Dec 24, 2009 10:07
Normally at this time of the year things should go a little easier and one should relax after a year of hard work. This had been mostly the case for me, but for a few weeks in late November and early December it wasn't. Let me explain.
I went on my first leave from my job in five years (yay!), but when I returned to work after a week I discovered that the internet connection I used for my job had stopped working. So I sent an email to tech support in Centurion, only to have my password for Outlook Express expire that very same afternoon. Normally the password reset wouldn't take more than a few minutes, but then IT decided it first need to fix the internet connection first for some reason.
So I had to use Hotmail for my correspondence, resulting in me missing an email about some on-the-job training and getting a bit of flak from my boss (she later forgave me when she found out about my problems, though). Plus, I now had to use my other router, but since this and the job's routers used different IPs and I couldn't change the IP addresses on the two recording stations, I had to constantly change my workstation's IP addresses until they were burnt into my forehead. This, along with aiding IT to try and figure out what was wrong, resulted in much frustration and time wasting (which probably wasn't helped with my bargain purchase of Just Cause). Also, IT had sent me a new PC to act as the recording station instead of the two others, so that had to be set up. The fact that it also gave ALL the work's computers a nasty virus... ai yai yai.
And if that wasn't bad enough, my medical aid fund decided it couldn't let me end the year without annoying the s*** out of me again. Earlier in the year I had recieved the news that my fund was merging with another. Fair enough. I then learned my aid option would change into something called Blueprint. Fine. Then the fund asked me to send proof of income PLUS they told me my premiums would go up by 100%. Crisis time. So I went in panic mode and began searching for a new fund while getting the papers ready. Later I discovered my premiums would go up by about R150 instead of the R400, but that's still a bit much. But after some checking out, I decided to drop my decision to switch funds. It's too much paperwork, it's the end of the year, and the Blueprint scheme looked very good at least with regards to hospital plans. So I've decided to stick around and see what happens in the new year. Now, if only those lazy bums would just process my proof of income, otherwise I'll be placed in the highest income bracket for that scheme. ><
Thankfully all of this has been sorted out, more or less. So now I can at least relax a bit before the new year madness starts up again.
So to everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!