An update to my student loan payment woes:
After I sent my long email to the Sallie Mae Office of the Consumer Advocate, nothing happened. I waited the requisite 72 hours and then, well, just got busy and forgot about it.
Then, this morning, I got another email from Sallie Mae warning me that there was some message or another, and when I logged in, of course I was greeted with a bunch of reminders to pay my overdue bill. You know, horseshit.
I smiled and remembered what the next step was supposed to be, and then I devoted a bit of my break time to Phase 3: CARPET BOMBING BY EMAIL.
Here's how it works: you find out who the top executives of a company are, and then guess at their email address structure. So, if your CEO is named John (Jack) Remondi, you just use every reasonable combination of his names that might reach him. john.remondi@salliemae.com, jremondi@salliemae.com, etc. And you do that for each of the execs and then hit that SEND button with a wry smile. I think when I hit SEND this morning, I had about 80 email addresses in the TO: line. I found out that at least three of them got through.
I sent the email around 10:00AM. At 1:45PM, I got a phone call from Kelly, the Consumer Advocate. She was much abashed at my talent for getting their attention. You could hear her fear and exasperation. And she was somewhat amused, as well.
Kelly told me that someone in her office DID try to reach me, but the number she called was only a busy signal. "I see at the bottom of your email you said that the number in your account information was no good... I guess she didn't read that." I then told her what the number was, and she laughed her head off.
A: "It's 555-2368. That's the number from Ghostbusters. I mean, who ya gonna call?"
K: "Ghostbust--really? Oh, that's... HAPPY HALLOWEEN!"
She assured me that she'd get things sorted out, and most of the trouble is due to their implementing a new system. I was happy for the contact and told her that I trust her to figure it out. Oh, but I need your contact information. Your direct line. Yes.
I'll post more when I have it.
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Monday, October 28, 2013
And I Guess I Just Don't Know
Growing up, I just didn't get Lou Reed.
Beatles songs were easy when I was eight. Octopuses and green paper flowers on the shore, songs about girls and onions. Yeah, I didn't go deep back then, but I could get my head around a Beatles album. The Rolling Stones were a little more sophisticated, I thought. Their songs were about something more adult than I understood, but at least they were catchy. "I can't get no satisfaction..." Did you hear that? He used a double negative! Mom! Why can't I use double negatives? Pink Floyd did something else to me. I knew that there were awful things going on under the surface, but I liked that they said "hell" in a lot of their songs and told me I didn't need to go to school.
But Lou Reed? To me, he sounded like those records they would play after you went to bed, things that were inaccessible to the child mind. I could tell that they were about things that I just wouldn't know. They were boring and grating at the same time. Lou Reed songs were like finding sand in your chocolate pudding. And then some glass would break and the whole melody went sideways and ... fuck. I don't know. I gave up.
I ran off to the fanciful worlds of understandable chaos. I rode the early wave of hip hop, I wallowed in grunge, I didn't hide my soulful chick singers quite carefully enough in the 90's. And then I met Helen.
Where I grew up with Pink Floyd and Neil Young, I'm pretty sure she had Cole Porter and Catholic hymnals. I don't know where she found the music she did. I knew about some of it, and I didn't much care for it. Moxy Fruvous? My ass. But I liked her and she liked music. She mentioned something about Lou Reed one day, and though I never really understood the charm, I wanted to charm her, so I bought her a CD and the brand-new book of Lou Reed's songs arranged as poetry and art. It was quite a gesture. I still don't know if she really liked Lou Reed or if I just believed that she did, but last I'd checked, she still had that book in a prominent place on the shelf. I think she gave back the CD before we broke up. I don't dig into that binder too often.
But there he was, firmly lodged in my subconscious and paired with something I found pleasurable and confusing and frustrating and exciting and thoughtful all at the same time. It took a few years, but that shard started to grow into something more. Eventually, there was a Lou Reed-shaped geode in my skull. Somewhere in the mid-2000's, I laid on the floor of my apartment and listened to the entirety of Metal Music on headphones. I didn't do drugs, but I felt like I should.
Songs like Walk on the Wild Side, Sweet Jane, Pefect Day, and Waiting for the Man always made it into my life through radio or soundtracks to movies. My sister wrote about a memorable car ride one summer where my mother typed up the lyrics to Wild Side and made us kids sing the back up while we listened to the tape and drove through Southern Ohio (we were the colored girls). I put one or two of them on mix tapes. I don't think I quite understood at first. Then I found Heroin.
I think I've mentioned that I've never done drugs. People who have spent a lot of time with me wonder if that is true, but I will say it clearly here: I have never consumed illegal drugs, abused prescription drugs, or even quasi-legal concoctions like that Peruvian Mate crap. I drink a lot of beer and wine and I love a good cocktail, but I rarely consumed any alcohol before I was 21. I have smoked maybe eight cigars in my life and I have never had a cigarette. I have had some absinthe that would have been banned in the U.S. but I wasn't in the U.S. at the time. I was for a long time a straightedge kid, and I'm only a few genetic tendencies away from that now. But I do like the Heroin that the Velvet Underground produced in 1966.
The song is quite obviously about the mental and spiritual transitions that overtake the writer when he injects that awful opiate into his body. His complicated, conflicted feelings are elevated and driven to a maniacal precipice before slipping into a gentle free fall back to a drifting, idly-philosophical haze. The heights of the song are somewhere between a car crash and a tornado. The lows of the song are dreamy post-coital sighs. It's a song that spans the range of emotion and experience that the healthy human soul is capable of and it both elevates and demeans all of it. And it's goddamned noisy.
I'm not sure where I got it. I do love some dark, grindy metal. I have turned up Ministry so loud that it would break my headphones. I went through a Pantera phase before they got all overtly racist, or before the racists overtly found them. I'm still not sure how that evolved (or devolved). I still listen to Anthrax's The Sound of White Noise a couple of times a year. I once fell in love with a band from Philadelphia called Stendhal, whose rhythm section was mostly feedback, trash cans, and a stolen STOP sign. I like noisy music. I especially am fond of music that uses noise as an instrument. And I think it came from Heroin.
Heroin is the first song I can think of that used feedback as a sustained instrument in the song. It carries the last half of the opus, an undercurrent of distress and pain that offsets the tribal heart-thumping and descent into silence. It is the noise that got me. Who would do that? Fucking noise, the things you try to cut out in the recording studio, is now the thing you're putting in? Awesome.
After I came to appreciate Heroin, I really dug into the Lou Reed experience. I can go on about it at length, but not better than many other people have written before me. I will sum it up by saying that Lou Reed is that prodigal son uncle that you only meet when you're a lot older and you thought you had the family dynamic down. Then this guy in a leather jacket shows up and starts calling your mom by that old nickname that was scribbled on photos....
Go read my sister's post about Lou. It's quite good.
One more thing: When Kurt Cobain died, I really couldn't give a shit. I really like Nirvana. I think Kurt and the boys were great, and I remember (anecdotally, because I can't find the damned thing anywhere) around 1995 when Liz Phair (I think) hosted an end-of-year, best-of radio program that was put on while the regular DJ on 107.9 WENZ (THE END) was eating Xmas dinner, and she said that most people just don't understand how influential Kurt Cobain really was. But when Johnny Cash died, I wore black for a week. I feel the same way now that Lou is gone. Something good in the world, a great light has gone out. A lifetime of work has room, finally, for an afterword. Fuck Kurt Cobain and his angst at age 27. Try suffering and creating music at 70, when your liver is killing you, or after the love of your life has died from cancer. That's where influence really means something.
Beatles songs were easy when I was eight. Octopuses and green paper flowers on the shore, songs about girls and onions. Yeah, I didn't go deep back then, but I could get my head around a Beatles album. The Rolling Stones were a little more sophisticated, I thought. Their songs were about something more adult than I understood, but at least they were catchy. "I can't get no satisfaction..." Did you hear that? He used a double negative! Mom! Why can't I use double negatives? Pink Floyd did something else to me. I knew that there were awful things going on under the surface, but I liked that they said "hell" in a lot of their songs and told me I didn't need to go to school.
But Lou Reed? To me, he sounded like those records they would play after you went to bed, things that were inaccessible to the child mind. I could tell that they were about things that I just wouldn't know. They were boring and grating at the same time. Lou Reed songs were like finding sand in your chocolate pudding. And then some glass would break and the whole melody went sideways and ... fuck. I don't know. I gave up.
I ran off to the fanciful worlds of understandable chaos. I rode the early wave of hip hop, I wallowed in grunge, I didn't hide my soulful chick singers quite carefully enough in the 90's. And then I met Helen.
Where I grew up with Pink Floyd and Neil Young, I'm pretty sure she had Cole Porter and Catholic hymnals. I don't know where she found the music she did. I knew about some of it, and I didn't much care for it. Moxy Fruvous? My ass. But I liked her and she liked music. She mentioned something about Lou Reed one day, and though I never really understood the charm, I wanted to charm her, so I bought her a CD and the brand-new book of Lou Reed's songs arranged as poetry and art. It was quite a gesture. I still don't know if she really liked Lou Reed or if I just believed that she did, but last I'd checked, she still had that book in a prominent place on the shelf. I think she gave back the CD before we broke up. I don't dig into that binder too often.
But there he was, firmly lodged in my subconscious and paired with something I found pleasurable and confusing and frustrating and exciting and thoughtful all at the same time. It took a few years, but that shard started to grow into something more. Eventually, there was a Lou Reed-shaped geode in my skull. Somewhere in the mid-2000's, I laid on the floor of my apartment and listened to the entirety of Metal Music on headphones. I didn't do drugs, but I felt like I should.
Songs like Walk on the Wild Side, Sweet Jane, Pefect Day, and Waiting for the Man always made it into my life through radio or soundtracks to movies. My sister wrote about a memorable car ride one summer where my mother typed up the lyrics to Wild Side and made us kids sing the back up while we listened to the tape and drove through Southern Ohio (we were the colored girls). I put one or two of them on mix tapes. I don't think I quite understood at first. Then I found Heroin.
I think I've mentioned that I've never done drugs. People who have spent a lot of time with me wonder if that is true, but I will say it clearly here: I have never consumed illegal drugs, abused prescription drugs, or even quasi-legal concoctions like that Peruvian Mate crap. I drink a lot of beer and wine and I love a good cocktail, but I rarely consumed any alcohol before I was 21. I have smoked maybe eight cigars in my life and I have never had a cigarette. I have had some absinthe that would have been banned in the U.S. but I wasn't in the U.S. at the time. I was for a long time a straightedge kid, and I'm only a few genetic tendencies away from that now. But I do like the Heroin that the Velvet Underground produced in 1966.
The song is quite obviously about the mental and spiritual transitions that overtake the writer when he injects that awful opiate into his body. His complicated, conflicted feelings are elevated and driven to a maniacal precipice before slipping into a gentle free fall back to a drifting, idly-philosophical haze. The heights of the song are somewhere between a car crash and a tornado. The lows of the song are dreamy post-coital sighs. It's a song that spans the range of emotion and experience that the healthy human soul is capable of and it both elevates and demeans all of it. And it's goddamned noisy.
I'm not sure where I got it. I do love some dark, grindy metal. I have turned up Ministry so loud that it would break my headphones. I went through a Pantera phase before they got all overtly racist, or before the racists overtly found them. I'm still not sure how that evolved (or devolved). I still listen to Anthrax's The Sound of White Noise a couple of times a year. I once fell in love with a band from Philadelphia called Stendhal, whose rhythm section was mostly feedback, trash cans, and a stolen STOP sign. I like noisy music. I especially am fond of music that uses noise as an instrument. And I think it came from Heroin.
Heroin is the first song I can think of that used feedback as a sustained instrument in the song. It carries the last half of the opus, an undercurrent of distress and pain that offsets the tribal heart-thumping and descent into silence. It is the noise that got me. Who would do that? Fucking noise, the things you try to cut out in the recording studio, is now the thing you're putting in? Awesome.
After I came to appreciate Heroin, I really dug into the Lou Reed experience. I can go on about it at length, but not better than many other people have written before me. I will sum it up by saying that Lou Reed is that prodigal son uncle that you only meet when you're a lot older and you thought you had the family dynamic down. Then this guy in a leather jacket shows up and starts calling your mom by that old nickname that was scribbled on photos....
Go read my sister's post about Lou. It's quite good.
One more thing: When Kurt Cobain died, I really couldn't give a shit. I really like Nirvana. I think Kurt and the boys were great, and I remember (anecdotally, because I can't find the damned thing anywhere) around 1995 when Liz Phair (I think) hosted an end-of-year, best-of radio program that was put on while the regular DJ on 107.9 WENZ (THE END) was eating Xmas dinner, and she said that most people just don't understand how influential Kurt Cobain really was. But when Johnny Cash died, I wore black for a week. I feel the same way now that Lou is gone. Something good in the world, a great light has gone out. A lifetime of work has room, finally, for an afterword. Fuck Kurt Cobain and his angst at age 27. Try suffering and creating music at 70, when your liver is killing you, or after the love of your life has died from cancer. That's where influence really means something.
Saturday, October 26, 2013
Goddamnit, why haven't you all done this?
All right, it has come up enough, I need to explain it so people will stop asking.
Carly and I cut the cable about five or so years ago. I noticed, before we moved to New Jersey, we weren't really watching anything on TV of any importance. We used to play this game with Headline News: "IS THIS NEWS?" Between the stories about giant pumpkins and twins riding tandem bicycles cross country, the scores were low. So, when we moved to NYC area, I determined that we just didn't need cable. We got FiOS internet, but no cable television. It was the best thing that ever happened to my eyeballs.
Before we cut the cable access, I set up a computer to stream various things from the internet. At first, there were some less-reputable streams, but eventually we had Netflix and Hulu to supply our entertainment needs. Now, five years later, it's an institution. We do not pay for cable. We do not have a DVR. We do not watch regular television programming, and we do not miss any shows that we want to watch. We just have to be patient. By doing so, we save about $1200 a year. Here's how:
Basic principles: all big, flat-screen TVs, be they plasma or LCD, are basically massive computer monitors. Computers hook right up to them. The cables come in the box.
"Computers" is a broad category. It includes XBox 360 and Playstation 3 and better, nearly all modern laptops and desktops. I'm betting some smartphones are powerful enough to stream decent TV.
We have a computer hooked up to our TV. The end.
Not really. Or, rather, it needs a little explanation.
A few years ago, I just bought a top-end entertainment-optimized HP desktop. The key was getting a sick, top-end graphics card. That's really it. I spent about $750 two or three years ago. Our remote is a bluetooth mouse and keyboard. The cable connecting the computer to the TV is included in the box, usually.
We watch nearly all of our TV on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and HBO Go.
Netflix: we pay for a streaming-only service, which is about $8/month. You almost never get new shows, but you have so much available from years past, and stuff usually comes available on the schedule of DVD releases. Also, they have original shows like House of Cards and Orange is the New Black, which are amazing. Hemlock Grove can suck a dong.
Hulu: we use the free service. This means that we sometimes have to wait for shows to come out (a day, sometimes three months), and not everything is available. But so much is available it doesn't matter. Eventually, it comes out on Netflix.
Amazon: we pay $80/year for Amazon Prime. This gives us free 2-day shipping on most things from Amazon.com and access to a whole host of TV and movies. We use it mostly for rentals. New movies are usually $4 or $5 for a 48-hour rental and they're great. We also buy season passes for things like Walking Dead and American Horror Story for reasonable amounts. It's worth it to see them as they come due.
HBO Go: technically, we're stealing this. My sister has HBO and we are using the account. If you can get someone to give you their password for HBO Go, do it. When HBO starts offering online-only accounts, I'll pay for one.
The computer is also a great way to stream music (iTunes is right there), set up photo slideshows, everything. Hell, I even have games on there (Starcraft II is STUPID AWESOME on the big 46" TV).
If you require HDMI connections, that makes the process a little tricky, especially if you switch between HD and standard definitions frequently. I understand the human eye isn't as savvy as we think it is, and HDMI inputs have never impressed me. In fact, I wrote an Intellectual Property thesis on how HDMI is the death of innovation. Goddamn Sony... I love you, I hate you, I love you, I hate you....
If you have questions about this, just ask. I'm around.
The thing is, it's not about the money, or at least, not totally. It's more about control. I'm totally in control of what I see at any given interval. The only thing is... it reminds me of my trip to Europe years ago. I hit this wall where I was so free, had so many options, had no one to guide me... I just couldn't clearly choose which museum to visit, which awesome thing to see that day. I just sat in my hostel in Naples for a few days. It was weird. They looked at me like I was weird.
This is probably what motivates my wife to plug in the antenna. In our new place, we get really good antenna reception, and something like 40 channels, half of them in HD. So she though, WHEE! PBS MARATHON! The reality is, she watched morning shows and THE VIEW. Goddamned TV.
Carly and I cut the cable about five or so years ago. I noticed, before we moved to New Jersey, we weren't really watching anything on TV of any importance. We used to play this game with Headline News: "IS THIS NEWS?" Between the stories about giant pumpkins and twins riding tandem bicycles cross country, the scores were low. So, when we moved to NYC area, I determined that we just didn't need cable. We got FiOS internet, but no cable television. It was the best thing that ever happened to my eyeballs.
Before we cut the cable access, I set up a computer to stream various things from the internet. At first, there were some less-reputable streams, but eventually we had Netflix and Hulu to supply our entertainment needs. Now, five years later, it's an institution. We do not pay for cable. We do not have a DVR. We do not watch regular television programming, and we do not miss any shows that we want to watch. We just have to be patient. By doing so, we save about $1200 a year. Here's how:
Basic principles: all big, flat-screen TVs, be they plasma or LCD, are basically massive computer monitors. Computers hook right up to them. The cables come in the box.
"Computers" is a broad category. It includes XBox 360 and Playstation 3 and better, nearly all modern laptops and desktops. I'm betting some smartphones are powerful enough to stream decent TV.
We have a computer hooked up to our TV. The end.
Not really. Or, rather, it needs a little explanation.
A few years ago, I just bought a top-end entertainment-optimized HP desktop. The key was getting a sick, top-end graphics card. That's really it. I spent about $750 two or three years ago. Our remote is a bluetooth mouse and keyboard. The cable connecting the computer to the TV is included in the box, usually.
We watch nearly all of our TV on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and HBO Go.
Netflix: we pay for a streaming-only service, which is about $8/month. You almost never get new shows, but you have so much available from years past, and stuff usually comes available on the schedule of DVD releases. Also, they have original shows like House of Cards and Orange is the New Black, which are amazing. Hemlock Grove can suck a dong.
Hulu: we use the free service. This means that we sometimes have to wait for shows to come out (a day, sometimes three months), and not everything is available. But so much is available it doesn't matter. Eventually, it comes out on Netflix.
Amazon: we pay $80/year for Amazon Prime. This gives us free 2-day shipping on most things from Amazon.com and access to a whole host of TV and movies. We use it mostly for rentals. New movies are usually $4 or $5 for a 48-hour rental and they're great. We also buy season passes for things like Walking Dead and American Horror Story for reasonable amounts. It's worth it to see them as they come due.
HBO Go: technically, we're stealing this. My sister has HBO and we are using the account. If you can get someone to give you their password for HBO Go, do it. When HBO starts offering online-only accounts, I'll pay for one.
The computer is also a great way to stream music (iTunes is right there), set up photo slideshows, everything. Hell, I even have games on there (Starcraft II is STUPID AWESOME on the big 46" TV).
If you require HDMI connections, that makes the process a little tricky, especially if you switch between HD and standard definitions frequently. I understand the human eye isn't as savvy as we think it is, and HDMI inputs have never impressed me. In fact, I wrote an Intellectual Property thesis on how HDMI is the death of innovation. Goddamn Sony... I love you, I hate you, I love you, I hate you....
If you have questions about this, just ask. I'm around.
The thing is, it's not about the money, or at least, not totally. It's more about control. I'm totally in control of what I see at any given interval. The only thing is... it reminds me of my trip to Europe years ago. I hit this wall where I was so free, had so many options, had no one to guide me... I just couldn't clearly choose which museum to visit, which awesome thing to see that day. I just sat in my hostel in Naples for a few days. It was weird. They looked at me like I was weird.
This is probably what motivates my wife to plug in the antenna. In our new place, we get really good antenna reception, and something like 40 channels, half of them in HD. So she though, WHEE! PBS MARATHON! The reality is, she watched morning shows and THE VIEW. Goddamned TV.
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
SALLIE WAS A 15-YEAR OLD GIRL FROM NEBRASKA
In addition to moving, starting a new job, government shutdown and everything, this has been my month:
Or, in other terms,
Dear Sallie Mae,
I have been having supreme difficulty obtaining a resolution to problems I have been experiencing with Sallie Mae's payment system. I have exhausted your Customer Service systems' talents and still have not received anything more than platitudes and continued collections calls. Please help me fix these problems so that I can get on with my life.About five years ago, I ended a nearly 18-month period of unemployment when I took a job with the Department of Homeland Security. Since about October 2008, I have been making steady, monthly payments on my various student loans that are serviced by Sallie Mae. In fact, all of my loans are now serviced by Sallie Mae. My payments go out every month from my Bank of America account, and I always pay a few dollars more than the minimum payment so that I can cover any minor adjustments to my payments that come up periodically without much notice.In July of this year, my wife gave birth to our first child approximately seven weeks before his due date. Our baby was tiny when he was born and had to stay in the hospital for a few weeks so that he could gain weight and get healthy. My wife and I spent 18 hours a day in the hospital with our child, and everything else was put on auto-pilot. It was around this time that Sallie Mae changed its payment policies and split the receipt addresses for federal and private loans. I did not look at the email notices at that time, as I had more pressing concerns.
About two months later, in early September, I finally got caught up with all of my correspondence and realized that there had been changes. My Sallie Mae account was starting to show one of my accounts as overdue. I called Sallie Mae's customer service line several times, and it was on September 12th that I finally spoke to someone who guided me toward a solution. The problem was that all of my payments were being applied only to my private loans, and nothing was being put toward my federal loans. The representative (Jonathan) stated that he would put in a request to re-allocate the payments from July, August, and September, as that payment was in the mail when I spoke to him. He indicated that the process may take several weeks and that I should be patient. And I was.A few weeks later, I started receiving automated calls from Sallie Mae once more. I eventually spoke to another representative who suspended my number in the system, so that I wouldn't receive calls while Sallie Mae worked on my re-allocation request. That lasted only a few days. Additionally, I would receive sometimes twice-daily emails telling me my account was overdue. I called Customer Service again and through that, my phone number was reactivated, so I began receiving daily phone calls again.On or about October 17th, I spoke to a Customer Service Supervisor named Maria. She stated that she would put in a request to expedite my re-allocation request, and also stated that there was no record of my September 13th payment having been received by Sallie Mae. I uploaded a copy of my bank statement showing that the payment had cleared, at her request. She stated that she annotated my records to indicate the purpose of that uploaded document.By Saturday, October 19th, I was receiving early morning phone calls (08:12AM) from your Customer Service bank. I explained my situation again, as it was becoming rote, and the confused representative offered me a forebearance. When I explained that a forebearance was not appropriate and unacceptable, she placed me on hold and connected me with the collections department. The collections representative stated that my account was current and had been updated as of October 17th. She stated that the Sallie Mae systems would probably update in a few days.I have been receiving daily phone calls from Sallie Mae. Every time, I have to explain the situation or direct the representative to simply look at my account history. Today, out of frustration, I finally asked to escalate the issue and speak to the person at the Customer Service center with the greatest power, but of course, that wasn't possible, as your call center is a contracting agency in the Philippines. I eventually spoke to another supervisor who went through the same motions of requesting expeditious correction of my account, as his colleague Maria did previously.Today, I received a call from the Great Lakes Higher Education Lending Corporation (GLHELC), the underwriter for most of my loans. It was their collections department. They were unaware of any of my issues with Sallie Mae and I spent about half an hour explaining it. The representative suggested I attempt to escalate my case to someone through the Customer Service department. I laughed and described the various attempts I had made to do so, and how each attempt was doomed.I am spending approximately 90 minutes a day talking to your representatives and attempting to get a resolution to my problems. As of tomorrow, it will be six weeks since I first spoke to the agent who stated he would request a reallocation of my payments. If I am unable to achieve a resolution soon, I am not sure how I will proceed except by reaching out to SLM Corporation Headquarters directly.Here are my pertinent details:Account #9.....Last payment correctly applied to private AND federal loans 7/18.August 5th payment incorrectly applied to private loans ONLY. I need to re-allocate this payment to both federal and private, in the ratios in my payment history (same ratios as July 18th payment).September 13th payment is lost. It was sent to the Wilkes Barre address. It also needs to be manually allocated to federal and private along the same lines as the 7/18 payments. I have uploaded a copy of my bank statement as proof that payment was sent. I do not have a cancelled check, as the payment was sent through Bank of America's Billpay program.October 15th payments were recorded properly, as I have since updated payment information with my bank.November payments are coming due.Account shows 37 days past due as of today.You can contact me at this email address: andrew.diroll@...This phone number: 330-.... (DO NOT record that in the general customer service profile until this matter is resolved--the current number I have listed in there is phony, to avoid any more calls)This address:11101 .....I prefer that you call between 9 AM and 4 PM, but I am at work most days so I may not be able to answer right away. If you do get my voicemail, please leave a message where you can be reached directly. I will not deal with the customer service center on this matter any further. I will verify my information over the phone.Thank you,Andrew Diroll-Black
Or, in other terms,
LISTEN, MOTHERFUCKER, DON'T MAKE ME COME DOWN THERE.
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Almost Furloughed [UPDATE]
I started my new job this week, or, at least I showed up for orientation and I have the rest of this week to complete my move. A few notes to supplement my previous post:
1. It turns out that I will actually get paid through the government shutdown. From my agency's experience in previous government shutdown threats, the powers that be have made sure that the payroll functions will continue to function. This is another benefit of our agency being funded by its own endeavors.
2. Looks like Carly was selected for the job she really, really wanted, and once the background checks are all clear, she'll be a bona fide government employee, also!
3. I'm going out to buy a box spring for my bed, so I can stop sleeping on the floor like I did when I was in middle school. True story: my bed was a train of couch cushions for about four years.
1. It turns out that I will actually get paid through the government shutdown. From my agency's experience in previous government shutdown threats, the powers that be have made sure that the payroll functions will continue to function. This is another benefit of our agency being funded by its own endeavors.
2. Looks like Carly was selected for the job she really, really wanted, and once the background checks are all clear, she'll be a bona fide government employee, also!
3. I'm going out to buy a box spring for my bed, so I can stop sleeping on the floor like I did when I was in middle school. True story: my bed was a train of couch cushions for about four years.
Red Right Hand
Three intense days later, we're in Maryland.
It has almost been a week, and it feels like it has been months. I don't know how I've survived the last week or two, but I did it.
My last day of work at the NYC office was Friday the 13th of September. I completed my five years there and got the pin to prove it. After that, Carly was back at work and our mothers had gone home, so it was my turn to stay at home and be a single dad for a while. I took some vacation time off that I had saved up just for that purpose. Additionally, when you move between offices in the same agency of the federal government, you're entitled to five days to wrap up things, move, unpack, get your driver's license, etc. Effectively, I had three weeks off to wind down our life in NJ, pack, and get ready for the move.
Of course, it's never that easy. Between taking care of the kid and taking care of myself, there was very little time in the day to pack anything. I got a huge amount done, though, and the stack of boxes in our apartment was formidable.
The first week I had off, I helped move my friend, Sokin, down to Maryland, so he could start his new job (he can't drive, so I had to drive the van). Since we were headed to the same place, we packed every spare inch of space in that van with our books and other stuff and planned to drive down Wednesday morning. Before that, I had to take the Wolf to my sister's house so she could watch him all day. My sister's place is in central Jersey. Getting out there, around 7:30AM, opposite the commuting traffic, was easy and took about 40 minutes. The way back, after what I thought would be rush hour, was awful. I think it took me two hours and fifteen minutes to get back to my place. Sokin and I rushed out and managed to get to the new apartment around 3:00PM. We unloaded the truck, went and picked up a new set of couches and then I went to drop off the van. I was running late for my train so I had to call a local friend to pick me up and drop me off at Union Station. I didn't get back to Jersey until 2:00AM.
A week later, Carly got a call for an interview for a job in DC and arranged to come down here for that purpose. Around that time, she also managed to get some kind of stress fracture in her foot, so she basically told me to GO FUCK MYSELF because I AM NOT GOING TO HELP MOVING CUZZA MY FOOT! Also, her birthday was coming up, and no one has to do anything on their birthday.
One of those days, I took the Wolf in to my former office to show him off and hang out. It was fun to see all of my co-workers in a good mood and let someone else hold the baby for a change, but it also reminded me why I was so happy that I was leaving... some of the more neurotic elements made my memory concrete when they were telling me that I was not feeding the kid right (he could get an ear infection from feeding!), that I don't use enough hand sanitizer (these doorknobs are carrying the plague!), he's not eating enough (breastmilk is too watery, you should give him formula!) and that I wasn't covering him up enough (he'll freeze to death in the 89F weather!). So yeah, um, fuck off. Me and my neanderthal baby will move to Maryland and hunt deer with our bare hands.
Then let's blur forward to Friday the 4th. Carly and I went to pick up the moving truck at the Penske dealer in Kearny. The whole process was great, and I take the truck back to JC. When I get there, Carly has to go get her foot looked at by a professional, so I hang out with the baby. When she returns, I start loading the truck by myself (see above), and all of the people we asked for help ended up being busy. To their credit, we didn't really ask anyone to commit, it was more of a "if you're available, do you want to help?" sort of deal. I can't complain about my friends--I'd never really force anyone to help me move boxes. Anyhow, I loaded about 80% of the truck by myself, and a few friends came over to help with the heavy things.
Once the truck was packed to the gills it was pretty obvious that I would not have enough room for all of our crap. Many of the things left in the apartment were considered essential, but were not the sorts of things that fit in boxes easily. Things like guitars, rugs, lamps, etc. And there was a lot of it. How were we going to sort this one out?
I quickly determined that I would not go back and get a larger truck. The last thing I wanted to do was unpack and re-pack my perfectly packed truck. I did have unlimited miles on the thing, though, so I decided I'd just drive back up to JC after we unloaded everything, and then do it all over again. To facilitate this, I hired some dudes to help unload the truck in Maryland, and as soon as it was done, Sokin and I headed back to JC.
While all of this was going on, Carly was driving down in the car with Wolf, Bear, and Sophie. Their experience was quite pleasant.
Our mover guys were quite a pair. There was a guy who could not have been much over 18 (probably a recent high school graduate) who had a great work ethic, but also had a busted rib. He didn't seem to mind. When I was 18, I probably would not have been slowed down by a busted rib. The other guy, arguably the one in charge because he was perhaps 22, was the one I fondly call "Mezztooth." The meth teeth on that slacker were astounding. I didn't think you could do that much damage to your teeth in 22 years. Anyway, they were a great help and I know now that I will never move my own shit again. I will hire Mezztooth and Broken Rib.
The drive to JC and back was a bit of a blur. It took us as long to load the truck the second time with two people as it did for me to do the first load alone. We didn't leave JC until after midnight, and I didn't get to bed until 5AM on Sunday. I think I'm still recovering.
We got some local day laborers to help with the final move, as Sokin and I were just exhausted and could barely walk. When we were all done, we treated ourselves to some Five Guys Burgers and Fries and then everyone went back to the apartment to hibernate.
Other things I've forgotten about:
1. When Sokin and I did the first move several weeks ago, I forgot to eat for most of the day. I only consumed some coffee, a cup of yogurt, a cookie, and a bottle of Coke. We fixed that the second run, and had sandwiches and lots of chips.
2. Carly was not totally useless. She took care of the kid pretty much the whole time I was doing the moving. Taking care of the baby is very important and I don't think I'd be doing the move if we didn't have him. Also, he's been great.
3. I feel a little bit bad about not having a proper going-away party. I think that's because I plan to go back to visit soon. The drive or train ride to NYC from here is not so bad.
It has almost been a week, and it feels like it has been months. I don't know how I've survived the last week or two, but I did it.
My last day of work at the NYC office was Friday the 13th of September. I completed my five years there and got the pin to prove it. After that, Carly was back at work and our mothers had gone home, so it was my turn to stay at home and be a single dad for a while. I took some vacation time off that I had saved up just for that purpose. Additionally, when you move between offices in the same agency of the federal government, you're entitled to five days to wrap up things, move, unpack, get your driver's license, etc. Effectively, I had three weeks off to wind down our life in NJ, pack, and get ready for the move.
Of course, it's never that easy. Between taking care of the kid and taking care of myself, there was very little time in the day to pack anything. I got a huge amount done, though, and the stack of boxes in our apartment was formidable.
The first week I had off, I helped move my friend, Sokin, down to Maryland, so he could start his new job (he can't drive, so I had to drive the van). Since we were headed to the same place, we packed every spare inch of space in that van with our books and other stuff and planned to drive down Wednesday morning. Before that, I had to take the Wolf to my sister's house so she could watch him all day. My sister's place is in central Jersey. Getting out there, around 7:30AM, opposite the commuting traffic, was easy and took about 40 minutes. The way back, after what I thought would be rush hour, was awful. I think it took me two hours and fifteen minutes to get back to my place. Sokin and I rushed out and managed to get to the new apartment around 3:00PM. We unloaded the truck, went and picked up a new set of couches and then I went to drop off the van. I was running late for my train so I had to call a local friend to pick me up and drop me off at Union Station. I didn't get back to Jersey until 2:00AM.
A week later, Carly got a call for an interview for a job in DC and arranged to come down here for that purpose. Around that time, she also managed to get some kind of stress fracture in her foot, so she basically told me to GO FUCK MYSELF because I AM NOT GOING TO HELP MOVING CUZZA MY FOOT! Also, her birthday was coming up, and no one has to do anything on their birthday.
One of those days, I took the Wolf in to my former office to show him off and hang out. It was fun to see all of my co-workers in a good mood and let someone else hold the baby for a change, but it also reminded me why I was so happy that I was leaving... some of the more neurotic elements made my memory concrete when they were telling me that I was not feeding the kid right (he could get an ear infection from feeding!), that I don't use enough hand sanitizer (these doorknobs are carrying the plague!), he's not eating enough (breastmilk is too watery, you should give him formula!) and that I wasn't covering him up enough (he'll freeze to death in the 89F weather!). So yeah, um, fuck off. Me and my neanderthal baby will move to Maryland and hunt deer with our bare hands.
Then let's blur forward to Friday the 4th. Carly and I went to pick up the moving truck at the Penske dealer in Kearny. The whole process was great, and I take the truck back to JC. When I get there, Carly has to go get her foot looked at by a professional, so I hang out with the baby. When she returns, I start loading the truck by myself (see above), and all of the people we asked for help ended up being busy. To their credit, we didn't really ask anyone to commit, it was more of a "if you're available, do you want to help?" sort of deal. I can't complain about my friends--I'd never really force anyone to help me move boxes. Anyhow, I loaded about 80% of the truck by myself, and a few friends came over to help with the heavy things.
Once the truck was packed to the gills it was pretty obvious that I would not have enough room for all of our crap. Many of the things left in the apartment were considered essential, but were not the sorts of things that fit in boxes easily. Things like guitars, rugs, lamps, etc. And there was a lot of it. How were we going to sort this one out?
I quickly determined that I would not go back and get a larger truck. The last thing I wanted to do was unpack and re-pack my perfectly packed truck. I did have unlimited miles on the thing, though, so I decided I'd just drive back up to JC after we unloaded everything, and then do it all over again. To facilitate this, I hired some dudes to help unload the truck in Maryland, and as soon as it was done, Sokin and I headed back to JC.
While all of this was going on, Carly was driving down in the car with Wolf, Bear, and Sophie. Their experience was quite pleasant.
Our mover guys were quite a pair. There was a guy who could not have been much over 18 (probably a recent high school graduate) who had a great work ethic, but also had a busted rib. He didn't seem to mind. When I was 18, I probably would not have been slowed down by a busted rib. The other guy, arguably the one in charge because he was perhaps 22, was the one I fondly call "Mezztooth." The meth teeth on that slacker were astounding. I didn't think you could do that much damage to your teeth in 22 years. Anyway, they were a great help and I know now that I will never move my own shit again. I will hire Mezztooth and Broken Rib.
The drive to JC and back was a bit of a blur. It took us as long to load the truck the second time with two people as it did for me to do the first load alone. We didn't leave JC until after midnight, and I didn't get to bed until 5AM on Sunday. I think I'm still recovering.
We got some local day laborers to help with the final move, as Sokin and I were just exhausted and could barely walk. When we were all done, we treated ourselves to some Five Guys Burgers and Fries and then everyone went back to the apartment to hibernate.
Other things I've forgotten about:
1. When Sokin and I did the first move several weeks ago, I forgot to eat for most of the day. I only consumed some coffee, a cup of yogurt, a cookie, and a bottle of Coke. We fixed that the second run, and had sandwiches and lots of chips.
2. Carly was not totally useless. She took care of the kid pretty much the whole time I was doing the moving. Taking care of the baby is very important and I don't think I'd be doing the move if we didn't have him. Also, he's been great.
3. I feel a little bit bad about not having a proper going-away party. I think that's because I plan to go back to visit soon. The drive or train ride to NYC from here is not so bad.
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Almost Furloughed
Today was several things:
- My last actual real live day as part of the NYC office. While I've been on leave for a bit, today was the last day of that annual leave. Tomorrow begins the administrative leave I'm entitled to as I'm moving from one office in the agency to another. Thursday is technically my day off, and then Friday is another admin day. Monday will be the first official day in my new office in DC.
- The opening day for the healthcare insurance marketplace enrollments under the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare). http://www.healthcare.gov
- The first day of the government shutdown due to an impasse over whether to fund Obamacare (technically moot--see above).
- The first day of the fiscal year 2014.
Unlike nearly 800,000 federal employees and contractors, I am not furloughed through this shutdown. Unlike most of the government, my agency makes its own money and will continue operations unless something truly stupid happens. When it comes down to it, America really is a nation of immigrants and we keep the light burning for you, even if the Statue of Liberty is closed.
But that doesn't mean a whole lot, because the main reason for going to work--getting paid--might not happen until the shutdown is over. You see, my agency was rolled into the Department of Homeland Security when it was created in 2003. When that agency was born, the president and administration at the time pitched it with some very narrow costs. Tax cuts and tax rebates and Iraq and Afghanistan and Enron and Worldcom and Tyco all just happened and the government wasn't terribly flush with cash, so the new DHS was put together out of spare parts. One of the parts that was used was the otherwise efficient payroll service instituted by the Department of Agriculture. While the money that pays me comes from the immigration service, it is ultimately handed to me by Dept. of Ag. And DOA is shut down, so I have to wait until they turn the lights back on to get my paychecks. Fucking bastards.
A few other things are going on this week:
- We're moving! That entails paying double rent for about three weeks, renting a truck, buying boxes and all sorts of related costs. I pretty much spent our funny money on this, so if we don't get paychecks soon, it's going to hurt.
- Our hospital started sending us medical bills we didn't know we had. When we checked in at the hospital where Wolf was born, I handed the clerk all of my insurance cards and claimed that I wasn't sure which one was the right one because I was a little freaked out at the time. The clerk put our vision care card in as the primary one. Once they finally figured out it was wrong (10 weeks later), they sent us the stuff they'd meant to send us all the time, along with warnings that it is overdue!
- Carly managed to break her foot! It's just a hairline fracture on one of those long bones in her foot, earned through poor shoe choices and too much walking, exacerbated by a small loss of bone mass post-childbirth (which is normal for breastfeeding mums, and reverses itself after she's done with all that). She'll use this as an excuse to not help loading and unloading the moving truck, I bet.
- Wolf has grown out of nearly all of the clothes we have for him, sparking an occasional trip to Babies R Us to buy the next size of shirts and onesies that he'll need. Entertainingly, his diapers are still size 1. He also can no longer sleep in the cool napper thing we've had him in, so it's off to crib land as soon as we move!
- Oh shit, I need to order his crib.
- It is Carly's last week of gainful employment until she gets another job. This is the second time she will have quit a perfectly good job to follow me on my career path. The good news is that this time, she really does have things lined up for work. They are, however, conditioned on the shutdown ending. So we'll see how that turns out.
Where was I? Yes, lots of things draining on our household this month. Back to packing.
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