Lines

Lines. We all dislike them, but you know what? If there is a line for something, it means there are more people wanting a particular service (demand) than that service can be provided (supply). So people wait their turn until they can be served.The next person in line is the next person to be served.

Same is true with traffic, but a little different. If there is a line, that means there are more cars that want to be somewhere than the road can handle, so people cue up and wait to merge. In general, "merge" works best with every-other-car, or, as a co-worker once said, "the zipper method". One car from one lane, one car from the next lane. Everyone keeps moving.

Let's examine the past hour of my life, where I encountered both of these situations.

First: traffic. I believe in the every-other-car merge. I ALWAYS leave a several-car opening in front of me to allow a car to merge into traffic. I also expect the car behind that one to merge in behind me. Instead, what happens most often is either (1) that second car trying to merge will speed up and zoom past the merging car so it can get closer to the front of the line. Or (2), the second car trying to merge will ride the bumper of the first car (the one I let in) and attempt to do a 2-car merge in front of me. This pisses me off. What sense of entitlement does this second person have that they can't come in behind me?

Let's move on to the people line. Standing in line at the grill for breakfast. Two people in front of me, one behind me. Cook is cooking. Two guys wander over and stand in front of the line. It's like none of us existed. As soon as the cook turned around to see who was next, these two guys actually stepped forward and started to order! The cook, thank heavens, looked to his right, saw the line, and addressed us instead. These two guys made no effort to get in line; they just stood there until the cook had asked all of us for our orders.

Now don't get me wrong. There are times I will gladly let someone in front of me, like at the grocery store checkout - when someone has only one or two items, I'll let them go ahead of me. Or in a long line in the ladies' room, I'll let someone with a small child go ahead of me. But other times? That line is there for a reason, and YOU don't get to decided you go first. The people already there before you get to make that decision. It's called civility.

I do not understand any of this, but the sense of entitlement, the sense of me-me-me, the inability to "play nice" is all starting to make me want to be a hermit and just stay home. Seriously.

The Good Ole Days

Yesterday, someone on Twitter asked what we'd do if the Internet suddenly went away. My immediate response was "I'd be out of a job", but after what I just went through trying to pay a bill online, I'm not so sure the lack of Internet would be so awful.

Caveat: I have never, ever, had a problem paying any bills, nor had a credit card declined, so this was all foreign territory for me. Being anal-retentive has its benefits.

Let's review the events of the past 2 hours:

I go online to get my invoice for the Water Club I manage for the department (in my spare time) and I see that my bill is past due. Crap, I forgot to pay it the end of last month. Now I owe for 2 months. No problem, we collect in advance, so we're covered.

Coworker: You might want to consider keeping all our money in checking and setting up auto-payments so you don't forget again.
Me: But we earn interest on Savings.
Coworker: Is it worth the $1 we earn to go through all this?
Me: I'll check on the interest and get back with you.

I go to transfer money from my Credit Union (CU) savings account into checking so my debit card (my ONLY debit card) will be funded. I forgot half the secret codes to get logged in to my CU. Third try I got in and did the transfer. Sigh.

I go back to the bill I need to pay, fill in the form with all the appropriate secret passwords and codes, and hit Submit.

"There was a problem processing your payment. Please try again later."

About 20 minutes later, I tried again with the same result. Sigh.

I called the company to see if they could tell me what was wrong. No problems with the payment service, so it must be my card. She checked and payment was declined.

Me: Okay, can you tell me why?
Her: No, I'll need to process it again to get the error code.
We do this, and she tells me my card was declined. [pregnant pause]
Me: Um, do you know why?
Her: No, you'll have to call your bank.

I go downstairs to the CU to see if they can tell me why my card was declined. Apparently there's a daily limit to a debit card transaction, and since I was trying to pay for 2 months, I'd exceeded it. She offered to bump my limit temporarily so I could run back to my desk and pay the bill.

She also noted that there was a $1 hold on my account by the other company. Apparently they do that to verify the validity of the card, and when mine failed, they put a lock on that $1, so I had to pay $1 less than the amount of the bill. Grumble.

Back to my desk. I log in to pay the bill and there is no credit card listed any more. Sigh.

I call the company back.
Me: Where did my credit card information go?
Them: Oh, we automatically wipe it out when a card is declined for any reason.
Me: But the card wasn't bad. There was a limit by my CU I'd exceeded.
Them: No matter - we treat them all the same for security reasons.
Me: Can you put it back?
Them: I can key it in for you, or you can key it yourself (read: start over).

I go back to the payment site and key it back in, setting myself up for automatic payments.

"There was a problem processing your request. Please try again later."

At this point, I was ready to scream. Yeah, it took me that long.

I unchecked "automatic payments" and it let me add the credit card back in.
I paid the bill minus the $1.
The remaining $1will be paid to them on the 15th of the month. Good.

Tomorrow I'll look into setting up automatic payments. My coworker is correct - this is not worth the $1 we earn each month on our Savings balance. Totally not.

So here I sit, 2 hours later, and I've just managed to pay a bill. I don't get paid to do this. I do this "in my spare time" as a service to my entire department. No one else wants the job, and they will pay me extra if I stop asking them to take it.

If we didn't have the Internet, I would have written a check to the water company, put it in an envelope, added a $.44 stamp, and stuck it in the mail box in our mail room. It would have taken about 5 minutes. This is a perfect example of why I still have a check book, and why some days I wish it was 1965 again. Okay, maybe 1977. My "good old days".

Honking Horn: The New Knock

Wow, it's been a long time since my last rant. Lately, by the time I've typed them, I'm over it, so I delete the post. But tonight ... not so much.

This is about basic respect for your fellow human beings. WHAT is the deal with people sitting in front of a building honking their horn? Are they there to pick up someone? If so, why not get out of the car and knock on the door?

What really gets me is when it's a father picking up his kids for the weekend. What kind of message is this sending the kids? I don't care if the father doesn't get a long with the mother. Show your kids enough respect to go to the door and tell them you are here.

When I was in High School (a loooooong time ago), my parents told me if the guy picking me up for a date didn't respect me enough to come to the door, then I wasn't going. Simple enough, right? I never even had to say anything, as the guys I went out with were decent guys.

Fast forward a lot of years, and I have people laying on their horns in front of my building because whoever they're picking up isn't coming out of their door fast enough. After the first honk, how about you get out of the car and knock on the door? You'll get a faster response since you'll be harder to ignore.

Side benefit: the neighbors won't call the police and report you disturbing their peace.

I Feel So Vindicated

From my Eats, Shoots & Leaves page-a-day calendar:

The confusion of the possessive "its" (no apostrophe) with the contractive "it's" (with apostrophe) is an unequivocal signal of illiteracy and sets off a simple Pavlovian "kill" response in the average stickler.

ETA (from the next day's page): The rule is: the word "it's" (with apostrophe) stands for "it is" or "it has". If the word does not stand for "it is" or "it has" then what you require it "its". This is extremely easy to grasp.*


* Emphasis is not mine. It is actually italicized like that on the calendar page.

Open Letter to Montgomery County, MD

Dear Montgomery County, Md:

Your Helpless Desk is nothing but a source of endless frustration to the tax-paying populous. Here is my story, and I beg you to tell me where I went wrong.

I am anal-retentive. I pay my taxes on time. In December, I usually go to the online site and pay via e-check, but this time I was running early (EARLY), but didn't want to actually mail the check yet. I scheduled the payment from my bank to be paid by Dec 30th. They automatically mail the payment early enough to arrive by my Pay By date. I pay all my bills this way and have for years. Never had a problem.

Fast forward to this week, when I received a notice I was past due on my Property taxes by $10 + interest. WHAT?

I checked my statement, and the amount paid = the amount billed.

I checked with my bank, and the check was sent on December 24th. PLENTY of time to get there by the 30th, even with the Christmas holiday.

If I was out to defraud the County, or pay late on purpose, would I have picked the 30th to pay by, or do you think that would have been the 31st?

Today I went to the Web site to see what day you received my check, but that option is not available that I can see, so I decided to call the phone number on my letter. I was on hold for almost 30 minutes, and the person who finally answered only transferred me to the Finance department. The phone in the Finance department rang at least 25 times with no answer and no transfer back to the person who'd transferred me. #FAIL

I went to the Web site again, looking for a Contact Us link, and found it. I got an automated response saying I would only receive an answer if I'd checked the box that I wanted a reply. Excuse me, but if I am filling out a form to ask a question, when WOULDN'T I want a reply? #FAIL

So I went back to the form again, filled it out again, this time checking the box. What a PITA.

Then I tried calling again on the off-chance the transfer was handled incorrectly. After 15 more minutes on hold, I got someone who wanted to transfer me, but I yelled WAIT A MINUTE! and explained what had happened the last time. He gently explained he was just part of a call center, and this was all he could do. I had him give me the address for the Finance office in case I need to go in person on my day off next week. Got it.

Then he transferred me. The phone rang about 30 times before I hung up. #FAIL

I have a job. That job enables me to pay my property taxes. I need to actually WORK while I am at my job, and I cannot afford to sit on hold for an hour at a time on the off-chance someone will actually pick up the phone.

Now I get to spend all or part of my day off next week in line at the County offices to challenge this late fee. Is it worth the $10+ ??? In my mind it is, if only on principle. Grrrrr

I'll be sure to report back to my readers on how that experience goes next week. In the mean time, get your freakin' phone system fixed! If you cannot pick up the phone on a timely basis, have it go to a hold queue to be answered as the calls come in. Experiencing a high call volume? Fine, TELL ME, then give me alternate times to call, or the physical location to where I can go in person. You did neither of these today.

I hope I never need to call your Customer Disservice line again, because it sure is worthless.

Daytime Running Lights

I wonder how many drivers of vehicles that are equipped with Daytime Running Lights (the headlights that turn on when the car turns on, so they are always 'on') are aware that they need to turn on their REAL lights when it gets dark outside. Apparently quite a few of them are NOT aware ... I drove home with three of them this evening. They had NO rear lights, and when approaching them from behind, the only reason I saw them was the reflection of my own headlights on the backs of their vehicles. So dangerous.

I think these vehicles either need to have a "it's dark, stupid, turn on your lights" indicator, or when people flash their lights at them, these unaware drivers should get a clue instead of flipping us the bird.

I am done, now.

Annoyances Du Jour

My, goodness, but I've had my share of annoyances today! I had to drop my car at the mechanic (that part was fine!), and when I do that, he drops me at the Metro (train, subway, whatever you call it in your area), and I take the train to work and back again and have him pick me up. Generally, there is an unspoken (HAHAHA!) 'quiet' protocol on the train. You do not do anything to annoy those around you. It is just how normal adults would behave. People who whip out cell phones get the evil eye, from a LOT of people.

So let me tell you about my day.

On the way IN to work:
(1) Guy had a newspaper spread out in his lap and was CLIPPING HIS FINGER NAILS. I stared at the back of his head, but he could not feel the evil thoughts I was flinging his way. People around me turned around and looked around to see where the annoying sound was emanating from. They wrinkled their noses and/or rolled their eyes. One asked me (I was standing), "IS SOMEONE CUTTING THEIR NAILS?!?!?!?!?" and someone else added, "Ew, that's GROSS." Guy kept going - he must have had 34 nails to trim, too... took him forEVER. Amazing.

(2) Public speaker. Woman with no clue what an "inside voice" is. She stood near one end of the car, talking VERY LOUDLY to a friend standing next to her, and she annoyed about 60 people for about 20 minutes straight. EVERYone kept turning and staring at her, but she was smiling and clueless. Just before my stop, I notice the woman next to me was having a fit of some sort - like an asthma attack. I asked her if she was okay, and her response was (through clenched teeth), "If that WOMAN does not SHUT UP ... " and went on to mutter something about personal space and sense of entitlement and "the world revolves around me" attitudes. What a great way for all of us to begin our mornings.

I wonder if you can claim medical disability because you were driven insane by a nail-clipper or a self-centered loudmouth.

On the ride back to pick up my car:
(3) By noon the train cars are mostly empty, so I thought I was safe. Nope. Woman across from me was cracking a massive wad of gum, and seemed pretty happy about it, too. What is it with people who chew with their mouths open and then crack their gum? Why do they think this is okay? She thankfully got off the train two stops later.

(4) I started hearing a tap-tap-tap sound. I turned around and a guy was tap-tap tap-tapitty-tap-tap tap-tapping his ring on the metal rail tap-tap-tap on the back of his tap-tap seat. tap-tap tappity-tap tap-tap-tap AAAAUGH!

After all that tap-tap-tappity-tapping, I get back to work and have the opportunity to call a Helpless Desk for a water delivery company. I had a problem with my settings on their site. I used to have two cards listed that could be used to pay my balance, and now there was only one. I tried to add the second one back in and got an error, so I HAD TO CALL THEM. At least they were not in India, though I think she was reading the same script. She had what I later diagnosed as a "listening problem".

Me: I have a question about my payment methods.
She: Okay, how can I help you?
Me: I am on the Make a Payment page, but my second credit card seems to have dropped off. Can you tell me why?
She: Can you go to the Make A Payment page and tell me what you see?
Me: (pause) I am already on the Make A Payment page, and I see only one of my two credit cards listed.
She: Can you edit it?
Me: Edit what? It is not there!
She: Ma'am, I am only trying to help you, and you are getting irritated with me.
Me: Okay, can you tell me where the edit button is?
She: Are you on the Make A Payment Page?
Me: .... (breathe, just breath ...) Yes, I am on the Make A Payment Page.
She: Once you get there, tell me what you see. Do you see an Edit button?

Are you dizzy yet? I was seething, and she could tell. Bottom line: after about 10 minutes of this, I gave up before she could say "thank you for calling ..." and I deleted/re-added my own information. Then I sent an email that I hope gets to their programming staff that their Make A Payment Page has an opportunity for improvement.

Thank goodness it is Friday.