"You conquered me like Charlemagne"
Today, I time-travelled. Or: Adventures in Banking.
So today, the only thing I had to do (besides help avatar1983 pick up a TV stand from Barnsley) was go to the bank and get some money moved around. I needed to find out how much savings I had, transfer some savings to my "current" (read: checking) account, and transfer a good chunk of that in turn to Johannes's bank account so he could pay our upfront rent and bond and it would be easy/uncomplicated. There's a machine at the bank specifically for this kind of thing so you don't have to stand at the counter for a donkey's age holding up the line while the mouthbreathers round back tell you there's NO WAY they can do that despite their own website saying not only that you can but that you should.
Fezzini always said to go back to the beginning: I go to the machine, and it tells me the amount I need to transfer is "above the limit for this kiosk" and that I should talk to a bank representative. Annoyed that the machine is apparently not allowed to do the exact job it was designed to take care of, I get in the glacial desk queue. Day, possibly weeks pass, and eventually it is my turn. I explain that I need to do several things to the pencil-necked dweeb behind the desk and he stares blankly as I outline the situation. At this point I decide to do one thing at a time and have him move the money from my savings to my checking. No problem. Then I explain I need to move most of that to another account and give him the information. He starts typing it in, realizes it's an account at a different bank and tries to tell me first that I can't do that, then that it needs to be a CHAPS payment which costs £25 to do. I tell him their website says that payments under £10k can be done as fast payments, which are free.
He doesn't seem to believe me, then talks to the old lady at the next desk, and they both decide I still can't do this. I reiterate that their own website outlines this process, and they tell me that regional branches can't do that because of security and the risk of fraud (bzuh???), but I could do it online if I have online banking? I explain that I don't because every time I apply the bank tells me I don't have a current account which is obviously false. They let that one lie, and I can't blame them. I volunteer that I'd be happy to make the payment using the machine over there, if it would let me move that much money. They ignore that, too. Eventually, one of them suggests that in order to avoid the fee (that my payment is not actually eligible to cost, let's remember), I should take out the money and walk it over to a branch of Johannes's bank and pay it in myself. They agree that this is an option, then the pencil-neck tells me repeatedly that "it's entirely up to yourself, Miss Clark" - I got that, buddy. It's my money after all.
After some more of this, it becomes clear that they won't let me avoid the fee any other way, so I agree to take the money out, walk across town to the other bank, and pay it in myself. I assume it will come in check form for such a sum, but no. Instead I stand there for several minutes, fixated in horror as a machine spits out note after note after £10 note (they ran out of 20s I guess?), and the pencil-neck has to ask one of his co-workers "where we keep the big envelopes." After struggling to seal the envelope stuffed with cash and handing it to me, he also tells me they can't set my standing orders to finish after 1 June. Which could surely be accomplished by putting an end-date on them, since when I set them up, the girl asked me, "Until when?" and when I didn't have an answer she said, "Until further notice, then."
So here I am, trying desperately to fit an enormous envelope full of cash into my little owl purse and have it not look like I'm someone you should mug (to be fair, I think it might have helped my case that I was wearing my bats shirt from Penny Arcade). All proceeds as...well, this was never planned, really, but as well as can be expected. I managed not to be mugged between Fargate and Hanover, and made it into the hot, airless sanctuary of Johannes's bank. Whereupon I had to explain I was here to pay in a shitload of cash to an account that wasn't mine, and here's the info, and I think that's £XXXX there...So I stand there sweating like a racehorse, looking for all the world like a drugrunner of some kind, while the ONLY WORKING CASHIER counts out the hundreds of notes and a queue forms behind me. IT WAS AN EXCITING DAY, THANKS BARCLAYS! I always wondered what banking was like in the 19th century.
In other news, no one has offered an opinion about my story, which makes me sad. The GRE study books sitting in front of me also make me a little sad, because I hate studying. I love learning, but I hate studying, and I hate the GRE; it is my nemesis. Even more than MooKaup in high school, because she never broke my heart like the GRE did (though I saw through someone else's facebook that she married a lady the other day! I was deeply surprised, and mostly hope that if I met her now we'd both have changed enough that I'd like her better; I don't think she ever hated me like I hated her). Sorry that was a totally random aside.
In other news, I'm super excited to start moving stuff into the new apartment come 21 June. Well except that I hate moving and all the packing/manual labor involved, but I'm excited about the new place! It's pretty rad, to be perfectly frank.
I watched the first episode of Pushing Daisies a little bit ago, and it made me REALLY want some pie. Like holy shit I would probably stab a dude for some rhubarb or strawberry pie right now. RIGHT NOW. It looks so delicious on that show it's criminal. I wonder if maybe I should wait on watching the rest until I've gotten better about going to the gym...otherwise it could be problematic.
Speaking of the gym, I've been twice in a row again! I know this is hardly celebration-worthy, but I'm really going to make an effort again, and I'm going tomorrow, and I have another appointment on Friday, so I'm hoping to have been tomorrow, Monday, and Wednesday before that. I want to be diligent again! I want results, mostly. I feel almost like a soldier or something, because my experience the last few restarts has taught me exactly what burning 100 calories feels like: 10 minutes on the rowing machine. Blisters, sore back, crampy hips, and it basically lasts forever. 10 minutes is a long time to row to nowhere. Tuesday it made me think of that scene in the 3rd Kushiel book where they're crossing the Lake of Tears (is that it?) for hours and hours overnight and I was like, "Holy shit Joscelin is a god this is terrible." That was seriously like 2 minutes' worth of thought process while I rowed.
In unrelated news, I have switched to Chrome at least temporarily because my Firefox has gone full retard and freezes all the time randomly. It comes back, but after aaaaages, and sometimes it does just up and quit. It'll go reeeeeaaaallllllllyyy sssssllllloooooowwwww for a minute, then be fine for a few seconds, then BAM it's gone. "Firefox has crashed" etc and then when I click "send report" because I think they'd like to know about this, EVERY TIME it says "error sending report." Some bullshit is what it is. Fortunately, Chrome saved me the usual new-browser trouble of getting all my bookmarks etc (which actually wouldn't have been a big problem with Firefox because I have XMarks now, which is super handy), and without having to make a fresh profile and dig up all the add-ons I used to have. So I'm using it for now, with occasional flips back to Firefox for reference. I miss my adorable smiley sunshine persona thing, but all the Chrome ones are pretty awful, so I'm sticking with basic or classic or whatever they call it. It's funny, though, because GMail is still hella slow on Chrome XD
Ugh I feel really weirdly like I need human contact at all times these days. I mean I'm obviously fine without, but anytime I'm not talking to someone (and sometimes when I am lol) I really wish other people were around - I just feel like I need to talk to people recently, though my patience for people is also quite low, so it's only certain people I actually want to talk to, which makes life unnecessarily complicated. Soupir! I don't really support it as an attitude, but it's pretty tough to rustle up the give-a-shit to talk to people you wish were dead, and it's conversely difficult to manage not exploding when you really need to talk to someone you don't wish was dead. Bleh. I'll manage. It's probably good for me to have to deal with these feelings by myself - it's character building or something. After all, I've also had a nearly overwhelming desire to SING~! for at least half of any given day in the last two weeks. I manage not to by singing along to my music at the normal mostly-quiet volume (it's no good because you can't hit the big notes when you're being quiet :/ ) and telling myself that maybe in a little bit I'll go upstairs and play Karaoke Revolution or one of the SingStars. I never do, but I feel like I could, and I guess that helps haha
So today, the only thing I had to do (besides help avatar1983 pick up a TV stand from Barnsley) was go to the bank and get some money moved around. I needed to find out how much savings I had, transfer some savings to my "current" (read: checking) account, and transfer a good chunk of that in turn to Johannes's bank account so he could pay our upfront rent and bond and it would be easy/uncomplicated. There's a machine at the bank specifically for this kind of thing so you don't have to stand at the counter for a donkey's age holding up the line while the mouthbreathers round back tell you there's NO WAY they can do that despite their own website saying not only that you can but that you should.
Fezzini always said to go back to the beginning: I go to the machine, and it tells me the amount I need to transfer is "above the limit for this kiosk" and that I should talk to a bank representative. Annoyed that the machine is apparently not allowed to do the exact job it was designed to take care of, I get in the glacial desk queue. Day, possibly weeks pass, and eventually it is my turn. I explain that I need to do several things to the pencil-necked dweeb behind the desk and he stares blankly as I outline the situation. At this point I decide to do one thing at a time and have him move the money from my savings to my checking. No problem. Then I explain I need to move most of that to another account and give him the information. He starts typing it in, realizes it's an account at a different bank and tries to tell me first that I can't do that, then that it needs to be a CHAPS payment which costs £25 to do. I tell him their website says that payments under £10k can be done as fast payments, which are free.
He doesn't seem to believe me, then talks to the old lady at the next desk, and they both decide I still can't do this. I reiterate that their own website outlines this process, and they tell me that regional branches can't do that because of security and the risk of fraud (bzuh???), but I could do it online if I have online banking? I explain that I don't because every time I apply the bank tells me I don't have a current account which is obviously false. They let that one lie, and I can't blame them. I volunteer that I'd be happy to make the payment using the machine over there, if it would let me move that much money. They ignore that, too. Eventually, one of them suggests that in order to avoid the fee (that my payment is not actually eligible to cost, let's remember), I should take out the money and walk it over to a branch of Johannes's bank and pay it in myself. They agree that this is an option, then the pencil-neck tells me repeatedly that "it's entirely up to yourself, Miss Clark" - I got that, buddy. It's my money after all.
After some more of this, it becomes clear that they won't let me avoid the fee any other way, so I agree to take the money out, walk across town to the other bank, and pay it in myself. I assume it will come in check form for such a sum, but no. Instead I stand there for several minutes, fixated in horror as a machine spits out note after note after £10 note (they ran out of 20s I guess?), and the pencil-neck has to ask one of his co-workers "where we keep the big envelopes." After struggling to seal the envelope stuffed with cash and handing it to me, he also tells me they can't set my standing orders to finish after 1 June. Which could surely be accomplished by putting an end-date on them, since when I set them up, the girl asked me, "Until when?" and when I didn't have an answer she said, "Until further notice, then."
So here I am, trying desperately to fit an enormous envelope full of cash into my little owl purse and have it not look like I'm someone you should mug (to be fair, I think it might have helped my case that I was wearing my bats shirt from Penny Arcade). All proceeds as...well, this was never planned, really, but as well as can be expected. I managed not to be mugged between Fargate and Hanover, and made it into the hot, airless sanctuary of Johannes's bank. Whereupon I had to explain I was here to pay in a shitload of cash to an account that wasn't mine, and here's the info, and I think that's £XXXX there...So I stand there sweating like a racehorse, looking for all the world like a drugrunner of some kind, while the ONLY WORKING CASHIER counts out the hundreds of notes and a queue forms behind me. IT WAS AN EXCITING DAY, THANKS BARCLAYS! I always wondered what banking was like in the 19th century.
In other news, no one has offered an opinion about my story, which makes me sad. The GRE study books sitting in front of me also make me a little sad, because I hate studying. I love learning, but I hate studying, and I hate the GRE; it is my nemesis. Even more than MooKaup in high school, because she never broke my heart like the GRE did (though I saw through someone else's facebook that she married a lady the other day! I was deeply surprised, and mostly hope that if I met her now we'd both have changed enough that I'd like her better; I don't think she ever hated me like I hated her). Sorry that was a totally random aside.
In other news, I'm super excited to start moving stuff into the new apartment come 21 June. Well except that I hate moving and all the packing/manual labor involved, but I'm excited about the new place! It's pretty rad, to be perfectly frank.
I watched the first episode of Pushing Daisies a little bit ago, and it made me REALLY want some pie. Like holy shit I would probably stab a dude for some rhubarb or strawberry pie right now. RIGHT NOW. It looks so delicious on that show it's criminal. I wonder if maybe I should wait on watching the rest until I've gotten better about going to the gym...otherwise it could be problematic.
Speaking of the gym, I've been twice in a row again! I know this is hardly celebration-worthy, but I'm really going to make an effort again, and I'm going tomorrow, and I have another appointment on Friday, so I'm hoping to have been tomorrow, Monday, and Wednesday before that. I want to be diligent again! I want results, mostly. I feel almost like a soldier or something, because my experience the last few restarts has taught me exactly what burning 100 calories feels like: 10 minutes on the rowing machine. Blisters, sore back, crampy hips, and it basically lasts forever. 10 minutes is a long time to row to nowhere. Tuesday it made me think of that scene in the 3rd Kushiel book where they're crossing the Lake of Tears (is that it?) for hours and hours overnight and I was like, "Holy shit Joscelin is a god this is terrible." That was seriously like 2 minutes' worth of thought process while I rowed.
In unrelated news, I have switched to Chrome at least temporarily because my Firefox has gone full retard and freezes all the time randomly. It comes back, but after aaaaages, and sometimes it does just up and quit. It'll go reeeeeaaaallllllllyyy sssssllllloooooowwwww for a minute, then be fine for a few seconds, then BAM it's gone. "Firefox has crashed" etc and then when I click "send report" because I think they'd like to know about this, EVERY TIME it says "error sending report." Some bullshit is what it is. Fortunately, Chrome saved me the usual new-browser trouble of getting all my bookmarks etc (which actually wouldn't have been a big problem with Firefox because I have XMarks now, which is super handy), and without having to make a fresh profile and dig up all the add-ons I used to have. So I'm using it for now, with occasional flips back to Firefox for reference. I miss my adorable smiley sunshine persona thing, but all the Chrome ones are pretty awful, so I'm sticking with basic or classic or whatever they call it. It's funny, though, because GMail is still hella slow on Chrome XD
Ugh I feel really weirdly like I need human contact at all times these days. I mean I'm obviously fine without, but anytime I'm not talking to someone (and sometimes when I am lol) I really wish other people were around - I just feel like I need to talk to people recently, though my patience for people is also quite low, so it's only certain people I actually want to talk to, which makes life unnecessarily complicated. Soupir! I don't really support it as an attitude, but it's pretty tough to rustle up the give-a-shit to talk to people you wish were dead, and it's conversely difficult to manage not exploding when you really need to talk to someone you don't wish was dead. Bleh. I'll manage. It's probably good for me to have to deal with these feelings by myself - it's character building or something. After all, I've also had a nearly overwhelming desire to SING~! for at least half of any given day in the last two weeks. I manage not to by singing along to my music at the normal mostly-quiet volume (it's no good because you can't hit the big notes when you're being quiet :/ ) and telling myself that maybe in a little bit I'll go upstairs and play Karaoke Revolution or one of the SingStars. I never do, but I feel like I could, and I guess that helps haha