[Author's note 2017: Read between the lines and see why I avoided going into management. Here's today's gas prices.]
WAMU (Washington Mutual Bank) makes my day again. They are such infantile little pukes, constantly probing for what they can get away with. My gripe is that when you cancel, and yes, you have to go in there and argue with them to cancel that rip-off overdraft protection scam they are running. The one where they snag $29 out of your account for “protection”. But without being asked they also go ahead and cancel sending you a monthly statement on your savings account. If you then inquire into your account more than three times a month, yep, another fee. You would be hard pressed to find such bastard rat mentality in real life.
Work development. It seems the powers that be want me to follow up on what a salaried employee does with the reports I gave him. Questions like what did he do with the last batch I gave him. Golly, I don’t know. You see, he is the head of a department, and salaried people are given to be good managers of their own time. Now, to me, asking him what he did and telling him what I’d like are the same thing. But shouldn’t somebody tell him in advance?
Ha! Tony came in today to make a quick change on the distribution of one report. Alas, he saw by my reaction that it is no longer possible to change one thing without considering how it will affect everything else. Those days are gone, and in my thinking none to quickly. He was in a big hurry, so I’ll explain it to Rhonda soon. They are all tied up in meetings all day with this (now serious looking) lawsuit with the Grand Caymans.
Use it or lose it? I bought the fuel pump, fuel screen and fuel filter for the Sunbird. It’s a hundred bucks already, but I have forgotten how to record this transaction in my books. That is how long since I’ve done bookkeeping for this kind of adventure. I mean, I’ll quickly re-think it through, but I was horrified that it did not come naturally. Manuel did not work on the Caddy today, likely due to this summers first big rainstorm. As soon as the Sunbird is mobile, I will begin gathering other pieces for it. What’s new? I know they’ve been around, but for the first time I saw the "Splitfire" Bosch four-prong spark plugs. They are six bucks each and the German manufacturer says they guarantee you will notice the difference or they pay for the plugs. (Yes, but do you get to keep them?) I bought one for reference.
I also noted the change in warranty since I last bought major car parts. The warranty is not on the parts, but on the driver and/or the car. They want your phone number to warranty the part. And the warranty “expires” if you sell the car. I intend to send a nasty e-mail to AC Delco head of marketing, subtly suggesting that they could make the warranty 1000 years instead of one, considering the basic reason most people are buying replacement parts. The clerk had a hard time with my questions about whether the part was under warranty no matter who bought it, because he wanted a name. Sigh, yet another generation of total idiots who will eventually wonder why they are poor and somebody else is rich.
[Author's note: this post first published online 2014-05-01. This is pre-blog material which I'll try to lightly explain. First, I was still not used to Florida style rip-off bank fees. At work, I never became a salaried employee and was hesitant to supervise them. The company took over a project in the Caymans which turned out to be a scam, but I left the company withing a few months and do not know the outcome. I still have the Bosch sparkplug as a souvenir, since I sold the Sunbird just before Carmax came on line. Whew! And last, you can see I have always been against searchable databases.]
