long days, pleasant nights
Sure way to lose my banking business: be obliquely idiosyncratic with regard to when charges post, even as pending. (It’s often out of banks’ control when a charge actually posts, and that’s ok; but there’s no reason a point of sale debit card purchase should not immediately register on my account as spoken-for funds.) Let some charges go through that you shouldn’t have let go through, charge me $93 in overdraft fees in the span of two days, then claim that this is all out of your control.
Then, take a check that bounced the first time (for which I took responsibility) and post it a second time, claiming that it’s not you, it’s that other bank, and that checks might be deposited like that 7-10 times in a row, and if I don’t have sufficient funds, that’s $31 each time. Claim that you don’t have any control over either these deposits or the overdraft fees, and not five minutes later turn to the woman at the next desk and ask her if she’s approved the charges from this morning yet. When called on the discrepancy, insist that no, the entire process is automatic, oh, except that every morning we decide which transactions go through.
Also, have an online billing representative claim that funds are withdrawn from my account on the date for which I set a bill to get paid, regardless of whether it’s an electronic transfer or a paper check. Then have the reality be patently different.
Sigh. Goodbye again, Wainwright Bank. You’re socially responsible and local and all kinds of nifty, but you don’t do the banking part well, at least not the aspects of it that matter to me. I was with you before, left in frustration, decided to give you another chance, and nothing has changed in the last several years. This time I’m breaking up with you for good, you hear?
Today has in fact been long, what with catching up with my boss, who is newly returned from vacation (good!), doing phone tech support late in the day when already tired, and updating Windows on sixteen machines, each of which has 512MB of RAM. On the other hand, evenings have been pleasant indeed. Done with the grant proposal review process and some other obligations, I suddenly have room to breathe. And cook, and plan, and make to do lists, and do many of the things on those to-do lists, and plan menus so I don’t eat out as much during the week, and put together lunches to bring to work, and spend time with friends and loved ones, and watch a movie or two, and do laundry, and clean, and read for hours.
Not that all of my outstanding obligations are dispensed with. There’s the matter of a 500-word abstract I’ve owed folks for some months now… the shorter the piece, the harder it is for me to write.