I make a little money selling stuff at E-Bay, and most of the time it’s a lot of fun. Christmas can get a WEE bit crazy though, and I am about ready to slit my wrists. I do not want to speak unkindly of the buyers, because they are sweet people who send me money. E-Bay itself, as a company, could make things just a little bit easier, though. Yo, Meg! (Margaret C. Whitman, CEO of Ebay Inc.) Have you ever tried to list anything yourself? Here, have a Prozac and we’ll run through it together. Let’s list this Christmas ornament. No, Meg, we’re not going to worry about political correctness and call it a Holiday Ornament. It’s a Santa Clause for Christ’s sake. No I’m not cursing at you; Christmas IS for Christ’s sake. OK, here’s the home page.
What’s with this “it” thing? Now we’ll go to “Sell”. Oh, I see somebody else complained, ‘cause you’ve got a new version of the Sell Your Item Form. Allrighty. . .what’s this? Take a survey? I don’t think so hon, we’ve got to move these refrigerators, gotta sell these color TV’s. Don’t look at me like that Meg, it’s a joke. I know we’re selling an ornament. Don’t you remember the rock video for “Money for Nothing” by Dire Straits? I imitate Dire Straits, playing air guitar while singing, “Money for nothin’ and your chicks for free”. So, it says enter a word to describe your item. I’ll type in Christmas Ornament. Geez Meg, twenty categories? What if I don’t KNOW what year it was made? I got it at a garage sale for cryin’ out loud. Here’s one that says Santa; we’ll go with that. Add a picture…sure. Edit picture. Let’s see – ACK! Santa looks like a Ku Klux Klan member! Crimeny, Meg, that brightness setting is intense, huh? That’s not good. Undo, undo.
Enter description. Now we’re gettin’ somewhere. I wrote it all up in Word, we’ll just paste it in. HEY! WTF, Meg? I had it all set up with different font sizes and colors, so it’d look festive. Now everything is the same size and color. I’m gonna have to use that gawd-awful interface to change it to the way I want. Here, we’ll click on change font color and go warm up a cinnamon roll, maybe it’ll be done by the time we get back. (Several minutes later) Oh look Meg! It finally changed it to what I told it to do in the first place. You’ve got crumbs on your blouse. Don’t blame me. Yes I’m sure it was expensive. Yes, real silk feels wonderful. I usually wear sweats, don’t rub it in. Let’s just get on with it, and set the price and shipping. Now we’ll preview it. Ah oh. It’s mangled, Meg. The description is all over the place. Some of it is centered, some isn’t. Put the bottle down and look. Why is it showing a gift icon? I didn’t click that…hey that costs an extra quarter! Removes gift icon, frowns severely at Meg, who is looking away while softly whistling a tune that sounds like, “I can’t imagine how that extra charge thingy got there, and damn you for noticing”.)I sigh. We’re almost done. What’s that? No, I don’t want to pay $20 to make it a featured item. It’s selling for a dollar, Meg. A dollar. We’re going to submit it now.
