9 posts tagged “assholes do vex me”
So I lug the black cat to the vet to be neutered this a.m. Because he's a male, he got out the same day. I cut short my lunch so I could leave early (on a hectic day where I'm still doing two jobs because the person whose been off for eight weeks, and told me she'd be back today, decided to take just one more day off). I get to the animal hospital, lug the cat home (15-minute walk, heavy male cat), walk in the door to the phone ringing. It's the animal hospital. They forgot to give him his vaccines, can I bring him back. Fuck! Idiots!
Almost all the lift is out of my arms now, so I turn around and head for the streetcar. And for the first time, ever, a driver hassles me because there's some rule no driver I've encountered has ever enforced about not taking animals on the streetcar during rush hour. And I tell him that no other driver has ever been uptight about it. He hassles me after I pay my fare, so I took the ride anyway (only four stops), with him berating me half the way for trying to tell him how to do his job. Yeah, and thank YOU for the transit strike a week ago, dickweed.
So to go home, I was so upset and frustrated that I didn't even try to get on the streetcar going the other way. If that guy had hassled me, too, I would have totally lost it.
I have kitten pictures from this morning when I dropped him off, because I saw Honey's kittens, but I'm so not in the mood right now. My cats are pestering me to feed them and I've just about had it with cats right now.
The coda to my rant about the rude insurance adjuster, is today (yes, Sunday) I came home from an all-day work conference to a message on my answering machine from said insurance adjuster (yes, on a Sunday!) telling me that if I just fax her my invoice for the replacement of my apartment locks, she will expedite payment. No apology for not getting back to me in the last four weeks, but I'll take the $170 and no arguments with her about it.
That's what happens when you go to the top with a well-written complaint. Satisfaction within three days. That's one day for every two levels I went over her head. And two of them not even regular business days. Gotta love it.
This is the text of an e-mail I sent to the person one position down from Bank President in the bank that owns the insurance company I pay premiums to:
I understand you are the Group Head for the group that includes insurance adjuster Elaine Cxxxxxxx. I’m writing as an RBC Insurance customer to register a complaint regarding her service of me as a client for a recent claim I tried to make. My policy number is XXXXXXXX, and it is a policy for contents insurance for the apartment I rent.
To be brief, my purse was stolen on March 3, 2008, with wallet, all my keys, ID, address book, credit cards, bank cards, cellphone, the works inside. In the flurry of trying to replace all of these items, make a police report and change locks, it didn’t occur to me until March 19 to call and ask if any of this might possibly be covered by the contents insurance. Since the purse was with me out at dinner when it was stolen, and not taken from the apartment, it was not immediately intuitive to me that it might be covered.
My initial call was taken by a very nice gentleman named Ben on March 19. He
looked up the policy and advised that there was coverage, with a $500 deductible
for the purse contents, but no deductible for the replacement of locks and
keys. In my case, locks and keys had to be replaced at my home and workplace,
since the thief had my address and business cards in the purse. Since I didn’t
expect to spend more than $500 in replacing the purse and contents, I didn’t
want to make that part of the claim, but I did want to claim for the locks and
keys, because that cost had run into hundreds of dollars alone. Ben also told
me that such claims were supposed to be made within 96 hours of the event, but
that it was worth my while to open a claim, because my history of having made no
previous claims, and the fact that it is hardly obvious that contents insurance
would apply to something stolen outside of the apartment (it took him some time
to find it himself in the policy) might mitigate in my favor for a successful
claim. He clearly believed and communicated that there was discretion in the
system on the part of the insurance adjuster. He took my business number,
advised me my adjuster was Elaine Cxxxxxxx, and gave me her phone number as
well, and told me I would hear from her within 24 hours.
Elaine Cxxxxxxxx called my home number during business hours that same day (instead of my business number, for reasons unknown). She got my answering machine, which recorded only part of her message, but cut her off partway (right after a mention of the 96 hours). I got this partial message that evening, and I called her the next day. I got her voicemail and left my own message to explain her message was cut off, and provided my work number and asked to speak to her. She did not return my call. I called approximately a week later, reminded her again of the cut-off message and asked for a callback and left my number again. This was in March. She still has never called me back.
I work in a service organization. This would be entirely unacceptable customer service on the part my staff. Even if Ms. Cxxxxxxxx intended to deny my claim, at the very least, I deserved a call back with an explanation beyond a truncated answering machine message. As a premiums-paying customer, my only contact with your company to date on my only claim to date has been one cut-off message. This is now the face of your company to me. Ms. Cxxxxxxxx may feel that having got the mention of the 96-hour deadline onto the tape was all the service or courtesy I required. I feel I at least deserved a conversation and an opportunity to explain my circumstances, and even the discretion your front-line staff alluded to, to allow my claim. A purse stolen is no less stolen more than 96 hours later.
By the end of this month, I should have the final replacement item for all those that were stolen. Can you replace my faith in RBC Insurance?
apartment and mailbox locks and keys - $175
office locks and replacement keys for all staff - $268.50 (they didn't ask me to pay, but it still got spent)
Filofax (combination daytimer and address book)- $77
birth certificate - $65 (includes rush courier charge because it was needed to get other pieces of ID)
Social Insurance Number card - $10
drivers license - $10
reading glasses - $40
case for reading glasses - $10
flash drive - $62
passport - $85
passport photos - $27 (had to be done twice, because the first set didn't meet specifications and the lunkhead who took them wouldn't redo or refund them, so I had to go somewhere else)
ID holder - $20
wallet - $4 (nice cheap colorful one from store in Chinatown -- good thing I don't go for expensive leather)
purse - $5 (on sale at discount store - again, good thing I don't buy Louis Vuitton or Coach)
subscription to ID alert service (in case the thief or someone he passed my stuff to tries to use it for identity theft) - $100
doohickey that you put on edge of table and hang your purse on in public places where it isn't accessible to thieves - $10
That's $690 it's cost me, not counting the $70 in cash that was in the purse, and the $268 my employer paid. It would have been more, but it was a work cell phone in the purse, and my employer had a spare cell phone and SIM card from staff who have moved on, so it didn't cost them anything to replace that. And then there were the several cubic assloads of time and effort and frustration to make it all happen. Beyond reporting credit cards stolen, there was making the police report, visiting government offices, etc. etc. There were six phone calls alone to doctor and drugstore to replace one prescription for asthma meds that was in the purse, and the two trips for passport photos, and on and on and on.
My purse got stolen on March 3. I got my driver's licence in the mail yesterday and my passport should arrive by April 28. Then I will have pretty much everything replaced, except the intangibles and irreplaceables, like my time and peace of mind.
The Pope has now named "excess wealth" as a sin. People who live in glass Vaticans with treasure troves of valuables should not be casting stones. Especially while they're driving poor people in developing countries into even deeper poverty while preaching no contraception.
I just realized that the guy who stole my purse may as well have stolen hundreds in cash from me instead of the mere $70 in my wallet, because the cost of replacing things is starting to add up.
Birth certificate $65
Lock changes/new passcard $170
New passport ~ $100 (including new passport photos)
Registration to an ID alert service in case he sold or someone picked up my ID from the purse and applies for credit with it: $100
So we're up to almost $500 already and I haven't even bought a replacement purse or Filofax yet (they aren't cheap).
Bastard.
(on the up side, I have a nicer thing to post about later today)
The insanity of bank and police station visits, various government automated phone mazes and a ton of other administrivia. Yes, my purse was stolen last night. Yes, everything was in it: wallet, cellphone, credit cards (including business one), datebook/address book, ALL my ID including passport, keys (home, work and my friend's apartment), pass card (home, work, and my friend's building). It was not through any irresponsibility of my own, some asshole with the misdirection skills of Penn and Teller leaned over from the bar at the restaurant where my friend John and I were eating, and asked me some damn thing about napkins, while offering me one in his hand, as though I'd asked for extra. He was probably reaching behind me and taking my purse from the other side of my chair while doing this. (I thought I'd been safe putting the purse on the side of the chair between it and the wall.) So smooth that I didn't even notice it was gone until at least a half hour later when I went to pay my share, by which time he was long gone.
I didn't freak out and panic (my reaction has been a big "Well, fuck!" since it happened), and just getting on with what needs to be done now, but even so, it was a blessing to have John around. He used to be an Assistant Director on films and has the mad organization skillz of a field marshall. He went straight to a bank machine (after paying for dinner) and took out $200 for me for walking-around money, and then back at my place, he looked up numbers on the internet and I started making calls to report and cancel things.
I won't bore you with the details of trying to replace ID, I'm sure many of you will have gone through it. He only got $70 in cash, which won't break the bank. The sad part of it is, the stuff that I'll miss more is the stuff that he won't or can't use. But to be on the safe side, I'm having my lock on my apartment changed. And John and I did go back to the area around the restaurant to check garbage bins, in case he ditched any of it. No dice.
That's all. I'm exhausted because I didn't get to bed till 1 last night, and had to get up and running around early to start looking after more of this stuff.
Okay, I know the US has the Patriot Act, but I didn't realize Canada was on its way to becoming a police state.
After seeing this post on Jay's vox about the guy who collects condiment packets, I realized I had one he didn't have, (photo to follow, since I can't download a digital photo to my work computer) so I decided to send it to the guy for his collection.
I take two samples of the same packet (in case one bursts) and stop at a Canada Post post office on the way to work to buy the padded envelope and postage. I didn't seal the envelope because I wanted to add a quick note at my desk before mailing, but put the packets in the envelope before I got to the counter so it could be weighed properly. I have done this at post offices many times without the following problem.
Me: I want this envelope and the postage for it. Let me just get out the address it's going to in the US. (start pulling it out of my purse)
Asshole Postal Clerk: (starts looking inside the envelope)
Me: (sharply) Don't go looking in my envelope, you're not allowed to do that!
Asshole Postal Clerk: I have to make sure it's not hazardous materials.
Me: No, you don't. You give me a customs form, I fill it out, and you have to go by that. (While I'm talking, APC has now dumped the two packets right out of the envelope into his hand)
Asshole Postal Clerk: And we have to know where it's going.
Me: I told you I'm just getting the address. You don't get to look inside as long as I fill out the forms.
Second Asshole Postal Clerk (hearing my voice raised): What's in it?
Asshole Postal Clerk (confused, but showing him): Just ketchup packets.
Me: Look, if I brought that envelope to you sealed, you wouldn't be opening it to look in it, so stop snooping! It's none of your business!
Asshole Postal Clerk: (lamely) I'm not snooping.
Then he shunted me aside to fill out the form so he could take the next customer. I am so sending a complaint to Canada Post's head office.
This is a great mood to start off the day in, especially since I was already scheduled for a meeting this morning with legal counsel for a federal tribunal and was going give him a good telling-off about his tribunal's actions.
Nobody else better mess with me today.
Edited to add: That's it, I've phoned in my complaint and have a file number and the promise that a supervisor will call me within 48 hours to advise what steps will be taken to follow up.
