Cookies for sale

So, my niece Natalie is actually quite cute, and well behaved for your average almost-four year old [pictured at age 2 to the right]. Her vocabulary and ability to formulate sentences is also well beyond her years. However, I've realized that hanging out with adult roommates and business people all day has not helped me relate to kids in a kid-friendly manner.

As I was sitting on the couch with my laptop working away, Natalie was eating "cookies", aka sucking on small plastic links. She allegedly doesn't understand my distaste for spit. In any case, Natalie proceeded to tell me about her cookies as she brought her bowl of spit-ridden plastic dangerously close to me. This is the exchange that ensued shortly after Natalie dropped the bowl:

N: "Can you help me get them?"

C: "No. They have your spit all over them."

N: "It's just water, you silly goose. Do you want a cookie right now?"

C: "No thank you."

N: "You get what you get. Don't throw a fit." [as she drops the spit-ridden piece of plastic on me.]

The plastic lodged itself in my pants. I am defeated. However, someone else who preceded me must have also been defeated... what three year old can already say "don't throw a fit?"

Victory is MINE!

Don't you love it how customer service reps who make $6 an hour (and, more often than not, can't speak fluent English) go on power trips, fight with you, and say repeatedly "there's nothing I can do?" when you've been wronged? I've learned very quickly to say "may I please speak to your manager?" Unfortunately, I think the big companies have caught on to my little game, and hired a whole army of individuals who make $6.25 an hour with the title "Manager."

Let me explain. I have a Washington Mutual savings account. I almost closed my account shortly after opening it (as Pattie did) when my initial deposit was held for longer than the federally-mandated maximum. However, due to their 5.00% APY interest at the time on their e-savings account, I convinced myself to be patient. On a different occasion, one of my coworkers complained to both WaMu and me about their holds on his deposits--apparently, when he went into a branch to deposit money into an account, the money was made immediately available. However, when his wife went into the same branch and deposited the same checks (signed by him) into the same account, the money was subject to a 2-3 day hold. After he talked to a number of different WaMu representatives and accused them of sexism, the money was magically unlocked.

Fast forward today: I recently got charged an "excess activity fee" of $10.00 by Washington Mutual. I called the customer service number and asked (nicely) what that was for--apparently, if I make more than 6 transfers out of my savings account, I get charged $10 for "excess activity". Having never been informed of this "$10 fee", I figured a quick conversation would remedy the problem as I'd be given a "one time courtesy credit for being a good customer." That always happens, right?

Unfortunately, the first level customer service rep was of no help, so I asked to speak to her "Manager". Manager Jason (who actually sounded like he wanted to die and hated his job the whole time while he was on the phone with me... shocking) told me that the fee was federally-mandated, and that the bank could not and would not credit my account back. After some worthless discussion with Jason, he suggested that he could have a "Senior Manager" call me back within 24 hours. He hung up on me just as I was asking him to tell me his last name.

Senior Manager Jaime called me back today, and I discussed with her my situation. Following the same script, Senior Manager Jamie also told me that while she appreciated my business, the fee was federally-mandated and could not be credited to my account. I expressed my shock and indicated that in working with many different banks in the past, I had never run into a situation where the bank refused to credit back a fee that was, for all material purposes, undisclosed. She once again faulted her inability to credit my account on the "federal mandate".

In response, I explained that I work in an industry that deals extensively with Federal Banking laws. I asked her to point me to the regulation the WaMu employees seem happy to reference and blame for their inability to give me my $10 back. As she was skimming the member agreement and trying to give me a page that the regulation/policy was on, I indicated that I was not asking for the page of the member agreement that referenced her fee, but the actual regulation upon which she was basing her communication with me (I was careful not to call it an "argument"). Additionally, I asked Senior Manager Jamie if the $10 fee that the federal agency was so intent on charging me was in fact returned to that federal agency. She said that a portion of it was. [So false.]

After a few minutes of searching, Senior Manager Jamie triumphantly said "it's based on Regulation D". I then pulled up Reg D and asked her to explain where the Federal Mandate was within that section. Senior Manager Jamie then asked if she could put me on hold to see if there was anything else they could do for me. A few minutes later after I had skimmed the regulation and someone else's angry blog in response to WaMu's $10 excess activity fee, I was informed that since I had no other charges on my account and since I was a good customer, Senior Manager Jamie's manager, (I assume that would be Senior Senior Manager, right? Or maybe this even rose to the DIRECTOR level!) allowed her to credit my fee back even though, as a policy and because of that federal regulation of course, WaMu never credits back that fee.

As a sidenote: Regulation §204.2(d)(2), which defines a savings account, indicates that "the depositor is permitted or authorized to make no more than six transfers and withdrawals, or a combination of such transfers and withdrawals, per calendar month or statement cycle (or similar period) of at least four weeks, to another account (including a transaction account) of the depositor at the same institution..." If the depositor (me in this case) violates that, the bank must either:

"(a) Prevent withdrawals or transfers of funds from this account that are in excess of the limits established by paragraph (d)(2) of this section, or

(b) Adopt procedures to monitor those transfers on an ex post basis and contact customers who exceed the established limits on more than an occasional basis."

Interesting. Ex post basis totally sounds like charging me $10 at the close of the cycle, right? And... I'm assuming that my one incident counts as a "more than occasional basis" which prompted WaMu to "contact me" by charging me, right? Excellent logic. I'm glad WaMu is so intent on following Reg D. It's a good thing that WaMu's Senior Senior Manager chose to credit the $10 back to me.

Also, for those of you that may not know me so well, you might be asking yourselves, "well, was the $10 really worth it?" For all those that know me well, let us all speak at once... "TOTALLY!"

Professional Eater? Anyone? Anyone?

I have this unconquerable obsession with good food... luckily, my friend Wendy shares in the obsession and can relate to me. A couple of nights ago, I distracted Wendy from studying for finals by listing out the best things to eat in Taiwan. She added some food items that I had forgotten, and we compared our lists for over an hour.

Wendy then realized that she should change majors and professions (who wants to be an engineer anyway?), to which I suggested that she become a food scientist or nutritionist. Not satisfied by these suggestions, Wendy instead expressed her interest in becoming a professional eater. [I thought she was making that up too.]

Apparently, the participants in the International Federation of Competitive Eating, or I.F.O.C.E. as it is better known, are lobbying to have competitive eating be recognized more widely as a sport. The photo on this post is known as the "Black Widow" of competitive eating--her records include:

1 - 11 pounds of cheesecake in 9 minutes in 2004
2 - 8 pounds and 2 ounces of Weinerschnitzel Chili Cheese Fries in 10 minutes in 2006
3 - 9 pound "Big Daddy" cheeseburger in 27 minutes in 2006
4 - 44 Maine lobsters (11.3 pounds of meat)from the shell in 12 minutes in 2005
5 - 552 oysters in 10 minutes in 2005

She's 40 and weighs 105 pounds. How is that biologically possible? And, how do I sign up for that metabolism?

After you, madame.

The guys in our ward hosted a dinner for the girls--complete with sparkling cider, a catered meal, and different individuals stationed to greet us, open our car doors, and escort us to our tables.

When Chantal and I pulled up to the church building and parked in the pre-designated area, we were startled by a guy running towards us in the dark through the parking lot at great speeds. Apparently, his job was to open our car doors for us in a very gentleman-like fashion.

Unfortunately, Chantal didn't respond well to the surprise. Since her car has a manual transmission, she proceeded to pull up her parking break very quickly and jump out of the car before recognizing the friendly face coming to open our door. In her haste, Chantal also proceeded to lock the doors of her car before slamming her door shut. I, on the other hand, recognized CJ, and closed my door while still in the car so that he could do his job of opening my door for me. After I unlocked the door and CJ let me out of the car, I shut the door.

I noticed something strange, however... apparently the keys were left in the ignition and Chantal never turned off her car in her flight. Luckily, my slow reaction to the man running towards us in the dark parking lot was a good thing, since without that, Chantal would have locked her keys in her car with the car still running. I'm pretty sure she was slightly embarassed as she headed towards her car to turn it off and take the keys out of the ignition... with CJ watching us in confusion.

Forward Ho.

Have you ever clicked "reply" to a forward recounting personal information that you knew your friend wasn't supposed to share with you... and instead of replying to the person who forwarded you the email, replied to the sender who was then irate that his/her information was being forwarded on to random people?

I have definitely experienced the bad end of that stick with personal emails; for the first time in recent history, I have been the unintended victim of someone else's lack of attention to detail while clicking "forward" on an email in a work setting.

Working with insurance companies is, in general, a nightmare. The attorneys who choose to work for insurance companies (present company excluded, of course) have this insane OCD attention to detail that is unparalleled in any other profession. Every 't' must be crossed, and every 'i' dotted... and each step of every licensing and application process imagineable must be detailed and accounted for.

Generally, our company will be performing services for one of these insurance companies (we'll call them "ABC Insurance Company" or "ABC" for short). I have had the breathtakingly fascinating opportunity to create a series of attorney opinion letters that explain how we really are qualified and licensed to do what we say we can do--from every perspective imagineable. I have a pretty good working relationship with our "Relationship Manager" (Bob) who handles most of the wheeling and dealing between our company and ABC--we even engage in a bit of sarcastic banter from time to time. What I did not anticipate, however, is that my sarcastic banter would be unintentionally forwarded to the opposing party.

After I wrote a letter detailing what had been explained to ABC innumerable times, I was quite happy when Bob forwarded me a response from ABC stating the following:

"We can consider this issue closed. Thanks for working thru this process to make everyone comfortable with the licensing piece. Talk to you soon."

My happiness turned to panic-slash-frustration-slash-surprise-slash-disbelief, however, when I scrolled down to the bottom of the email and noticed my original text to Bob on the stream that was sent to ABC--

"If you EVER had ANY lingering doubts that we needed to be licensed as a TPA in order to perform the functions outlined in our contract with ABC, let this letter be your guide. I realize the letter is extremely repetitive, but ABC doesn't seem content with anything more efficient and less detailed."

Oops. I guess I won't be getting a job with ABC in the near future... it's a good thing they're only our biggest client.

Trashed

Despite vacillating back and forth over whether or not to blog this experience, I have decided that this story simply must be shared with the world notwithstanding the effect it has had on my pride.

I have always considered myself to be a relatively athletic person. I fought tooth and nail during high school to be able to play field hockey, since my mom mistakenly thought that cross country was the only appropriate sport (in time commitment and intensity) for her children. Until I became out of shape and slow, I was also pretty good at basketball. And, to this day, I still pretend to be an outdoorsey person, though my New Jersey version of outdoorsey-ness does not compare to the hard core granolas that grew up in the Mountain West. In short, I have been under the mistaken impression that I am coordinated.

Then, there was "the incident".

After purchasing a new queen sized bed set, I carefully read the instructions that were attached to the mattress--Serta suggests that I throw away the plastic that protects the mattress and box spring immediately after removing it. Always one to follow instructions, I proceeded to roll up the plastic into a big ball. I went into the garage with the equivalent of a tank top on, since I didn't want to get any dirt from the plastic on my white sweater.

Let me explain the logistics behind throwing the plastic out.

1. Our garage has three cement steps down from the level of the house to the base of the garage.

2. A plastic bannister is built on each side of the cement steps for "safety".

3. Our garbage can sits to the left of the steps and plastic bannister, and opens perpendicular to the steps. Therefore, when we want to dispose of our trash, we open the door to the garage, stand on the steps, lean over the bannister to the left, open the trash can, and throw the garbage out.

4. The garbage can is provided to us by the city--it is one of those huge black cans with a square top. The hinge mechanism on the backside of the can attaches the lid to the trash can's body.

Realizing that the big ball of plastic would take more effort to dispose of than a normal grocery store bag filled of trash, I firmly planted my feet on two different steps. I then proceeded to lift the lid to the trash can with my left hand, and throw the plastic ball in the garbage with my right. Though we had just emptied the trash can a couple days earlier, the plastic ball remained at the top of the garbage can. Thinking that something was artificially causing the plastic not to descend to the bottom of the can, I realized that I'd need to apply force to the plastic ball.

To do this, I leaned over the bannister and continued to hold the lid up with my left hand. I shifted my weight to my right hand to push down on the plastic. Unfortunately, the silky top I was wearing had no friction against the plastic bannister, and my feet were not level or steady. I lost my balance quickly when the plastic gave way faster than expected--my belly proceeded to scrape against the banister [there is still evidence of a "banister burn" all the way across my stomach]. My right hand continued to descend into the garbage can, which was followed shortly thereafter by my entire upper body. Being halfway into the garbage can, with my legs clearly detatched from the ground, my right armpit got lodged against the edge where the garbage can meets the lid [once again, there is still evidence of this "incident" in the form of some serious redness in that unfortunate area]. Lastly, my left hand of course came crashing down, which caused the lid of the garbage can to slam down, and crash onto my lower back which was, by that time, at the top of the garbage can.

Quickly, with my pride hurt, I removed myself from the garbage can, ran into the house, and lied on the ground to wait out the stinging pains. You'd be surprised how much pain this incident caused me on many different levels.

In the poetic words of my friend and confidant, "I got owned by the trash can."

The very hand-crafted labor of love

Wendy, my roommate and avid longboarding fan, has asked me to go longboarding with her many times. Historically, I have denied her without fail for two reasons:

1. Longboarding is for punks, and I ain't no punk; and
2. My only real longboarding experience was a tragedy. I was heading down the Provo Canyon trail at night a couple of years ago in pitch black darkness, by light of my headlamp. On that fateful night, I couldn't figure out how to stop. As it turns out, being able to stop is actually pretty important to the whole longboarding process. I finally gave up and coasted down the canyon by sitting [not standing] on the borrowed board. Unfortunately, that sitting position did not prevent me from accelerating to unnecessary speeds, which of course caused the board to shake, which then led to me tumbling head first into the mountain along the trail. Ow.

Needless to say, I have had solid reasons to avoid longboarding altogether. However, being a good roommate, I finally gave in one night recently and used Wendy's borrowed longboard to coast down Provo Canyon. Wendy (always the great teacher) taught me how to slow down and stop quite effectively, which has opened up a new world of possibilities to me.

Having coasted around the neighborhood and down Provo Canyon a couple more times since that night, I quickly realized that I need to buy my own longboard. Being the technical enthusiast that I am, I proceeded to choose a longboard solely based on how pretty I thought the board was. Thanks to Nick and his connections, I got quite a steal of a deal on this pretty board. Note that this board is quite special--each board is custom made by a Barfoot employee, in a process that is apparently "the very hand-crafted labor of love."

To my dismay, I received the board on Friday and haven't been able to ride it yet because of the mound of snow, rain, and ice that has been dumping all weekend in Provo. I also dare not board down my driveway, considering the fact that it is a solid sheet of ice resulting from our lack of shoveling.

On the upside, look forward to future posts reporting my injuries that are sure to follow. Oh, and while I can change my preferences for activities, I cannot change my principles as quickly. I still think longboarding is for punks, which makes me a punk, I guess. At least that's how I explain the dirty looks the neighbors give my roommates and I when we've gone cruising around the neighborhood on our cool boards.