Sit. Stay. Good blog reader.

Okay, so my last entry was a wee bit depressing. I get that way sometimes. What can I say? I'm over it. Nothing more to see here, people, move along, move along. Let us all forage ahead into this (new and much less emoish and/or low-on-meds) (but high on parentheses) post. I'll hold your hand, I promise.

Did you know that I'm a dog trainer? No? I am forced to point out that you must have been remiss in reading my profile. Go ahead, go check it out. I'll wait.

...

Yeah, it's short. I'm not one for going on and on when a few succinct sentences will do, as I'm sure you can tell by my concise, to-the-point, no frills previous entries.

What?

Anyway, I fell into dog training when I needed a p/t job that would allow me to work around my husband's (then normal) working hours. My dilemma came in the fact that I'd rather clean all the bathrooms in Grand Central Station with my tongue* than work in customer service, yet I also keenly felt the need to avoid living in a cardboard box, screening my cell phone calls for creditors and my mother-in-law.

So.

Being left with few options, I jumped on the opportunity to apply for the dog training position open at my local PetSmart. The minor detail that I'd never owned a dog didn't slow me down in the slightest. After all, how hard could it be? I lied my way through the interview and Voilà! A new job was all mine.

Two years later, I left PetSmart as quote "the best trainer they'd ever had" unquote (thank you Manager Joe, you are obviously a man of keen and savvy business sense) to become the head trainer at my local humane society. Not only the head trainer, but also the program creator and curriculum writer. People, they *headhunted* me. I'm, like, all in charge and stuff. SO. RAD.

I no longer have to lie about my experience. Well, not much. There is still that bit about how I got started in the dog training world. Seriously, you expect me to tell clients I learned from PetSmart? Ha. Dream on.

The coolest thing is I *love* training. I dream of making training my full-time job, which due to the low pay for all non-Totally-Overboard-Dog-Whisperers and/or non-English-Dominatrix-But-Somehow-Still-Cute people such as myself, will not happen until my husband is recognized for the genius he is and given an approximately 92.8% raise. For now, I toil away the days as an Executive Secretary (impressive, no?) and spend my (precious little) spare time working hard as a free-lance trainer.

>>Note: You know that saying "choose a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life"? Two words: totalcompleteabsoluteutter bullshit. Missed the mark on that one, Confucius, my friend. Reeaaalllly missed the mark.<<

I've begun branching out to working with private clients and teaching things like agility and therapy training. Of course, I still have my classes at the humane society; my little program has taken off and is doing quite well for itself. Clients love me and are recommending me left and right. Well, maybe just left. ANYWAY. Point being, I'm making a (small, inconsequential) name for myself in my little town. Yee haw!

(If you ever tell anyone I said yee haw, I'll hunt you down and teach your dog to pee on your leg.)

(Don't doubt me. I have the power**.)

This past weekend, due to the (spectacular) behavior of dog that I (spectacularly) trained, I interviewed with a local vet who wants to be able to recommend a (spectacular) trainer to her clients in need. As a result of said interview, I now have a vet pimping my services. *And* she wants to me to run classes at her clinic.

I so rock.

I made business cards (which I would love to share with y'all because I worked really hard on them and they look freaking awesome and professional and not homemade at all but seeing as how they have my phone number on them I think I'll take Paranoid Interweb Guidelines and Why You Should Never Post Personal Info for $1000, Alex) and I am working on a tri-fold flyer (flier?) showcasing all my (spectacular) training services. I need to come up with hourly prices and packages and shiny pictures and a website and reference quotes from previous clients and OH MY GOD I'M A REAL PROFESSIONAL NOW.

GAH.

I must needs go locate a mop, as my head has just exploded.



*gold star if you can name that one
**gold star and a cherry on top for that one

Power to the People, Part II

Remeber this post? Well, here's the conclusion. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's been 9 months, blah blah whatever. Do you want to know what happened or what?

Well then, stop with the bitching and read, dammit.

...

N, having previously worked for a bank, knew that calling on a Sunday afternoon would get us nowhere. Instead, he planted his tired ass in the parking lot on Monday morning, after a full night's work, to wait for the bank to open so he could talk to someone in person. Why he thought he needed to talk to them in person was beyond me. I got the waiting-for-a-business-day thing, but in my (correct) opinion, a phone call on said business day would have sufficed. Ring ring, chat chat, kiss kiss, have a nice day, thankyouverymuch! Yes no?

But I digress.

N was told by a minion of Satan cashier that the fees wouldn't post until midnight so there was nothing that could be done until Tuesday morning. Technically, the fees were still pending. So even though our balance had a huge red negative, technically we weren't overdrawn.

Yeah, right.

So N, not having learned his lesson the first time determined to get this taken care of, was once again in the parking lot on Tuesday morning (N's new hours* are 7pm to 7am, which means he normally goes straight to bed upon arriving home). On Tuesday morning, N was directed by a minion of Satan cashier to Satan himself the bank manager. Satan The bank manager appeared to be listening politely while N explained that while we would be happy to pay the $10 transfer fee, we were requesting that the o/d fees to be reversed because it was only by bank error that they were there in the first place. Pull the money from our card, charge us the ten bucks and reverse the ridiculous o/d fees sitting there in gloating triumph on our account. To our credit, N had deposited his paycheck over the weekend so we did at least have a positive balance at the time of this little meeting, even after the staggering o/d fees were assessed. Also to our credit, we were not repeat offenders - this was only the second time in over two years of being with BofA that we had overdrawn.

The one snag was that I had requested the o/d protection to be moved to my credit card so long ago that Satan the bank manager was unable to access any record showing that I did so. He had to take N's word that I had indeed called and asked for this change.

Does this sound unreasonable to you? Of course not. It wouldn't sound unreasonable to any normal human being with half a brain and a modicum of customer service savvy.

Apparently, though, "normal", "brain", and "customer service" were not the words of the day. Satan The bank manager told N that really, there just wasn't anything poor little ol' him could do about it. He didn't have any proof that such a change had been requested and he just couldn't make $175 in fees disappear. Out of the goodness of his heart, however, he magnanimously reversed $43 of the charges.

Forty. Three. Dollars.

Out of one hundred seventy five.

Forty three dollars!!

N was totally exhausted at this point (working all night and then losing sleep two days in a row to deal with Satan and his minions will do that to a person), so he just accepted the verdict and left the bank. He called me on his way home, too tired to realize that was probably not the best course of action ... I have been known to kill maim the messenger in times past (my bad).

Let me tell you, I was LIVID. INCENSED. PISSED-OFF beyond all description. Smoke was pouring out of my ears and my eyes glowed demon-red. My hands turned into claws and my mouth grew fangs. I was growling and cursing in languages that no longer exist. If thoughts could kill, Satan the bank manager would have been all the way past dead and into decomposing, right there at his desk.

My co-workers were startled, to say the least.

Recalling that I look horrible in orange and that jumpsuits really aren't in style this season, I managed to pull myself together. I called (remember, ring ring, chat chat, and all that?) and without getting into the back-story of Nathan's conversation with Satan the bank manager -- no need to clutter up conversation with details -- I calmly and professionally explained the problem to the cheerful representative who had the shitty luck privilege of answering my call.

Said representative was very sympathetic (possibly picking up on the fact that I was almost beyond reason at this point) but told me I would have to speak with the manager, who - surprise, surprise - was not available at this particular moment, and could she take a message? I wanted to tell her to shove her message-taking into a place normally reserved for toilet paper, but I restrained myself. I politely said I'd be happy to leave my name and number so that Satan he could call me at his earliest convenience.

Not *my* earliest convenience, mind you. His. His freaking convenience, which, by the way, I had the sneaking suspicion would be NEVER. But alas, one who intends to win the game must first play the game, so I gave my contact information and sweetly thanked the message-taker.

And then I sat at my desk and waited for the phone to ring.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And at 5:00 pm, when I shut down my computer and left the office for the day, I was still waiting, unsurprised and unamused.

In the car on the way to pick up the kidlings, I called the BofA Big Brother customer service number. I tried to avoid the pointless exercise of explaining the issue by just asking flat-out to be transferred to a specialist, since I knew a peon phone answerer first-line customer service rep wouldn't be able to help me. However, the man who likes to waste everyone's time gentleman insisted on hearing my story, on the off chance that I was wrong about his lack of assisting ability. I rapidly spit the whole thing out in about 12.42 seconds and amazingly enough, was told that he just didn't have the power to reverse these fees. (Obviously, Satan hordes every last drop of power at BofA until there's just nothing left to go around.) The time-wasting gentleman transferred me to a higher power demon account specialist.

The higher power demon account specialist got an earful, and although it was a polite and professional earful, it was an earful nonetheless. By the time I finished talking, it was Rocky-Mountains-sparkling-crystal-clear how aggravated I was. I explained exactly what I thought of bank managers who blow off the concerns of customers in good standing and then try to pacify said customers with a random refund that has no correlation whatsoever to the fees in question. I explained that I did not appreciate being ignored for an entire business day by said manager, who was apparently too incompetent to actually pick up the phone and address the issue at hand. I explained, as I had to every single person who had previously heard this story, that I would be more than happy to pay the transfer fee. I explained that if this was not taken care of, RIGHT. NOW., I would feel the immediate and unavoidable need to close my accounts. All of them. Done. So long, goodbye and thanks for all the fish.

The only person worth a crap at BofA account specialist, being on the receiving end of this deluge, waited patiently for my ranting to finish. She responded with exactly the right note of empathy and apology (hey, I know when I'm being played). Then, within about 3.68 seconds of hearing me out, she hit a few teeny tiny little buttons on her keyboard and POOF! All account fees reversed.

Deleted.

Gone.

Vanished like cocaine up Kate Moss's nose.

No $10 transfer fee, no nothing.

Free at last! Free at last! Thank the only person worth a crap at BofA God Almighty, I'm free at last!

And that, my friends, is how you stick it to The Man.


*These were new hours when I started this post 9 months ago. Yeah yeah, blah blah.

Power to the People, Part I

(or, Holy Shit, That's A Lot Of Linkage!)

So. Let's talk banks. Specifically, let's talk bank fees.

Uh-huh.

As a young adult,

{Insert pause for hysterical laughter at the idea of an 18 year old being an adult}

I opened my very first checking account with Wells Fargo. I don't really remember why I chose them; knowing me, it was probably because their ATM was the closest one to my house. I must say that I lucked out; Wells Fargo treated me well over the years. I didn't always have a ton of money in my account ... I clearly remember being anal about balancing my checkbook each month due to the fact that I occasionally had a total of 12 cents left by the 31st. And every once in awhile, I took one too many trips to Barnes & Noble that ended up in a stack of shiny new books and that 12 cents turned into a big red minus sign on my account balance. But in all honestly, Wells Fargo charged reasonable overdraft fees and hey, I deserved them. In over 10 years, I never had a problem with them that wasn't solved on the first phone call.

Sadly, the East Coast has not yet reached the enlightened plane required to enjoy the privilege of patronizing certain West Coast businesses, Wells Fargo being one of them. (Claim Jumper and Del Taco being two more, for which I am rendered completely and hopelessly bitter. But my food addictions are another post entirely.) When we hit the road, we were forced to choose a new bank. Since N moved here ahead of me, by default (ha!) he was stuck with the thankless task of finding the financial institution most qualified to handle our complicated banking needs.

{Insert pause for hysterical laughter at the thought of us having banking needs beyond, "Here's our [ridiculously small amount of] money. Don't lose it."}

Surprisingly, he learned there are only two banks that do business on both the East and West Coasts - Bank of America and Washington Mutual.

Okay, I admit, I took his word for it. I sure as hell wasn't going to be doing the legwork myself. If he lied his ass off pulled a fast one on me is mistaken, please, refrain from letting me know about it, m'kay?

Washington Mutual, affectionately if somewhat nauseatingly referred to by customers as WaMu, has a good reputation. But even though they do exist here in Virginia, they are somewhat few and far between. There are a total of 5 within 20 miles of my house. On the other hand, Bank of America (shortened to BofA and pronounced "boffah" if you're lazy) (like me) has more than ten times that many. Dude. BofA had a bad rep back in the day for completely shitty customer service. So completely shitty that the thought of leaving my beloved Wells Fargo for the Big Bad Nasty made me cringe. And whine. And complain. And kick. And scream. And bitch. And moan.

Well, you get the picture.

But in the end, N convinced me to give them a try. He had heard rumors that BofA was turning things around and really working to regain a good rep in the banking world, plus the convenience factor was undeniable. So I gave in agreed and we stepped over to the Dark Side. That was two and a half years ago.

Up until last week, I have actually been quite content banking in the Land of the Dark Lords. There are ATMs all over the freaking place (including at my work, which is handy for those indulgent emergency lunch purchases) and the banking centers have pretty decent hours for us working peeps. The new ATMs are high tech yet user- and eco-friendly; no more cursing up a storm screaming in the drive though lane being SOL due to the lack of available deposit envelopes! The online banking options are a god-send to those of us who are time-challenged and/or due-date-challenged. And we have yet to suffer from buyer's remorse over any of the BofA products we've been suckered into purchased after careful consideration.

However.

We learned our lesson early on that one does not want to overdraw one's checking account, lest one feels so inclined to pay through the nose in o/d fees. Awhile back, during which time I was lazy and forgetful suffering from Mommy Brain, I let the checkbook-balancing routine fall a wee bit behind and well, let's just say the results weren't pretty.

After recovering from my minor fee-induced heart attack, I swiftly took steps to ensure it would nevah. happen. again. ! No, I did not purchase money-managing software to effortlessly whip our budget into shape. No, I did not enroll in financial success workshops to release my family from the burden of debt. No, I did not sign up for online banking. No, I did not push myself to stay on top of all things monetary.

Oh no.

I got a credit card, baby! Woohoo!

Now now, before you go all postal on me, let me reassure you that I did not go charging up the card with frivolous purchases. Not a single one of my purchases were frivolous!

I kid, I kid. The card came with a zero balance, and still has a zero balance. The point of the card was to link it as a backup for our checking account, in case we were to overdraw. See, BofA automatically links your savings account to your checking account as your backup. In theory, this default works just fine ... you o/d your checking, they dip into your savings and transfer the needed funds to cover your oopsie(s). You are charged a relatively small $10 transfer fee and o/d fees are a thing of the past.

In theory.

However, when your savings account has all of $3.42 in it on any given day, this theory gets shot all to hell.

The fun part is when BofA takes your entire savings balance and puts it in your checking, since everyone knows when you o/d, $3.42 is gonna cover it every time.

Right.

So you get a $10 transfer fee and then, surprise! You still get o/d fees when (shockingly) your savings transfer didn't quite cover your o/d transactions. Nice. Hence the need to a nice, shiny new credit card with {gasp} thousands of dollars of available credit just sitting there, waiting to fly to the rescue should one be so stupid careless unlucky as to accidentally o/d in the future.

Like, um, me.

Now in my defense, I will say that while I used to be the accountant in our little family, my sucker loving husband took over those duties from me awhile back. I was a bit overwhelmed with my SAHM duties (we really don't need to go there again, do we?) and things like, oh I don't know ... coughbillpayingcough ... were getting neglected. N had sizable chunks of downtime at his old job and he nicely offered to get us back on track. Yes, he's a saint. Yes, I'm a lazy bitch. What, you didn't know this already?

So N did his spreadsheet-tracking, online-bill-paying, actually-looking-at-the-mail magic. And for a long time, it worked quite nicely. Bills were paid, money was flowing in and out (mostly out) without a hitch, the hate mail overdue notices quit arriving in the mailbox. N was overworked happy, I was happy, life was good. Then, due to circumstances beyond our control, N was forced to get a new job. And as everyone knows, when you are a shiny brand-new employee it takes awhile before your direct deposit kicks in. For the first few paychecks, one is forced to actually retrieve said paycheck from one's employer and physically take it to the bank. Oh, the horrors.

And when one forgets to deposit said paycheck on payday yet one's bills are on autopay, one is most likely up shit creek without a paddle. (Thanks, Mom, for teaching me that sweet little idiom. It's one of my very favorites.)

Over the course of one horrific weekend, we incurred approximately $175 in overdraft fees.

One hundred. And seventy five. American dollars.

!!!!!

That's like five thousand dollars in Madness money. Seriously. Just looking at the negatives on the computer screen made me hyperventilate. After my initial breakdown, I promptly proceeded to kick my sainted husband's ass nicely ask N to call the bank and see what the hell happened. After all, I had this lovely credit card sitting there with a zero balance. We should have had a (relatively) small $10 charge and then moved on with our no-direct-deposit lives. Why, then, had the minions of Satan BofA system pulled the $3.42 balance from our savings and then, when we (shockingly) came up short, gleefully charged us over and over?

I was incensed, to say the least. Yet I reigned in my initial reaction because really, this was all just a stupid simple error and could easily be corrected. Right?

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To be continued when my brain recovers from the over-linkage shock
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