Ridiculous Things

In the spirit of 'A Few of My Favorite Things', and Dimitri Martin's Important Things, I offer you.... ridiculous things. Because it's all I've got, people!

1. I went to the bank drive-thru yesterday to cash my check from the board of ed. I do this every two weeks, takes five minutes. Yesterday, I somehow crossed over to the Twilight Zone of banking, because the woman behind the sucky-tube speaker-phoned me to ask if I had an account with them (I don't, because they have only ONE branch that I can find, and I'm not paying ridiculous ATM fees everywhere I go). When I said, 'no', she ALMOST KEPT MY CHECK! She told me that I had to come inside, that no one without an account can use the drive-thru, and I most certainly have never been able to do it this way. Also, I would need to show two forms of ID, not just one. ?!?!?! I said, very politely, I might add (for the moment), that no, I've done it this way for a year, and it's always been fine - I thought it might be a new person. She started arguing with me, very loudly, and when I asked her to send my check back, she just looked at me! Finally, I got it back, and, I admit it, pissed, I pulled into a space and went inside. There, another woman AGAIN told me that I had never cashed a check in the drive thru, because it wasn't possible, and that she needed my credit card, AND my fingerprint, AND that there might be a fee attached to cash a check as a non-account holder!!!! I almost took it from her and walked out. I was SO MAD! But, it takes forever to get a check to clear, and I was already there, so I just did it, listening to her tell me over and over that I was wrong about never having been inside before. Finally, she asked if I wanted an envelope, and I said, NO, and grabbed the cash from her and left. Not my finest moment, I'll admit, but SERIOUSLY! Has anyone else noticed that the customer is ALWAYS WRONG these days?!

2. Remember how DH stayed in a hotel during the big storms so he could continue working on the proposal? Well, his company gave everyone two days' administrative leave because the roads weren't plowed. Isn't that nice of them? EXCEPT, since he stayed in a hotel, and worked A HUNDRED AND EIGHTY HOURS last pay period (that's a hundred hours of overtime, people), he can't use it. Nope. He stayed home the rest of that week because of the snow, and exhaustion, but HE has to use comp time to do it. AND (this is even better), the company gives quarterly bonuses, only to people who work more than 600hrs in that quarter. We should qualify easily, right? Nope. DH is having hernia surgery next month, which is in this quarter, and will have to take a week off. That will drop him below the required amount of hours worked. No bonus. (Actually, if you have a family, you can generally forget getting a bonus, since it requires a ridiculous amount of overtime and no vacation leave - if you want your kids to know who you are, you're not getting one.) This is the same company that promised anyone who brought in new high-level employees, rather than them having to use headhunters, a $10k bonus, and then reneged when the guy DH suggested to head a contract (and who was actually hired and is still there to this day, over two years later) didn't have his security clearance yet, and said it was only for people who they hired and ALREADY had their clearance. They gave us what, after taxes, amounted to a nice meal at Friday's instead.

3. The substitute computer system still isn't calling me, and my last check was over a week late. I called the board of ed two weeks ago to ask about it. No response. At least my check did arrive (see above), and was probably just held up in the snow (whatever happened to the mail going through snow, sleet and dark of night?!). I left more messages yesterday, and even then I was told that while it probably seems to coincide with how I had to refuse assignments several times in one day because the system kept calling me when I had called in sick to ask if I'd rather do a different assignment, it was just a coincidence, and she really can't explain it. Sure, because all the other subs who talk about the same thing having happened to them are totally off the mark, too. At least I got two other schools added to my list, one that's really big, and another that specializes in the most serious special ed cases in the area (ie, up to age 21 and may or may not be toilet-able so most people won't go there), so hopefully my chances of being called will increase. Also as likely - I may grow wings.

... and that was just yesterday.