I am the worst blog updater. In fact, it's so bad, I should really have a rant entitled: Because people never update their blogs.
Double in fact, because I believe my first post was about a kid who used up the page-name I wanted and only posted three times. Well, dern, I
am that kid.
So I apologize to everyone for being a person I hate. And that you hate. If you care anyway.
I have a rant to share though. It’s awfully long though, so grab some popcorn and a coke. Actually, skip the coke, because you’d have to get up to take a whizzer in the middle, and that’s going to ruin the narrative flow.
About three weeks ago, Wachovia called me to tell me that someone used my debit card number to buy $300 dollars worth of gas and groceries in
California. Seeing as how I am now in debt management and my life is void of
most (okay,
some) spending, I was less than thrilled.
Okay, I admit it. I seethed. I vocalized in my cubicle. My
coworkers pretended not to hear.
While I should be ecstatic that my bank called me to tell me about these fraudulent purchases and replaced my money over night (one point for the man), I wasn't. This is where the rant splits in two… okay, four.
If you want to learn how I feel about
thieves, read ONE.
If you want to follow me down the path to total rage, scroll to TWO.
If you want to speculate on how the City of Atlanta can keep so many orange cone and barrels on hand for the amount of construction they do, scroll to THREE.
If you want to riff on lazy people who don’t stand in line but expect their spot to be there when they return from sitting on their asses, read FOUR.
If you want to hear it all, just keep reading.
ONE.
Nobody has as much funding as they probably wish they did. I understand that
need often drives crime. You need some bread, you steal it. You need some gas for your car, you use my debit card to get it. You need some crack, you break in
Jenny's car and steal her purse and CDs because she left them on the seat so you can hock it or barter for drugs. You’re Jenny and you need something to cover up said broken window, so you cut the corner off of my tarpaulin to fix it. Whatever.
I just hate that there isn't an * and footnote on my debit card number that says, "I'm poor too, please don't steal from me. If extra funding is needed please use card number XXXX, and sign 'Jenna Bush'" - or whoever it is.
I guess I'm not really saying to steal from the first daughter, but the point is, why target someone who spent $10 at a liquor store or $18 at the grocery store or where ever you picked up my number? At least go after the middle aged guy with the pension and 401(k) and the Christmas bonuses who bought a new stereo at best buy or something... he might not even notice.
Okay now it sounds like I'm saying that it's okay to steal if you take it from someone who can afford it. That's not necessarily
true. Well maybe. I don't know, the point is, please don't steal from me.
TWO.
Why does Wachovia have to be such an infinite time suck? You spend hours on the phone with them, answering questions, requesting documents, following up to make sure that documents have been received, etc.
You check to see if you can have your replacement debit card expedited, and they say it costs $16 to
expedite it, but we can't do yours anyway because we already sent it and that turns out to be a lie. If you take all my money and my time, shouldn’t that in some way pay for debit cards to always be expedited? Who in the world wants their card to show up 10 days after you need it?
Great. Perfect.
Seven to ten business days. You call on business day 8 and they tell you to wait for the mail on Saturday. Of course it doesn't arrive. You finally get the stupid thing in Monday's mail and you do a little dance and make up an impromptu song about how stoked you are about participating in America’s consumer culture once again, as is your
birthright!
Nevermind that I haven't been able to hold cash in my hands for two and a half weeks because someone stole from me (see ONE.), I finally get the card in hand and am expecting mounds of cash to spew forth from the ATM (so that I can get change and use 65 cents to get a drink from the vending machine) and all it does is beep nastily and blink "You have not entered your correct PIN".
At the time, I didn’t have my cell phone, which meant I had to walk back to the office and up the stairs to my desk to use the desk phone, because me and Wachovia’s time suck are like this.
A very perky woman confirmed with me that my PIN had not changed; it is a “customer selected number”. Which is positive because it's been the same for seven years and if it had changed, I might explode from having to remember a new number. She clicks me over to the activation line and conferences in so she can hear me do their bidding.
I go through the menus, use said PIN of the
anciennes, and it still says it’s incorrect. At no time does the woman admit fault. Banks incorrectly encode cards all the time. But she doesn’t say that. She says, “I can send you a reminder card, or you can go to a branch and change your number.”
I opted for the branch, because I don’t particularly feel like waiting seven to ten business days for a letter to arrive at my house containing four numbers I already know, which have been rejected by the system four times already.
And thus began the walk.
THREE.
Can we talk about how much midtown blows right now? Construction on Peachtree from 10th to 13th, because we need another condo. Construction at Peachtree and 15th because we obviously need to cut down old growth trees so we can have a fountain and a roundabout in front of Colony Square. Construction on 14th between Piedmont and Peachtree and again between W. Peachtree and the highway for God knows what.
Midtown is a giant jackhammer ringing behind your eyeballs. Throw in 20 union workers on strike, spread evenly between 13th and 12th, each trying to hand me a piece of paper I already agree with, and you’ve got a walk rivaling an afternoon stroll in the seventh circle of hell.
It’s bad enough for the people in cars. But every one of these streets has also managed to close the sidewalks. On 14th, they’ve closed the entire right side of the road and turned it in to a one-way down to Juniper from Piedmont. You can’t take 14th to Piedmont and go north anymore. That obviously sucks for drivers. For pedestrians, it isn’t much better.
You can walk on one side until you get to condo number XYZ, and then they’ve torn up that side of the sidewalk too. So you have the privilege of walking 20 feet
in the road because obviously, we need whatever bullshit they’re putting in there to go along with our new new condos and roundabout.
Obviously, the stroll to the bank was not exactly pleasant.
Back to TWO.
I get to the bank. I get in
line and when the woman ahead of me stops flirting with the branch manager, a woman who had been seated stands up and gets in front of me.
FOUR.
Okay, I see that you were here first. But if you’re too lazy to stand
in the line for the duration of the wait, which is the point of the line, then I don’t think you should have the privilege of actually being next. For all I know, someone else is helping you. Or you work here and are on break. Or you are waiting for your roommate to set up her IRA. I don’t care. You are not in line. You are not next.
TWO.
The snooty guy at the special non-teller desk fixes my card. He makes no comment as to whether they made a
mistake in the situation. He just does his thing and let’s me pick a new PIN. I told him he would know if it didn’t work because I would be at the ATM outside and if I started crying, then we’d have a problem. He didn’t laugh.
It worked. I got money. I wanted to do a little dance, but I was still trying to be angry about it.
No thanks to Wachovia! you know.
Done. I go back to work via the 10th St. Caribou and the Piedmont Willy’s. I decided since it took so long for me to have funds, I might as well blow them all in one day.
I survived. I just hated every second of it.
Like you do.
