Sunday, November 4, 2007
To: Mortgage Company A
From: luaphacim
Re: Returning Funds Withdrawn in Error from Escrow Account
Account Number: 123456789
Name: Mr. and Mrs. luaphacim
To Whom It May Concern:
The following events have transpired over the past few months, resulting in almost immeasurable consternation for both me and my lovely bride of two years, seven months, and twenty days. I appreciate your attention to this matter and hope that it can be brought to a quick resolution.
On July 9, 2007, we bought a home, taking out an FHA loan from MORTGAGE COMPANY A to do so. It is a nice home, with plenty of room and some pretty good amenities. For instance, the sellers threw in a free refrigerator which, unfortunately, leaks like a diabetic racehorse. However, as we do not believe in looking gift refrigerators in the mouth, we are quite satisfied with our purchase.
At our closing, $679.00 was taken from our closing costs and paid to INSURANCE COMPANY X as our first year of premium for our home owner’s insurance.
On or around July 18, 2007, a withdrawal of $679.00 was made from our MORTGAGE COMPANY A escrow account and sent to INSURANCE COMPANY X for our first year of home owner’s insurance, leaving our escrow account with a negative balance. Since we had also paid for our first year of insurance at closing, this was a double payment. I do not have a degree in finance or anything, but I suspect that this is not supposed to happen to an escrow account. Ever.
On August 6, 2007, INSURANCE COMPANY X Insurance sent us a check in the amount of $679.00 to reimburse us for overpayment of our premiums. Naturally, since we did not know that MORTGAGE COMPANY A had made the erroneous withdrawal from our escrow account, this caused us some degree of confusion and concern. My wife and I made several calls to INSURANCE COMPANY X in order to find out why this check had been sent, and we eventually found that one of the checks had come from MORTGAGE COMPANY A.
We made a number of efforts to communicate with our local MORTGAGE COMPANY A personnel about this error, but they repeatedly told us that they would have to “wait to hear back from the national office,” or some such thing. Please do not take this as a complaint about them, though – they were very helpful with a number of things. Just not this one, really.
On September 1, 2007, MORTGAGE COMPANY A sold oursoulshome loan to MORTGAGE COMPANY B, which is a company dedicated to a diverse workforce and the good of humanity and so forth. At least, that is what I have gathered from being on hold with them for nearly an hour and listening to their never-ending loop of propaganda recordings.
On September 13, 2007, we received our MORTGAGE COMPANY A annual escrow account disclosure statement informing us that we had an escrow balance of -$132.76. At this point, we realized that something was seriously screwy with our account at your company. We were not sure whether the negative balance had been transferred over to our account with MORTGAGE COMPANY B, so we waited to see our next statement from them.
Our next MORTGAGE COMPANY B statement showed a positive escrow balance, so MORTGAGE COMPANY A clearly needs to receive the $679.00 to reconcile our account. We have therefore enclosed a check in that amount.
At your earliest convenience, please send us a letter stating that:
• You have received the enclosed check
• Our account with you has been reconciled and no further payments will be necessary
Please send this letter to:
Mr. luaphacim
1234 Main St
Someplace, KS 65432
If we do not receive this letter within a reasonable period of time, we will request a stop-pay on the enclosed check because of failure to render services. In other words: we mean business.
In addition, in consideration of the significant amount of time and effort my wife and I have expended because of MORTGAGE COMPANY A’s error, I would like to make the following demands as compensation. I understand that I will almost certainly not receive any of these demands, but it makes me feel better to demand them, so please humor me.
• A service fee of $30.90. My wife and I have spent well over six hours trying to resolve this problem, and I would like to think our time is worth at least minimum wage.
• A bag of microwave popcorn. This is useful and necessary for the watching of movies in our new family room area with the track lighting. Did I mention that our new house is totally sweet?
• A year’s worth of free rides on a Shetland pony, preferably one named “Buck.” This is a humorous name for a pony, and I think you will agree that pony rides are inherently awesome.
• U.S. military intervention to stop the genocide in Rwanda. Seriously.
• A George Foreman Grill. My doctor says I am obese, and I hear that George Foreman Grills are a great way to become magically skinny.
Please submit this list to your compliance department for consideration and so that they can laugh at my pitiful efforts to be recompensed for my valuable time, which could have been spent writing a magnificent novel or learning Japanese or on something equally edifying. I could probably make empty threats about reporting MORTGAGE COMPANY A to the Kansas Office of the State Bank Commissioner, 700 SW Jackson Street, Suite 300, Topeka KS 66603-3714, but I think we both know I am not really too serious about this, so I will not do so.
Eagerly awaiting your response, I remain your humble servant,
luaphacim
Noises From the Machine
04 November 2007
A letter to Mortgage Company A
We have been trying to get a little mortgage issue straightened out for about the past three months, ever since receiving a check for $679.00 for overpayment of our home insurance premiums. Took us a while, but we finally got it resolved. I was a little peeved that I was the one who had to do the work to give Mortgage Company A their money back, but I work at a call center, so I know that complaints are no fun for anyone. Nevertheless, I did want to make my displeasure known, so I wrote this. The names have been changed to protect my hinder quarters from a lawsuit. Enjoy.
01 November 2007
Scribblings
I spent a number of very fruitless hours wrestling with a computer system several weeks ago. Basically, I was trying to see whether the new dividend scale would crash our system or not (the answer was yes it would -- surprise, surprise, surprise).
While waiting for the system to cycle forward (a process that takes anywhere between 30 seconds and three minutes per transaction), I tried my hand at some extemporaneous poetry. I had been reading Madam Murasaki's Tale of Genji that week, and I was curious about what kind of poetry I would be able to compose at a moment's notice, since that is one of the things Genji is so renowned for (besides being indescribably beautiful and unfaithful to every one of his innumerable paramours, but that is beside the point).
It's kind of tricky, because most of the poetry is highly allusive and layered with naturalistic images, and I am familiar with neither Japanese poetry nor Japanese nature imagery. I did, however, make my poems two lines long, which is more or less what Genji does in the novel, too. So that's something, anyway.
Here are a couple of the poems I came up with between cycles. Please note that they are not very good.
Waning, cloud-cloaked rays of sunlight, dim at day's end,
Promise that tomorrow will hold sufficient troubles of its own.
Squirrels scuttling through overgrown grass-
Neglected lawn teems with life.
While waiting for the system to cycle forward (a process that takes anywhere between 30 seconds and three minutes per transaction), I tried my hand at some extemporaneous poetry. I had been reading Madam Murasaki's Tale of Genji that week, and I was curious about what kind of poetry I would be able to compose at a moment's notice, since that is one of the things Genji is so renowned for (besides being indescribably beautiful and unfaithful to every one of his innumerable paramours, but that is beside the point).
It's kind of tricky, because most of the poetry is highly allusive and layered with naturalistic images, and I am familiar with neither Japanese poetry nor Japanese nature imagery. I did, however, make my poems two lines long, which is more or less what Genji does in the novel, too. So that's something, anyway.
Here are a couple of the poems I came up with between cycles. Please note that they are not very good.
Waning, cloud-cloaked rays of sunlight, dim at day's end,
Promise that tomorrow will hold sufficient troubles of its own.
Squirrels scuttling through overgrown grass-
Neglected lawn teems with life.
14 October 2007
Weddings
I have taken the past two Fridays off. It has been nice -- I've had a cough, and that always seems to make me tired, so the extra day of "rest" has been beneficial. Well, at least it was beneficial when I was able to rest... but the reason I got these days off was because of weddings.
Weddings are a funny thing. I have never been a lover of ceremony, and they are almost pure ceremony. The only consolation is that my friends tend to be people who do not like ceremony very much. Last week, for example, the wedding ceremony itself only lasted about 15 or 20 minutes... and that was only because the bride's father stalled in giving her away. Then, there was a good meal, and then we were done, which was nice. Long, drawn-out parties are another thing I have never liked much.
When I was married, the reception was too big and too expensive for my tastes, but I wasn't paying, and I wanted to make my in-laws (and lovely wifey) happy, so I did not oppose the extravagance and long evening all that vigorously. Still, it could have made a decent down payment on a house...
My older brother officiated at the wedding last week, and in his message, he managed to condense all the good Christian theology I have ever heard at weddings into a message that lasted about five minutes. That is something I admire about him: he has much better summative powers than I do. He got the whole bit in: marriage is a sacred ordinance, it was honored by Christ's first miracle at Cana, it is a beautiful metaphor for Christ's relationship with the church, and it predates government and even the Church catholic. It was much better than many wedding messages I have heard, especially this one that was essentially a 45-minute exegesis of the entire chapter of I Corinthians 13.
Ultimately, I am not sure what to think about weddings. I think they tend toward unhealthy excess and brideolatry. In short, they fetishize -- and are fetishized by -- the participants in some ways that can be very damaging, I think. What's more, they are often more or less meaningless. Four months after my wedding, for instance, my brother-in-law got married, and the reverend at their wedding said as many nice things about marriage as our officiant did. If anything, she was more religious about the whole thing than our elder was. And recently, that marriage melted down and is now over in the eyes of the state.
So I'm not necessarily sure that weddings are all that great. But they certainly do provide an excellent chance to escape from my daily task of feeding myself into the horrible customer service machine as is my wont. That, at least, is worth something.
(Sorry about the disjointedness of this post -- I am tired and slightly sick still. At least it's a post!)
Weddings are a funny thing. I have never been a lover of ceremony, and they are almost pure ceremony. The only consolation is that my friends tend to be people who do not like ceremony very much. Last week, for example, the wedding ceremony itself only lasted about 15 or 20 minutes... and that was only because the bride's father stalled in giving her away. Then, there was a good meal, and then we were done, which was nice. Long, drawn-out parties are another thing I have never liked much.
When I was married, the reception was too big and too expensive for my tastes, but I wasn't paying, and I wanted to make my in-laws (and lovely wifey) happy, so I did not oppose the extravagance and long evening all that vigorously. Still, it could have made a decent down payment on a house...
My older brother officiated at the wedding last week, and in his message, he managed to condense all the good Christian theology I have ever heard at weddings into a message that lasted about five minutes. That is something I admire about him: he has much better summative powers than I do. He got the whole bit in: marriage is a sacred ordinance, it was honored by Christ's first miracle at Cana, it is a beautiful metaphor for Christ's relationship with the church, and it predates government and even the Church catholic. It was much better than many wedding messages I have heard, especially this one that was essentially a 45-minute exegesis of the entire chapter of I Corinthians 13.
Ultimately, I am not sure what to think about weddings. I think they tend toward unhealthy excess and brideolatry. In short, they fetishize -- and are fetishized by -- the participants in some ways that can be very damaging, I think. What's more, they are often more or less meaningless. Four months after my wedding, for instance, my brother-in-law got married, and the reverend at their wedding said as many nice things about marriage as our officiant did. If anything, she was more religious about the whole thing than our elder was. And recently, that marriage melted down and is now over in the eyes of the state.
So I'm not necessarily sure that weddings are all that great. But they certainly do provide an excellent chance to escape from my daily task of feeding myself into the horrible customer service machine as is my wont. That, at least, is worth something.
(Sorry about the disjointedness of this post -- I am tired and slightly sick still. At least it's a post!)
15 August 2007
Busy with work...
And helping Schumms move, which was delightful! :-)
Until I can post something substantial, here's a survey:
Until I can post something substantial, here's a survey:
| What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Literature Nerd Does sitting by a nice cozy fire, with a cup of hot tea/chocolate, and a book you can read for hours even when your eyes grow red and dry and you look sort of scary sitting there with your insomniac appearance? Then you fit this category perfectly! You love the power of the written word and its (NOT "it's"!!!! Stupid Survey!!!) eloquence; and you may like to read/write poetry or novels. You contribute to the smart people of today's society, however you can probably be overly-critical of works. | |
| Drama Nerd | |
| Science/Math Nerd | |
| Gamer/Computer Nerd | |
| Musician | |
| Social Nerd | |
| Anime Nerd | |
| Artistic Nerd | |
| What Be Your Nerd Type? Quizzes for MySpace | |
06 August 2007
Sick Day
I vomited at work today. Twice. Consequently, my gracious supervisor granted me half a day's unpaid leave, and I have been squandering said leave for four and a half glorious hours.
I suppose I should take a little bit of time to explain what I do so that you will know what exactly I am getting a break from. I am part of a company that does Service Operations Outsourcing in the insurance and financial industries. In simpler terms, that means I work at a service center that takes phone calls and processes customer requests. Mostly, I throw energy and patience at problems that are ultimately the fault of our monstrously inadequate computer systems. For instance, when we mistakenly draft someone's bank account for four times the actual premium, I get to clean up the mess. It's delightful work.
I have been struck of late by the importance of simplicity. I have also been struck by my seeming inability to do anything simply. For instance, at work, when I could be doing the bare minimum and sending the necessary form letters without considering my audience, I often let empathy prevent me from doing so. They hired me to be part of a machine, not an emotionally complicated person.
I suspect that my sickness today may have had as much to do with momentary dis-ease at work as it did with any disease. I must become better at detaching, or there might be more of these unfortunate experiences in the future.
As another result of my sick day, I have decided to delete a couple of other, smaller blogs that never get updated anymore. I figure that if I can't update one, I certainly can't update three. And the Internet needs less information on it, anyway. I also made a couple of changes to this blog -- hopefully, ones that are indicative of where it will go in the future. I am becoming increasingly interested in what it means to be part of a large organization, and "Noises From the Machine" seems like an apt title for where I want to experiment in the coming months in this space.
Of course, it's possible that everything in this post is a mere product of delirium and that tomorrow I will regret the changes I have made and the posts I have deleted on my other blogs. But the wonderful thing about this medium is that I can make them again if I want, but better. :-)
Sleep for now...
I suppose I should take a little bit of time to explain what I do so that you will know what exactly I am getting a break from. I am part of a company that does Service Operations Outsourcing in the insurance and financial industries. In simpler terms, that means I work at a service center that takes phone calls and processes customer requests. Mostly, I throw energy and patience at problems that are ultimately the fault of our monstrously inadequate computer systems. For instance, when we mistakenly draft someone's bank account for four times the actual premium, I get to clean up the mess. It's delightful work.
I have been struck of late by the importance of simplicity. I have also been struck by my seeming inability to do anything simply. For instance, at work, when I could be doing the bare minimum and sending the necessary form letters without considering my audience, I often let empathy prevent me from doing so. They hired me to be part of a machine, not an emotionally complicated person.
I suspect that my sickness today may have had as much to do with momentary dis-ease at work as it did with any disease. I must become better at detaching, or there might be more of these unfortunate experiences in the future.
As another result of my sick day, I have decided to delete a couple of other, smaller blogs that never get updated anymore. I figure that if I can't update one, I certainly can't update three. And the Internet needs less information on it, anyway. I also made a couple of changes to this blog -- hopefully, ones that are indicative of where it will go in the future. I am becoming increasingly interested in what it means to be part of a large organization, and "Noises From the Machine" seems like an apt title for where I want to experiment in the coming months in this space.
Of course, it's possible that everything in this post is a mere product of delirium and that tomorrow I will regret the changes I have made and the posts I have deleted on my other blogs. But the wonderful thing about this medium is that I can make them again if I want, but better. :-)
Sleep for now...
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