I’m not sure when ‘tyranny of power’ became an oft-used cliché. But recently I had the opportunity to live with the concept. I am aware that my small experience was not the kind of thing that is referred to by this phrase, but trust me when I tell you that it felt rather large to me.

It started when my blog was continually being hacked. The amazing Web Mistress of the World aka Laurie McConnell of Bad Dog Design, spent countless hours cleaning and fixing and generally rooting out the evil in my account. It became apparent that we were susceptible because of my hosting service, Just Host.

Simple. We would change to another hosting service and we chose Host Gator. Or so it seemed. I won’t go into the gory details but suffice it to say that what happened next was like falling down a rabbit hole. It seems we could not leave Just Host without my entire domain being tossed. Except they forgot to tell us that is what would happen.

And when we discovered that instead of my website, it merely read ‘Account Suspended’, no one wanted to talk about how or what had happened. And service is not something Just Host was interested in providing. At all. In fact, they were beyond horrible. Why should they help? We were leaving. Never mind that it was not my intention to leave. Confused yet? I was.

You know how when you’re on those surrealistic automated phone systems that tell you to press one and then do the hokey pokey in case they MIGHT come on the line and help you? You know how there is no one person responsible for your rising blood pressure? You know that feeling of trying to pin Jell-O to the wall because there is no one actually accountable and who you could have a rational adult conversation about resolving the issue?

Well, multiply that helplessness by 100 and you have got the Just Host experience. Back when I was in the business world, we referred to these kind of clone-people responses as a big ol’ clusterf&*%

So. Clearly, since you’re reading this, we’ve finally fixed it.  (I say ‘we’ like I actually did something, when in fact, it was the aforementioned-and-soon-to-be-sainted-Laurie who dogged this thing mercilessly).

And to be fair, at the last minute Just Host did throw us a bone by handing over a back-up of the site and most of it was there…so, there is that. Though this was after a full week of listening to their “support” people speaking at cross-purposes and with no idea of what had gone on before their shift.  Not to mention that I’m missing about 40 images that I will be trying to fill in over the next while…

But it got me thinking about people who are really up against this every single minute of their lives; the systematic bafflegab of the powerful over the powerless. Like the women in so many countries who have never had a chance to fight against the constant undermining of their dignity because who would they fight? Even if they could?

Or the Palestinians who are held captive from water rights, human rights and anything else that we hold dear?

The list is long and extensive and provides me with a much needed perspective of my little frustrating issue. I felt so powerless against Just Host. I felt that if I dared really speak my mind, it would be like insulting the kidnappers and surely someone would be killed and I felt certain it would be my blog.

They held all the cards and I was at their mercy. They shunted my ticket around between all the departments over and over. It was a filibuster of bureaucracy. I spoke to two people who were sympathetic and quite lovely and admitted that what was happening was completely wrong but they were powerless. That was it. On it went. Nothing was fixed…

I recognize that this was a non-event in comparison to the previous examples I’ve talked about. But it gave me a tiny glimpse into what it might be like to not live in a free part of the world.

I am so lucky that I can fill my water glass whenever I’m thirsty, wear what I want and speak my mind. It is a wonderful and heady privilege…as long as I don’t try it with Just Host.

Just say No to Just Host.