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Thursday January 17th - Hooray, Hooray I'm on (Christmas) Holiday!

Blog: Frustrated Businessman
Posted by: knightrider45 Thursday 17th January 2008, 1:28pm
Last edited 17/01/2008 1:28pm by knightrider45

Well, that's that my Christmas & New Year Shift over with then as from 7am this morning, and I'm on Holiday, at last. As everyone around me had 10-14 days off for Christmas as I worked all through it, this is my Christmas Holiday!

I shall allow myself a brief period of celebration before starting my final push to get the business re-established by the end of the month, working around, and in between, the household duties my manager has kindly allocated me for my attention.

So, no JOB (Just Over Broke) for two weeks. Two weeks without getting soaked through because of the rain as I was Monday & Tuesday night, (although it did stop raining at 2.30am in Kings Lynn on Wednesday, half an hour after getting back into my office soaking wet - that always happens to me!). Now I've got a wicked case of the lurgy, having just woken up with the flu, sore throat and everything. Why Now?

Two weeks of unmitigated freedom, free from rules, regulations, people, 12 hour shifts, procedures, safety boots, & florescent jackets. Hopefully, I won't have to go out very much either. Need to, and want to, just stay in for a bit now. The criminally insane, slow driving pensioners can annoy other people for a change!

Two weeks. My life, my rules, my way (Subject to terms and conditions of my manager's approval and The Teenage One and Proper Boyfriends' occasional taxi request off course!).

Only one small upset so far this year. Regular readers will know that I've recently remortgaged (three months ago) and I wrote to the new company on 10th December, asking them not to cash the Direct Debit for January as I wanted to make a cash payment. I even sent them a £400 advance payment against the January payment.

For the first time since moving to Norfolk, we were in front with the mortgage. Our little Christmas miracle.

But the mortgage company tried to cash the direct debit. Twice. Resulting in some £67 in fees for the bank in return for their time in bouncing our payment.

So I and my manager went to see our account supervisor at the bank - who told us that, as the bank were not at fault, they wouldn't refund us under the Direct Debit guarantee.

So, the mortgage company have had their second recorded delivery letter from me, this one not at all pleasant, informing them that I had reported them to my bank for breaching the Direct Debit guarantee and demanding the return of the bank fees caused by their sheer, stupid, corporate incompetence.

I have my own rule when dealing with anything financial - and that's to ensure that everything is in writing and sent recorded delivery. Telephoning people's no good - ever tried to get a bank to retrieve a taped phone call? Despite all the warnings, saying that "your call will be recorded for monitoring and training purposes" they can never seem to find THAT particular recording you really need. That's one lesson I've learned from my battle with the Inland Revenue - now calling themselves HM Customs & Excise. But that's another, long and heart breaking story for another time.

So I don't take chances anymore. Everything's in writing and sent by recorded delivery. Isn't it a good job I did, in this case?

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Anyway - I'm on (Christmas) Holiday - I have two weeks of better things lined up. And the mortgage is still up to date. Bottles of Bailey's to be opened and sampled. Not doing too bad am I?

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