Tarkblog

Since Caleb hasn’t blogged a blog about our Sunday adventures, I thought I would.

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I had to stop in the bank yesterday to get a cashier’s check for $TEXAS to pay our closing costs and downpayment on the new house.

Next to me at the other window were two ladies, both extremely overweight, one of which was in a wheelchair. The wheelchair bound lady had an oxygen tank and hose hooked up. The both had extremely raspy (read: LONG time smokers) voices.

They were being somewhat chummy with the teller, likely because they go in there all of the time. The teller, a young girl in her early twenties, looked thoroughly annoyed with both of them but was doing her job nicely.

Amongst other things, the ladies were in the bank to get their “cigarette money” for the week. A modest $300 widthdrawl from the account.

Anyway, as they were done and getting ready to leave, the lady in the wheelchair suddenly remembered she “needed to pay the gas bill”, so she would need another $500 from the checking account in order to cover it. The standing lady realized that their water bill was also due, so they had better make it $550.

While the teller is doing the transaction, the ladies proceed to gab about how they had “forgotten all about that bill” and that they were going to “turn off the gas tomorrow if they don’t pay it”. Seems like they had REALLY forgotten about it. Though I’m not sure mailing $500 to the gas company in cash form is a really smart idea.

Anyway, they lastly decided they needed to order some new checks. In order to save money they wanted the “cheapest ones they could get”. I’m no expert, but I will tell you that the cheapest checks you can get are NOT found at the bank.

Furthermore, they wanted duplicates. At this point, the teller tried to talk them out of duplicates. This is because the bank scans each check and makes it available online, as well as prints a copy of each scanned check on your monthly statement. So you get a copy of each check back in the mail each month. Duplicates are unnecessary, ESPECIALLY if you’re trying to get the “cheapest ones you can get”.

No dice. They needed their duplicates. Two boxes as a matter of fact. I believe that 2 boxes of 150 duplicate checks ran somewhere around 30 bucks. Yikes.

That’s a box of cigarettes!

I’m tired of sales calls, telemarketers, telephone surveys, and the like.

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Day 2 (Saturday) of our New York trip:

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In the midst of transferring utilities into my name, I found that Cinergy is now Duke Energy. Interesting.

As well, their transfer process is a complete pain in the ass. No, the actual transfer work wasn’t hard, but after it’s done they transfer you to the confirmation department which makes sure all of the information is right.

Then they want to send you an email with the confirmation information.
To which I didn’t want
To which he told me it was important I got it and he needed my email for just one message
To which I didn’tw ant to give
To which he told me to just give him the email address of a friend or relative
To which I said no
To which he told me it was unfortunate and now they would have to send confirmation in the regular mail and it may take a while to get there
To which I said that’s all right
Then he gave me a confirmation number.

THEN he proceeds to tell me about how they can transfer SBC service to my new home as an added, no cost service. I told him I’m not interested: we aren’t moving in for a few weeks and I don’t nee dthe phone transferred right now.

I bet I argued with him for a good solid 5 minutes on why I didn’t need him to do it for me. All I can figure is he gets a commission.

At one point the conversation went like this:

Him: Have you called SBC lately?
Me: No
Him: How long have you been a customer?
Me: 5 years or so
Him: Well, I don’t mean to burst your bubble but if you call them you’ll be on the phone with them a long time. I can go ahead and just transfer it now for you.
Me: I don’t WANT to transfer it now.
Him: But I can schedule it for any day in the future you’d like, even if it’s in 30 days or so.
Me: I don’t know what day I wnt to transfer right now. I’m not interested.
Him: Yeah, but you gotta understand that if you call them and wait on hold forever and finally get through they may not be able to transfer your phone for at least a week or two.
Me: Yeah, I completely understand that. I don’t care.
Him: I moved recently and I wish I had been able to use this service

Good god - the conversation wasn’t even remotely related to the reason I called in the first place (for electricity!).

Thinking about calling back and bitching to someone in management. Do you think it will get me anything?