Crank bank’s web-address into my browser-window, which is Firefox® (“Gasp!” say my siblings, who loudly insist I’m being rebellious by not using Internet-Explorer, the browser Jesus used).
“Welcome to our new online banking-center.”
“Uh-ohhhh.....” I said. “The day of reckoning, Tuesday, November 8. Our bank warned us.”
The day the bank rolls out its new online banking web-site, instituting sweetness and light, a beauteous web-site, guaranteeing ease of navigation, supposedly better than the one they had.
Pardon my skepticism, but I know how these so-called improvements go.
Order-out-of-chaos is usually chaos.
I dragged out the bank’s prompt-sheet I printed a few days ago.
“First-time login.
Enter ‘user-name,’ and click ‘first-time user.’”
Done.
“A secure identification-code will be sent to you. Select phone-number or e-mail.”
“‘Bong!’ there it is,” I said; “via e-mail.”
“Enter delivered secure access-code.”
Done.
“Read online banking access agreement; click ‘accept.’”
Done.
“Review online profile.”
Done; except it needs minor fiddling.
“Create new online password, confirm, and then ‘submit.’”
Done.
Okay, enrollment completed. Off we went. There’s my checking-account register, and on to online bill-pay.
Wait a minute; it wants me to correctly answer four security questions — used to be only one. Four is a navigation improvement?
The usual: “mother’s maiden-name; name of your first pet, what town you were born in, father’s middle-name.”
“My father didn’t have a middle-name,” I shouted.
Thankfully they had alternative questions: “What state were you born in?”
I successfully instituted an online bill-pay to National Fuel.
All my online bill payees had been carried over. I didn’t have to set that up again.
I closed out. Now to try logging in again. (Awful temerity and unmitigated gall and horrific audacity....)
User-name and password to login window, without the “first-time user” box checked.
“WHAT?” It wants to send me a first-time user password again, or so it seems.
We wrastled with it at least three tries. Blew well over an hour of my life, which I won’t get back.
Each time it demanded a first-time user login.
Finally, I gave up.
They got a “contact us” e-mail asking “What’s happening?”
Their response will probably be to telephone their Help-desk.
This is progress?
Technology the time-saver?

• “National Fuel,” based in Buffalo (NY), is our natural-gas utility.
• All my siblings are tub-thumping born-again Christians.