First thing this morning I received a phone call from a lady in England needing bank information so she can wire payment for a survey we performed recently. She called three more times before the morning was out as she attempted to get the process to work correctly.
Another recent client called hinting that she might try to sue me but she wanted my help in doing that. The boat will go better if you get both oars in the water, lady.
A regular client called to say to put him on the list but he has no idea when he will need our services. Just be ready to jump.
Another client called suggesting I drop by quick as she only had one check left. I needed to get there before anyone else came along if I wanted to get paid soon. It was four figures so I wasted no time.
Title company worker called asking when I would have the Welch plat to her. Asked her who wanted to know. She said, "Mr. Welch". It would have made far more sense to call me directly, especially as I had no idea that said title company had anything to do with the survey. Didn't realize he was selling anything, but he is.
Client calls wondering why he got a bill but nothing else. Told him I sent him everything over a month ago. This was just a nudge to encourage paying for the work. Either he is a really good liar or there is a package of goodies with his name on it floating somewhere in USPS's version of Neverland. I put it in the mail at the post office that delivers his mail. It really didn't even need to leave that location until the local route carrier left the next morning as usual.
My cell phone rings just as I pull out from a stop sign. Didn't make an effort to look to see who was calling. I answer. Hesitation on the other end. Then I hear, "I dialed the wrong number." The voice was familiar. It was a former employee. He says, "It didn't take long to determine that you weren't Brock." I said, "He has the same four digits but in a different order." My friend laughed and said, "I bet this isn't the first time this has happened." Brock is a former client. We chuckled when we swapped cell phone numbers a few years ago because they were nearly identical. I get about a call a month from people trying to catch up with Brock. Apparently, he has a similar problem with people trying to call me. Anyway, in typical Kansas fashion, I spent the next ten minutes on the phone chatting with my former employee. You see, that's normal here. You dial a wrong number but spend the next ten minutes talking to them anyway.
No phone story, but a weird email..
I've chased a recent invoice I emailed almost sixty days ago. In that time both the client that approves my invoices and I have been on vacation at different times. I finally get him on the land-line. He swears he never received it. While he's on the phone, I look it up in my "Sent" folder...it was July 28th. He's reading his inbox dates...and sure enough, no invoice. I resend the invoice at 10:30 AM in a "new" email.
About two-thirty this afternoon I notice I have an email from him marked as a "Forward". I open it and it is my original invoice..dated July 28th. And he's apparently forwarding it back to me (probably accidentally).
I think he meant to delete it (probably after he found it)...but hit the wrong button and forwarded it back to me! :-$
I've always said "If you're going to lie, be convincing....". 😉
Holy Cow, post: 337541, member: 50 wrote: I put it in the mail at the post office that delivers his mail. It really didn't even need to leave that location until the local route carrier left the next morning as usual.
That's not how the Post Office works. ALL mail has to go from Podunk to a regional sorting center in the big city and come back to Podunk for delivery. The local postmaster might lose his job if he just delivered it directly.
Yes, Bill, that is how it is supposed to work no matter how stupid it really is. Can't mess with the union workers' job security in Kansas City and Wichita. Saving the cost of transporting trillions of pounds of mail millions of miles each year would be foolish in comparison.
Our local Rural Water District sends out about 550 postcard-sized bills to customers each month. About half go to people who get their mail from the same post office where they are mailed. About 50 of those have PO boxes within six feet of where the bills are placed (pre-sorted) on the counter. BUT, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Toss all of them in the same bag to be picked up at the end of the day and hauled 40 miles to the initial gathering spot, then reloaded there into a semi or two for the next 90 mile journey to Kansas City. In KC they get dumped onto conveyor belts for scanning and general destruction (far too common an occurrence) so they can be dumped into bins to be loaded onto a semi or two to haul back 90 miles to the initial gathering spot so they can be reloaded there for delivery back to the post office they started out from in the first place. The local workers then sort them out of the rest of the mail and placed into the PO boxes or the route carrier's trays for distribution (Yes, only one rural route). That's how it works for all except those that are so destroyed by the mail handling machinery in KC that they are separated off for special handling and insertion into little plastic bags for delivery SOMEDAY when it is convenient. Of course, those that get destroyed enough end up in the trash somewhere. This leads to nasty telephone conversations between the people who do not pay their bill on time and the business manager for the water district who insists they were mailed their bill the same day as everyone else who has paid their bills.
Local Rural Water Districts, that brings up another unknown fact concerning Federal Guidelines.
When getting a Federal backed mortgage, it is possible for that Local Rural Water District to force you to connect to their water supply, even if the property has a perfectly good water well system.
In the prevailing guidelines and rules and laws, there is a phrase something to the effect of "when obtaining a loan of Federal monies the property must be served by the local public water supply when available".
Our local zealous water district do their homework and research and hunts down those home buyers and it happens around here all the time, especially with new construction. They rule the existing water wells to be not qualified for approval of a safe source of portable water and serve the property owners with legal papers and force them to connect to the public water system.
I am more proud of my good water wells than I am of the homes they serve.
0.02
Wow! Never heard of a water district acting in such a manner. I have heard of lenders insisting on the connection, though. I first served on a RWD board of directors in 1985-1990. Have served on a different one all but five years between 1996 and today. Have done survey work for several other RWD's. I have never known an aggressive district like yours.
About 20 years ago I cut a house and a few acres from maybe 100 acres total. The house was at the base of a substantial rock bluff. A springhouse was built into the bluff to collect and treat a steady flow of fresh water. The buyer was eligible for a VA loan but it was rejected unless they first connected to a rural water line about 3/4 mile away. That was my initiation into some of the silliness of Government-backed loans.
Bill93, post: 337615, member: 87 wrote: That's not how the Post Office works. ALL mail has to go from Podunk to a regional sorting center in the big city and come back to Podunk for delivery. The local postmaster might lose his job if he just delivered it directly.
It doesn't seem like that many years ago that post offices had two boxes and/or slots for mail - Local Delivery and Out of Town Delivery. I was astounded to learn that items I mail in the little Podunk rural community I live in have to travel a circuitous route to Baton Rouge similar to the one described by Mr. Cow.