The boys over in Syracuse are our new NCAA champions.

Yes, that�s what I said � Syracuse.

You know�of all the funky stuff that happens in the midst of March Madness every year, this year has got to have been the funkiest.

~~~

My downstairs neighbors are moving. Too bad; they are nice people who basically stayed out of my way which is always a good thing. Plus, the gal keeps a really nice little garden down by my back stairs. Guess that�s gone now. :( I have the feeling they think I am rather odd, but who can blame them, really? Actually, I think it�s just because when I am home I am pretty much a silent hermit. I�m not that person who knows all of her neighbors by their first names and sits outside on her front porch every night, watching their goings-on. I mean, you know, I�ll say hello; I�ll say good morning; I�ll bend down to pet peoples doggies and stuff, but I don�t make a huge effort to get to know my neighbors. I guess maybe I should, if only for safety reasons. What can I say? I�m kind of on the shy side.

In case you haven�t heard, I live in a building which was built in the early-1930�s. For an old building, it�s in great shape, but you know how these things are. As much as I can hear my neighbors upstairs walking around their freakin� penthouse apartment, sliding open the door to their kick-ass terrace (and no, I don�t have a kick-ass terrace, dammit!), their boom-chica-boom music playing at all hours of the night�I�m sure those kind folks downstairs hear my ever-so-graceful ass tramping across the floor of my pad all the time, too. I�m relatively quiet actually, but here�s a little secret about me: Evidently, I was never taught to walk correctly.

I�m heavy-footed; I make a lot of noise when I walk. Heaven forbid I am wearing a pair of boots or something, because then you can hear me coming from a mile away. Plus, I trip a lot and have a tendency to walk into walls.

Have we yet discussed the fact that I am a dork?

And yet for someone who has so little grace, I am actually a decent dancer...

So I know the neighbors have to hear me having sex. Not that I am inordinately loud in such matters, but my damn floor creaks! Even if they can�t hear me, personally, I�m sure they can hear the bed a�rockin� back and forth on the floor. Sometimes after a particularly�energetic session, I think, �Well I hope the neighbors enjoyed that as much as I did.�

Ah�apartment living�what a gas.

~~~

Just a warning�this next bit here is probably going to be way boring�

Work is driving me absolutely batty; a couple of my customers in particular. We�re presently not shipping new orders to this company I�ll call S (as in �shit-for-brains�) because they in fact do have shit for brains and have been avoiding my calls about a particular matter for two months now. So if you can�t pay us the money you owe us already, why on earth would I be sending you new stuff? So that you can not pay for that later, too?

So one of S�s Buyers went on a rampage yesterday because we�re not shipping her orders. Understandable, except she needs to go on a rampage with her own people. Anyway, she told me she wants to be copied in on all of my e-mails to anyone in her company from now on. OK, no problem.

I sent this woman ONE e-mail this morning, in which I very courteously pointed out a few issues and asked for any assistance or suggestions she may have to offer, so that we may resolve all of our problems and move forward. However, I then had to CC her on several other back-and-forth e-mails revolving around their unpaid bills. So at around noon, she sent off this absolutely scathing e-mail, yelling at me for the fact that she�s had to spend half her morning reading these b.s. e-mails.

Lord, sometimes I wish I had the power to reach right through phone lines so that I may throttle the life out of a few people.

You would not believe the e-mails I have been receiving from various people at this f�n company between yesterday and today. I swear, I should be nominated for Sainthood or at least featured prominently in the Patience Hall of Fame. And it�s all extremely stupid because it�s all needless.

S pays their bills on time, in general. They are a large and financially sound company. On the surface of things, this is not a customer I should even have to spend much time on at all. Because it is not a customer I should ever be having problems with. Our problem lies with Debit Memos.

For those of you who do not know (which is probably the vast majority of you, because who the hell even wants to know what a freakin� debit memo is?), oftentimes a company will pay a bill, but deduct a certain amount because of some error. Say you were quoted $21/unit on some calculators and we charged you $23/unit because of someone�s mistake. You would pay your invoice, but deduct the excess $2/unit. Most companies then provide what is called a debit memo with their payment, which is basically a piece of paper that explains why the deduction was taken. So if I figure out that my company fucked up, I have the balance credited and you never hear from me again. If I figure out that we made no error and you were billed correctly, I will charge you back for the amount of the debit memo and give you ten days to pay it or prove me wrong.

Now yes, there are a myriad of reasons a company might submit a debit memo, but really this should be a relatively simple matter, right?

Well�not with S. Because S, you see, uses Debit Memos as a source of income.

What S does is submit dozens of DMs to us every month. One may be for only $100, one may be for $2,000. Regardless, 99.9% of them are totally invalid. They send them and deduct the money in the hope that we will just figure they are not worth the time it will take to research them. Weighed against how much you pay an employee to research each issue, the amount of business this large company does, etc., it just often doesn�t pay to get involved in these little matters. However, my company runs on extremely low profit margins. We can�t afford to shit away thousands of dollars each month so that S can pay their electric bill or whatever the hell they use this money for.

Last year, we had close to $100,000 in these types of charges and it took over nine months to get them to repay the money.

So far this year, S has submitted bogus DMs to us, totaling over $42k. I started my attempts toward resolving the issues and getting our money back in January. January, people. What date is it today? I only stopped their shipments over this on April 2. I feel that I have been plenty patient. Especially when one considers the fact that not only have I waited this long before I got tough, in the last three months I have been referred to about three different people per DM. Believe me when I tell you that this is one hell of a lot of people.

Wanna know another of my pet peeves? I really hate it when people try to pass the buck and refuse to accept responsibility for their own fuck-ups. I can�t tell you how many times I have said, �OK, can we just stop with the finger-pointing and actually move forward toward resolution?� OK�I don�t really say it that way, but that�s my point. And not only with S. Actually, the company I work for seems to have some kind of �No Responsibility Disease.� The vast majority of our employees do that�say an order was entered incorrectly and I bring it the attention of the person who entered the order, so that he/she may correct their error. Nine times out of ten, the response will be, �I�ll correct this, but it�s really not my fault because yadda-yadda-yadda and blah-blah-blah� and ya know what? A) I already know it was your error, so shut the fuck up with the not accepting responsibility for it and B) I don�t care. I just want to solve the damn problem, learn from it and move on.

Why do people do this? I�ve never understood this kind of thing. Nobody is perfect. We all make mistakes, we all have room to learn and grow, so what�s the big deal? Mistakes are just a way for us to, yes � learn and grow. I don�t care that you made an error, just fix the damn thing and stop trying to make me think you are fault-free and nothing is your responsibility. In fact, the more you protest, the less I will think of you.

Of course, occasionally, those type of responses are valid. But not usually.

And see, in the dozens of e-mails flying back and forth today between me and the numerous contacts I have at S, I kept getting all of these argumentative e-mails. �Well, if this person had done such and such, I would have been able to respond sooner�well, if you had sent your chargeback to the correct department, blah-blah-blah��

ARGH!!!!!!!!

The truth is, two people were responsible for the bulk of these DMs; they both told me they would be resolved about 4 weeks ago and up until yesterday they were not. Therefore, step up to the plate you two; accept responsibility and let�s get on with the business of doing business, OK? Don�t give me your bullshit a month later about how I now need to call someone completely different or you didn�t get what you needed from this other person or whatever-the-fuck. If it wasn�t your responsibility, you shouldn�t have accepted said responsibility. If it is, then contact whoever you need to contact and stop trying to get me to do it for you. And most definitely stop trying to push the blame off on me or on anyone else.

And I�ll bet all of that makes not one whit of sense to anyone but me. However, I feel better now that I have let the rant spill.

~~~

Saturday night�s casino gala shin-dig was a lot of fun. I learned how to play Craps, finally. :) I even won $1300 in fake money! Of course, now both Amy and I have a serious need to go to Vegas�

Half-Pint was nowhere to be found, but the morning channel five weather guy was the MC for the evening. Woo-hoo! Let me just say�that man seriously needs to lay off the tan-in-a-can�

Not only did we gamble and partake of a nice dinner (complete with desserts that were just too cute to eat), they had a live auction and also a huge raffle. You could �buy� raffle tickets with your fake-casino-winnings�so�I won a new acoustic guitar in the raffle! Yay!!!! So now I have a guitar which actually fits my small hands (the neck is too thick on the only one I have right now, so there are a few chords that I can not play very easily). Therefore, I have no real excuse left for not becoming the female-equivalent of D. Boon.

Several years ago, when I was poor and needed some food to eat aside from the frozen corn I had been living on for like a month and because I am a lousy guitar player anyway, I sold my guitars. Then, a few years back, I asked John to buy me one for Christmas. Now, included in my request was the instruction that he go to the music store with either of my brothers-in-law, both of whom are musicians and also know me and would be helpful in his efforts to purchase a guitar for me. That, or I would have to go to the music store with him, in order to get a guitar that fits me well. Did he listen? Of course not. He went on his own and purchased me a classical guitar with the huge neck around which I can barely wrap my fingers, let alone play chords seamlessly.

Now, at the risk of being off-color here (once again), I must point out that my fingers can�t even wrap around the base of John�s�unit. Yes, his unit is large, but not extraordinarily so or anything. Actually, it�s just exactly the right size�

Where was I? Oh yeah, guitars�so my point is, he should have known that my stinkin� fingers also wouldn�t be able to wrap around the neck of this guitar, but whatever. Now I can practice, practice, practice! Woo-Hoo!

Boy, I�ll bet my neighbors will shortly be very pleased that they are moving�

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~~~~~~~~~~~peace, love and smooches~~~~~~~~~~~~~


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Copyright 2002-2005, Howl-at-the-Moon Words



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