Rebuilding My Profile

It is never-ending.

Photo by L R on Unsplash

One afternoon earlier this week I stopped by my pharmacy. In addition to picking up a prescription that was ready, I wanted to give the pharmacy my new health insurance information and name. Both have changed recently as a result of divorce.

When I handed the pharmacy tech my new insurance card, I mentioned the new circumstances to her. She looked at my card and then glanced to her left toward another young woman standing in front of a computer monitor a few feet away from the counter.

The pharmacy tech returned her attention to my card and then said to me, “We’re going to rebuild your profile, if you want to have a seat.” She gestured toward some red plastic chairs next to the nearby screened vaccination area. Rebuild my profile? I thought. Sounds massive—just two people for the job?

“Okay,” I said. I moved from the counter to sit in one of the red plastic chairs. I was glad I wasn’t in a hurry and had the time for the pharmacy techs to rebuild my profile. I could see them huddling in front of the computer monitor, one or the other them tapping it with a fingertip now and then.

After a few minutes, a line of other customers formed. “I can help who’s next,” the pharmacist said, coming over from the other end of the pharmacy and stepping behind a second register at the counter.

“Go ahead,” I told a few women in the line, waving toward the pharmacist at the register, “they are rebuilding my profile.”

“That sounds like it’s going to take a while,” one of them said. “That’s okay,” I said, adding, “I have a phone.” I waggled my device in the air and then began swiping at the screen.

But the customer’s remark got me thinking. This “rebuilding” is indeed taking a while, and, at least one aspect of it—changing my name—seems unending.

Even after taking care of the Big Three—my passport, Social Security card, and Real I. D.—I must still address seemingly countless instances where my former name appears. Bank and credit card accounts, utility accounts, phone and internet accounts, vendor and provider accounts, insurance accounts, medical records, tax records—there are probably others of which I may not even be aware.

I have also discovered that changing my name in many of these places is a multi-step process. Let’s consider my checking account, for example. No problem changing my online credentials. Open my laptop or unlock my phone, log into my account using the soon-to-be superseded credentials, go to the account settings section, enter my new credentials, and then save them.

After doing this, I went to the bank to get a new ATM card for my account. But I was unable to accomplish this because I had not changed my actual account information—different from online credentials, in case anyone needs to know.

To update my account information, I needed some official identification with my address and new name on it, such as my driver’s license or Real I. D., neither of which I had at that point. Back to the drawing board. Or, the Big Three.

Figuring out which of these to change first was its own vexing puzzle. Suffice it to say that I finally figured out that my passport was the place to start because it seemed to be the common denominator in getting a new Social Security card as well as my Real I. D.

Once I had my Real I. D., I returned to the bank to update my account information. I also ordered some new checks with my new name while I was there, even though I still had stacks of checks with my old name on them.

My former name also keeps popping up in online forms. I have not yet figured out how to clear or disable the AutoFill feature, and it, too, seems to have variations of itself from one platform or program to another.

I have wiped my former name from my Amazon and eBay accounts but it keeps coming up in the online payment system for my homeowner’s and auto insurance policies. I have the same experience paying my utilities and phone bills every month. Oop—there it is!

It’s like finding needles from the Christmas tree on the edge around the carpet 10 months past the holiday or still finding ice melt in the treads of your shoes half a year after the last snow. What? Still there?! Noooo!

Most dismaying was discovering that I could not slap a new Gmail address incorporating my new name onto the Google account associated with the Gmail address incorporating my former name.

This was a real bummer because I have over 20 years of images and documents associated with the Gmail address incorporating my former name. I am able update my screen name for this Google account but not replace that Gmail address with my new one.

There is probably a way that I could transfer all this data to the Google account created when I created my new Gmail address incorporating my new name. But I doubt that it is either simple or comprehensible or risk-free.

I could also start saving documents and images in this new Google account, but I feel that way lies madness in trying to keep track of what I have saved where. So I have decided to let it be. I can’t win ‘em all, especially with Google. Not even the Justice Department can do that.

After about 15 minutes the pharmacy techs finished rebuilding my profile, sort of. My new health insurance and new name are now synced with the pharmacy but prescriptions will still be coming in under my old name. Medical records have not yet risen to the top of my name-change triage list, those involving identification and money taking the top spots.

As I was checking out, I groused about this never-ending name-change business and gave the pharmacy tech some unsolicited advice—not to change her name if she ever marries because it’s a real pain in the ass to change it back if she ever needs to, somehow even more involved and eternal than changing it the first time.

Hearing my remark, the woman at the next register started to chuckle. “I hear ya,” she said, “it took me years.” “Well,” I said, “at least I will never need to change my eye color or birthday.” She laughed a little more as she finished her transaction, bucking me up a bit for my next bout in this perpetual process.

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