Today at work I was having a conversation with “Malibu Barbie” (not her real name), about the Employee of the Month. We were talking about who we thought might get it next. Well, another woman, let’s call her “K”, says, “well who’s left?“ Um, what? What do you mean who’s left? That makes it sound like you will only win it because you haven’t been picked yet. She ignores that comment and starts naming people. She names “The Original J”, “New J”, Accountant Ryan, and a new woman “T“. HELLO??? What about me??? She says, “what about you?” “You can’t win, you’re not eligible to win it.” What? Oh wait, of course not, because I don’t do anything at work. Can you sense the sarcasm here?? I say, “why can’t I win it? I’m in the running just like anyone else.” She says, “well you’re not an accountant, so I wouldn’t think you could win it.” Hello? It’s called “The Employee of the Month”, not the “Accountant of the Month”. I work in the Accounting Department and I do a hell of a lot of work. I actually enjoy my job, love my boss, and for the most part, the people are great. There are some I could do without, and if we ever get to decide things the way they do on Survivor, I know some torches that need to be extinguished….just sayin’. She then says, “Well you always remind us how you’re NOT an Accountant, so I wouldn’t think you could win it, it’s just for Accountants.” AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! At this point I’m being very mature by making faces and sticking my tongue at her behind her back keeping quiet. Fortunately it’s all on camera, so if anyone missed it, they can rewind the tape.
So she continued on talking about the people that were left like they were the bottom of the barrel. “The Original J” said, “they’re just saving the best for last.” Exactly!! And when I win, because I LOVE my boss *hint hint, wink wink*, I will still be able to fit my head through the front door. Can’t say the same for other people.
As some of you know, my husband is stuck in Florida because of the monster snowstorm. He was down there to bring one of our daughters to Walt Disney World where she is going to be doing an internship. He called me late Monday night and said he had mistakenly overdrawn his checking account with a purchase that very evening. He asked me to go down to the Citizens Bank in the morning and deposit $25.
As soon as the kids got on the school bus I was at Citizens Bank. I deposited $25 in cash and asked the teller if that would help. She lied and said “Yes”.
As of Wednesday morning, my husband had 7 overdraft fees against his account. When he tried to call Citizens Bankthey wouldn’t help him, big surprise. Overdrawing his checking account isn’t something that my husband does. He is usually meticulous about writing every purchase in his checkbook and keeping track of them. He’s stuck in Florida, just sick about this whole thing and not able to fix it.
He’s not disputing the fact that he made a mistake and did overdraw his account by his last purchase, but it’s the way Citizens Bank is handling this that is so frustrating and upsetting. Some banks and Citizens Bank is one of them,”reorder” the way your purchases come in. They post them against your account using the largest amount first so it causes an overdraft and then they can charge fees for all of your purchases. Here is a video of Melody Hobson from Good Morning America explaining this nasty business practice. If Citizens Bank had put the purchases through in the order of when they were made, there would’ve been one overdraft fee, but that isn’t good enough for Citizens Bank. They want to totally rake us over the coals.
Here is another interesting article from Providence Business News detailing how Citizens Bank has the highest overdraft fees in the US. Citizens Bank has 151 Billion, that’s right, Billion dollars in assets and they refuse to refund a little over $200. Starting July 1, 2010, banks, including Citizens Bank, will be barred from charging exorbitant overdraft fees for atm or debit card purchases unless the customer has signed up in advance for that service.
I’ll be picking my husband up at the airport on Friday afternoon and I’m pretty sure our first stop will be our local branch of Citizens Bank. It doesn’t sound like they’ll be too helpful. They’ve got his money and that’s all they care about. It doesn’t matter how they got it. I was on their website last night and found it really interesting that they have a Code of Ethics. Apparently that code of ethics doesn’t extend to how they do business with ordinary people. If Citizens Bank is your bank, you’ve been warned. I can’t imagine that Citizens Bank will be our bank for much longer. But you can bet I’ll be telling everyone I know, facebooking and twittering to over 900 followers about Citizens Bank and their “ethical” business practices. It’s on!
Two days before Thanksgiving I had a laparoscopy to see what was causing my horrible, horrible pelvic pain that started on suddenly on August 24. Even though all my CT-scans and ultrasounds were normal they found a “significant growth” and it was leaking blood. They removed the ovary and the fallopian tube and that should’ve been the end of my pain. It took 2 weeks to feel better from the surgery and I had 2 super weeks of feeling fantastic. I was so happy that the 3 months of constant pain were over. That wonderful feeling lasted until my next period. The pain came back and has stayed since December 21. I’m back to the almost constant pain that I had pre-surgery and it’s really pissing me off!
I went to my doctor last week and she is really at a loss to explain why I have this pain again. It sounds crazy, if they took out all that stuff, how could I have pain again? Her suggestion was to try birth control pills for 3 months and see how it goes, thinking that will help calm things down. I took the pills and at her suggestion started them that day. This past Wednesday the pain was so bad I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I called the office on Thursday and explained the situation saying I needed something stronger than Advil because it wasn’t working. They nurse said “Well it can take a month or more for the birth control pills to work.” “What am I supposed to do in the mean time?” The nurse called back and said they had a prescription for tylenol with codeine but I had to come pick it up. Because it was a narcotic they couldn’t call it in. Ummmmmm…I know that’s not exactly true, but I said fine. The nurse said they would be in the office until 5. My husband came home early to take me and we got there at 4:40. Guess what? The office was locked up tight and all the lights were off. I tried the office number and got the answering service. They paged the doctor on call but nobody called me back. Grrrrrrrr.
So this morning I called the office and explained the situation again and asked them to please call it in. Once again, they said they couldn’t and oh, they were sorry nobody was there. Big freakin’ deal. Like that helps me at all. I would need to come back and get it. I was so angry that I just told her to mail it. I said “I’ve been in pain for 5 months. What’s one more day?”
My next appointment with my doctor is in March. If I’m still in pain she said we could try Lupron which is an injection that puts you into menopause for 3 months. So that’s another 3 months. All the ”try this for 3 months,” “try that for 3 months” still puts me in pain for another 3 months if it doesn’t work. It’s hard to try to do things normally when there is pain every single day. I get irritated with the kids easier. I’m always wanting to lie down when I’m home. The housework isn’t getting done like it should and I hate feeling this way. I know this isn’t our usual funny sarcastic post but I just had to vent.
Stumble it!
