On September 18, I signed up for professional help so I can improve this blog.
The cost is $165.00 for one month, no weekends, and only between 9 am to 5 pm. The first two days I was sick and didn’t call, then came the weekend, so the following Monday I made the first call. I was hoping that maybe the month would start from your first call, but it doesn’t, just the date you sign up. In the beginning of each call you have to open a new tab and type, gotomeeting.com and they will give you a meeting number to put in and that will enable them to see the page that your working on.

Of note: I couldn’t call every day. I can only make the calls in the morning and two mornings a week I’m at the garden, and some other days I’ve had doctor’s appointments. I need to call when no one else is home and Pete is always coming home early. My most productive time of day is in the morning.

My first call on September 22, I spoke with Lee. He proceeded to have me check my email and agree to the terms, which he then read to me making sure that I understood. This took over a half an hour. Your help sessions are limited to 30 minutes, no more, although you can call right back and get another 30 minutes. You will probably get another person. After all that I finally got to ask my question, which was, “Is there a fast/easy way to find a past post of mine if I’m referencing that post in the new post?” He did answer and I was able to do it with him on the phone. Then he ended the session.

My second call was on September 26 and I spoke with Jan, (male). My question was, “Can I use Pages in a book format to write the autobiographical part of the blog?” Lee said yes and I went into Pages to start. It was a big help when I was told to use Elementor to edit. I had forgotten all about using that. Guess what, lo and behold all of a sudden all of the pictures that are on my phone were suddenly on my laptop! How? I have to idea. I’m not using my MacBook Air, I’m on my Toshiba laptop. Anyway I’m in and hopefully I can start the Biography. I haven’t had time to try on my own, so I left it where we left it.

My third call was on September 29 and I spoke with Charlie, who sounded a lot like Jan and Lee too, for that matter. This time I wanted to update my cover page. I wanted to add the Craft category with a small synopsis, like I had for the other categories. He wasn’t understanding me and then we he did, he changed it himself, not showing me and told me to write what I wanted and then the half hour was up. I wrote what I wanted and then went to exit. The popup said any changes would not be saved. I looked all around for a way to save and could not find any. I could have called right back but I didn’t. Needless to say, none of it was saved.

My next call will be on Monday, October 5. In the morning I have my yearly physical, but hopefully I can be home early enough to call. I will go back to editing the cover page.

I am not happy with this service. When I started this blog I had signed up for help. At that time it was $99.00 for a month. The people who answered were much friendlier and more helpful. When I described what I wanted to do they would actually help and show me different ways that I could use. They would make suggestions on how to make things pop and comment on things I had already done. It was much more interactive and there was no “gotomeeting.” I had to install an app, joinme. that would allow me to share and we would work together.

I think that WordPress has contracted the “Professional Help” out to India, (so far all the men I’ve spoken to are Indian) It is very clear that they are only there to answer specific questions with as little explanation given as possible. There is no helpful input or really any interest in showing me how to improve my website. In the followup questionaire about how they did, there is no way to say any of this. Like the help, it is very cut and dry; Were they able to solve your problem? How would you rate them?, etc.