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The Love of Money is the Root of All Evil
2005-02-07 - 4:32 p.m.

The fluorescent tube in the display case is almost burned out and we don�t have any replacements, this means the tube is doing that obnoxious random flashy thing they do and giving me a horrible headache. I have been leaving it turned off, at least until we can get a new tube (ha!), but everyone and their uncle keeps coming in here and turning it on. Even when I say, �Please don�t turn that on it�s burning out and the flashing gives me a headache. � They STILL turn it on to see for themselves, like I would lie about that or something. It�s like when you tell someone there is wet paint and they have to touch it too in order to find out for themselves. The worst part is, though, that after all of these people turn it on just to make sure I�m not going schitzo or something and imagining the flashing, instead of turning it back off to save what little bit of sanity I have left, they say, huh, you�re right and leave WITH OUT TURNING IT BACK OFF! On top of that I�ve had a few people do that multiple times during the last week or so. I swear, sometimes I think I work with baboons. Except the baboons would see how annoying the flashing is and turn the damn thing back off. The best one was the CUSTOMER who did it. It isn�t even your shit, lady, why are you dicking with it?

Lalala� anyway. I�m spending my morning trying to get people who owe us money to pay up. This is seriously my least favorite part of the job. To top it off, Obnoxious Co-worker didn�t bother to get all the necessary information from all of the customers, including writing the order numbers on the deposit forms. This means I don�t really have any way to just tell customers, �too bad, you�re paying anyway, that�s what you agreed when you signed the deposit.� Because I can�t tell which deposit is theirs. Not to mention he didn�t get all the info on the credit card for the deposit, so even if I could tell which form I couldn�t use it anyway because I don�t have the billing address or card code. Grr. Oh, Second Best Customer Ever:
Me: Hello, may I speak to Accounting please?
SBCE: That would be me.
Me: Hello. You owe our company $900 dollars from back in mid- December.
SBCE: I know.

(using Kyle�s Mom�s voice) Wha..WHAT?!?! OK, um, well, I didn�t quite know what to say to that but I continued on anyway

Me: Well, we really need to be paid for this, especially because your company doesn�t have a credit account with us.
SBCE: I can�t pay you the whole thing. We were planning to set up a payment plan with you for this

Ummm� you�ve had over a month and a half to �set up a payment plan� with us and we haven�t heard word one. When were you planning to start said payment plan exactly? Probably right about the time Satan fired up his central heating to ward off the sudden chill.

Me: Well, we don�t usually do that with non- account customers, but in the very least I need some kind of payment soon or I am going to have to send this to collections.

I was bluffing, we have no collections department. We don�t have a separate collections company we use. The closest thing we have to that is our biggest shop hand and a baseball bat. Something tells me using this �collections department� wouldn�t go over too well in Small Claims Court.

SBCE: Well, I should be able to get a partial payment to you by the end of the week.
Me: That�s fine.
SBCE: By the way, where do I find the paperwork to set up a credit account with your company?

(again using Kyle�s Mom�s voice, only more disbelieving) Wha..Wha.. WHAT?!?!?! Lady, you actually think our company is going to willingly extend credit to you after this? You gotta be kidding me. I told her where to find the forms anyway. It gave me a sick sense of pleasure to know we would get to call them back and tell them they were denied credit due to past rental experiences. HAHAHAAAAA!

Wow, I�m petty. The most irksome thing about it is that I told Obnoxious Co-worker he needed to make sure to get all the info on all the customers because invariably, the one you let slip is the one that will bite you in the ass. That has happened, but it happened too late! He�s already gone and now I have to deal with it. OK, God, very funny, you can stop with the joke now. Sometimes when I�m dealing with these things I think I can hear a giant Waa Waa Waaaaaaa sound effect like the one they used to use on Bugs Bunny.

All will work itself out, though. I have a feeling I�m nearing the end of the tunnel. I actually am feeling surprisingly positive today, considering all the preceding bitching.

I bought a digital camera this weekend. It should arrive in a few days. It wasn�t really expensive or fancy, but I just wanted something to have in my purse when I go out, see my friends and family, etc. I usually just get little disposables, but I never remember to develop them and my friends never see them because I never remember to take the prints with me. I like this whole emailing photos phenomenon, especially when it comes to my surrogate niece, Amazing Squirmy, and nephew, Super A. I�ll let you know what I think of it when it arrives. Even though I pretty thoroughly double checked this, I have an irrational fear that it isn�t going to work with my Mac. Or it will work, but I won�t be able to figure it out. I really do think I�m being irrational in this, though. It isn�t that different from my dad�s camera, and that just drops everything right into iphoto without a problem. I sort of feel like I shouldn�t have spent the money on something so superfluous right now, but it was a very good deal for what I think is a good product, and I will always be able to justify why it isn�t a good time to spend money on things like that; because there will never be a time when money just starts spontaneously growing out of my pockets at a ridiculously alarming rate causing me to find a need to spend it as quickly as possible before I drown in the mountain of cash. Because I think that is the only time when I wouldn�t worry about spending more than $50.00 on something other that basic food and shelter.

Sweet Baby Jesus, I thought I lost this entry. My computer completely froze up and I had to just turn it off to get it restarted and I was convinced I had lost all of this. I was ready to cry, but I have turned it back on and here it still is! Yay crappy, ancient, gutless wonder computer!

SO, before anything else can go wrong I am just going to post this bad boy already and if I think of anything else to rant about I�ll just post again.

when we last left our heros� - in our next exciting installment�