Do good, feel good

I came home from work today feeling thoroughly under the weather. Yet I thought I should do something productive before taking to my couch (or the almost-Eames chair) with a hot-water bottle and a martini. (Timothy was often amazed at the revitalizing tonic effects of gin, with or without actual tonic water.)

I opened my day-book and decided to “tackle a nagging task” (for which concept I must thank Gretchen Rubin and The Happiness Project). I decided a simple task would be to finally assign a beneficiary for the residual funds left in Timothy’s life-insurance account.

I’ve felt bad at not doing this for months. It was top-of-mind because I’m still trying to sort out funds in one of Tim’s investment accounts. He never got around to naming me as the beneficiary. The firm now insists it will only release funds after his will is through probate, something Washington law says is unnecessary. It is an impasse.

At any rate: I thought I’d complete the ‘assign beneficiary’ task on that life-insurance company’s website. The benefit statement swore blind this was easy and simple, and then I could retreat, full of virtue, to the couch.

Nope.

None of the login options worked for toffee. And the document links dead-ended in a 404 screen. I finally got so annoyed, three browsers later, that I dialed the number for website help.

I called ready to breathe fire, but the person at the other end of the call was so helpful, so apologetic, that not only did I not cuss, swear, or stomp about, I offered to send her screenshots of the problematic links and failed downloads of their form.

If I could have, I’d even attached a plate of cookies. Do good (help them fix their website link problem), feel good. And I can still have a martini to soothe my upset stomach.

Photo by Alizee Marchand from Pexels