July 16, 2012
Glory be – the water company has finally launched a (gasp) website!!
We can view or pay our bills online by check or credit card, in real-time (!) though they may charge a fee for the privilege of paying the bill. They’re seriously considering charging for the privilege of AutoPay!
They’ve taken so long to implement these electronic services that they have managed to get on the carousel right when the rest of the world is starting to take a step backward to a time where using credit cards may cost money.
I was most displeased to read this article in the Wall Street Journal where, as a result of this settlement, merchants are now allowed to charge customers who use credit cards more as an offset to the interchange fees imposed by Visa and Mastercard. (Discover and American Express charge as well but weren’t part of the suit.)
Whether they will actually charge more remains to be seen – smaller merchants represented say they won’t lead the price increases, likely because they don’t want to anger their customers but I know some merchants already do offer tiered pricing with discounts for their cash customers and that’s probably the model that will continue.
That’s a huge pain, I hate carrying cash but if cards will cost more than I’m simply going to change how I pay for things.
In other news, we’ve closed one of PiC’s accounts with a credit union where they were charging him $8 a month for paperless statements. Unbelievable temerity. It saves paper, time and cost, and yet they’re charging serious money per month. Thank you and we’ll be taking our business elsewhere.
July 1, 2012
June was not a good month for us, cars and getting in trouble via our cars.
Generally, I only talk about me and peripherally PiC here because we haven’t really ironed out the ground rules about what’s ok to share here. But this is one of those best (worst) two out of three sorts of things where we were together for most of them so I think it falls under the “us” category.
1. Out of towner: The car was reparked on the wrong side of the street for less than five minutes so that we could, separately, pay the hotel bill and walk the dog right before loading up and leaving the city after a weekend trip. Parking ticket: $50.
2. Taking the usual route: Busted going around 50 in a 34 MPH zone. What is a 34 MPH zone? Speeding ticket: $XX + Traffic School.**
3. Counter-intuitive Parking Structures: Forgot to pay for parking which you pay once you’ve parked and gotten into the station, right before you go running to get on public transit. Gah. It’s so easy to forget because it requires me to turn the opposite direction I’m going in to find the pay station for the parking booth. It’s even worse when you don’t use the station frequently. $6.50 for him to go back to pay the parking fee but the train was so delayed that it was a futile effort and had to give up. Somehow, didn’t get ticketed.
**I don’t really recall the stories or rules of how traffic school works precisely, whether you pay a whopping couple of hundred dollars and a full soul-sapping day for the school to avoid a point against your license or whether it’s down to a few hours and a lot more money. But at least traffic school is an option against a fat fee, a point against the record and a long-term insurance hike.
June 23, 2012
Anne-Marie Slaughter’s article in the Atlantic, Why Women Still Can’t Have It All, comes at a poignant time for me. Warning: long read.
I mentioned that I’m struggling with some increased stresses in life, mainly to do with work, and it’s got my health in the tank. Or my health was in a death spiral and the stress means I can’t pull up out of it. Chicken, egg.
In any case. Slaughter argues that even she eventually, to her surprise, found herself making the choice to give up the high-powered government position to go back to (let’s point out still highly placed) job to be with her family because the juggle, despite the full support of her academic husband, wasn’t sufficient for their needs, in her estimation. So she can’t imagine how, short of being truly superwomen, women would be able maintain powerful positions and families and whatever else they wanted.
I felt a twinge: why does this argument have to be gender specific? Do not men also suffer sacrifices or the loss of being with their families when they’re off pursuing high-powered careers?
Not a few months, my feminist soul would have risen up out of my body in extra-normal outrage at the suggestion women couldn’t have what we wanted. But realistically? I don’t always think everyone and anyone can have this “everything” business if it actually assumes that everything means everything. I think it’s highly unusual for any single person to have a “whole” package unless they are hideously wealthy and genuinely blessed.
On the other hand, “everything” is bandied about very cavalierly as though we all want the same generic packages. Some of us are happy with messy homes, a pack of half mad pets and decent jobs that make us money whilst others need picture perfect roosts, don’t care about the job thing and whatever other combination of pieces and still others, well, just add water.
I did appreciate the fact that she went on to reframe the discussion to view the problem from the sociocultural standpoint: the fact that the (American) workplace isn’t family-friendly, that we don’t respect family or simply life outside of work. That our usual current business practice is the assumption that employees who are childless may be more reliable than (typically newer) parents, but that’s got to be recognized as a red herring. That in our political arena, the euphemism for being fired is to “spend time with the family”, and that is a demonstration of how devalued is the coin of the role of the family.
I always knew when I was in the wrong workplace when it came to these matters, even though I had no intention of becoming a mother any time soon. When employers pried about my plans to have kids, it was really easy to tell when they were simply making conversation or trying to determine whether I was a maternity risk; and their attitudes about performance and merit were equally shoddy.
My truly personal twinges are that I’m already feeling the pains of limitations. We haven’t yet made the decision about whether or not to have a family, and I had far greater ambitions for my career than where I am now. And yet, at this stage, just reaching into what might be called senior management, I find myself burning out.
My health is refusing to cooperate with any grand plans to be a high powered anything.
There are aspects of my job that I do really well and quite enjoy, but the new stresses of the growing pains haven’t settled yet. And even newer stresses that may or may not be permanent changes were recently piled on unexpectedly that ate up all my happy life balance, eating into any ability to take care of myself at a time I desperately need it most.
For all that I work to protect my staff and fight for their work-life balance, their salaries, their promotions, and I win, dammit, I have no shelter of my own in the face of adversity at the moment. And that lack is wearing on me.
I’ve accomplished a few things, in my time here. But it’s just a handful of things. Educated a few people a bit, brought some people up a few ladders, sent some to their next dream. But have I made a difference yet? I really don’t think so.
I find myself wondering: for so many years, I climbed and leapt the ladders and toiled for experience to rise to this level. It feels like I have achieved next to nothing, compared to where I’d really like to be. And now? Will I have to give up now? So far from having accomplished something real?
Is this it for me?
I’m not sure which targets I want to hit in life precisely.
To help. To make a difference. To secure freedom, security. To educate. To improve. To leave things better than I found them. To achieve. To “wear the white hat” if I can quote “Scandal.” To be happy. To live a good and true life. Maybe to have a family, which I would then need to support.
It doesn’t have to be at this job that I do most of those things. I do need to make a living somehow. But right now, it’s feeling like I’m going to be lucky if I can walk to the grocery store most days of the week. And that’s not particularly conducive to having anything at all, much less having it. And All.
—
Cloud of Wandering Scientist has a great discussion going on this very topic.
June 13, 2012
With every successive job, the people I work with drink more than the last group.
Socially, generally.
Some, sportingly.
A few, competitively.
I long ago realized I was never going to evolve some genetic mutation that would enhance my alcohol tolerance. Since I never much cared what people thought, I generally order my favorite non alcoholic bevvy when out with friends. I’ll try a glass of wine on the company dime if I’m feeling experimental (if I pick badly, the wine tastes like regret) and call it a night. After two, I’d call it a night in the middle of the day.
But this week has been a week to end all weeks in drinking. Alcohol has happened every single day for business reasons, and I’m grateful that this isn’t my chosen vice. This could add up to some real money if I had a tipple of something every night.
Wine country: some tastings free, a bottle of wine to share: $30
Glass of wine: $10
Glass of sparkling wine: $5 (thanks, Happy Hour)
Cocktail: $13
That’s all before tax and tip, so we’re horking up nearly $70 on beverages mostly for one alone. Then again, I’ve watched those professional drinkers knock back a bottle and a half of wine each so I might be wildly underestimating a normal person’s drinking habits and expenses.
I took PiC out for a really nice dinner for that, and we could have done it on half if it weren’t a restaurant on the Embarcadero.
I’m not saying drinking is bad and therefore choosing to spend on drink is bad, mind. I choose to spend on other things, like ceviche, french fries and oysters, when I do splash out rather than drinking because it’s not something I enjoy nearly as much as food.. Or books.. Or having a few really nice things or trips or money in the bank.
I’d just never done the math on a drinking tab before. And lots of people I know very much enjoy sitting over a few glasses and whining their hearts out. There’s nothing wrong with that. But I sure am glad I can be happy with one drink, and don’t care when someone teases me for “not keeping up”.
Is it your norm to go out for drinks with friends or colleagues when you want to catch up or unwind?
Has it ever been or become a financial issue or does something/anything else get cut first?
June 11, 2012
Doggle gets his own oversized water bottle for long road trips.
I started using it to refill his water bowl because carrying his water bowl to the sink while he tried to weave around my legs was dangerous, and the shoving his head in the bowl while I put it down bit was just annoying. A big thirsty dog is a pest. With the water bottle, I can very easily fill it, distract him with a treat (or the fake-out of a treat) in one hand, and pour water with the other, and voila! No accidents, jostling or cursing.
It’s worked too well. He now assumes that any bottle of water is his and follows random bottles like a bloodhound. It’s amazing how easy it was to change his behavior. Next up: drinking straight from the bottle!
Psychologically thwarting myself
If only we humans were so easy…. (though maybe if someone else were training me, it would be. And according to Sheldon Cooper, we are.)
Back in March, I’d made a few tiny changes to my regimen, slipping in small changes that would be easy, and set me up to make better choices because I was already making good ones.
The next steps though, aren’t so easy to get around and I’m thinking that it’d help if I weren’t such an annoying pain in my own patoot.
For example: I need to start seeing various health professionals, start physical therapy and trying
other kinds of health-related therapies on a
regular basis to deal with my pain problems. What do I do? Nothing. For weeks. PiC’s the one who schedules the massages for me because he knows I won’t have time to, much less deal with the actual medical stuff.
It took months to make a few minutes to pick up the phone to schedule a few starter appointments with new people and then I had to reschedule three times. I still haven’t gotten in to see them yet. *sigh* Next week.
The new strategy is to set my work schedule to be at home one day per week and block off a set time that’s not available for meetings or work. It’s just for me and appointments. Then I have to work around that.
I just know that I’m going to disrespect that time and let work bleed into it.
My problem, really, is that I function in two modes: 100% on work or off work. If I set aside an afternoon block, then I’m going to have trouble disconnecting at the right time. If it’s a morning block, then I’m going to have trouble disengaging from Lazy (I’m doing real life) Mode and going to work starting in the afternoon. Equally, I’ll hate having to work straight through the evening or I’ll just do it because I won’t be able to stop.
These things I know because I’ve had to do this on an irregular basis and it’s a struggle either way.
Honestly, is it so much to ask for one to get out of one’s own way?
I never have to trick or manipulate myself when it comes to money, but every single time, health or life stuff requires a monumental effort to manage my peculiarities. Is that the case for anyone else?
June 7, 2012
Of all the annoying …
My car was up for a smog check this year and we were starting to cut it closer and closer to the deadline as we ran out of weekends to take the car in. That drives me nuts. But what’s worse? The fact that I was pretty certain that I’d paid for the registration itself months in advance of the smog check. Once PiC took care of the smog check, I mentally filed it away as: wait for the new registration.
That was over a month ago. I should have received the new stickers a long time ago but I’d completely forgotten about it in the flurry of recent events.
And I didn’t actually submit the payment.
ARGH.
The State of CA was kind enough to wait until the last tier of lateness was past to send me a reminder that they hadn’t received my payment!
I was so sure I’d already paid! And if I’d checked anytime after he did the smog check the late fee would have been lower.
It’s going to cost me an extra $89 to register my car this year. This makes me a few kinds of grouchy.
*****
I had some not-insignificant income that had gone astray last year and I’d jumped through so many hoops trying to resolve the issue with no result.
It was so twisty and frustrating that I couldn’t think of another person to call or another avenue to pursue. But the idea of that much money just sitting there was so frustrating that I was literally waking up at night every so often thinking about it. $3000 is no small beans! And I’d already paid taxes on it.
It was for the stupidest of reasons, really, the check was misaddressed, but I couldn’t get through to anyone to get the check re-addressed. And for the silliest of reasons, I was reinspired to try to resolve it again: watching a tv show, one of the characters started calling to request that companies reissue old checks.
The very next business day, I tackled it again: starting with the phone number on the check and working my way through every single contact phone number I had in my emails for the company’s Accounts Payable. It took a couple hours but I made contact with a real person who actually processed a real reissue!
*****
I came home later that day to a surprise check for a hundred dollars from a product I’d paid too much for. What a good mail day.
June 5, 2012
Andrea at So Over Debt spent $4 on packing materials to get back $460 by selling back textbooks using Amazon’s trade-in store.
I used to sell back my books to the bookstore right after the final, literally in some cases, but there were texts that I held onto out of sheer, stupid sentimentality. And then some books were classics, so I held on to those, but eventually realized I’d not picked them up in years so I went through a variety of textbook buy back sites to sell to the highest bidder – always with prepaid shipping. Those paid cash back, not store credit, so that was always a boon to my checking account.
Katherine at Feather Factor interviewed Patrick Rothfuss.
I’ve actually known more about him as a person/ality than as an author (though, as a personality, it was probably as an authorial personality because how do you distinguish?) because I hadn’t had a chance to pick up his books. I did recently and devoured the Kingkiller Chronicles. And am sulking around waiting for the third installment because I have no patience whatsoever.
I particularly love that he threw in the bit about having 1 pair of pants and the subsequent lack of reaction to it. Or was my favorite the part about his moment of self-actualization, such as it was? Whatever, please, have a read of the interview, I <3 Patrick Rothfuss.
I also need to hit up that reading list again and keep myself busy while I wait. But I am loathe to spend more money on ebooks so I might go the library route while there’s no need for me to be highly portable.
Eemusings is asking what’s more motivating: paying down debt or saving up sums?
Same same for me. Can’t hoard if I have a hole in the ground, though, must fill it first, then pave it over, then build a house atop the hole.
Bella at One Sister’s Rant shares one possible reason not having Facebook is probably healthier.
I should keep on staying off Facebook. I’m too evil to be stalkerating.