Category: daily life

March 12, 2009

A couple of years ago I wrote this post. Putting it under this headline was misleading. I like my credit union (much better than my other bank: Wells Fargo. Well OK, that’s an easy one).

The original post read like this:

I am with that credit union since ten years. And I will probably stay with them. The people in the branch are nice. Since years I wire money. Always the same accounts. It never went through in the beginning. They could not read my handwriting. So I made a pretty version and started to xerox it. Filled in the date and the amount. Things started to work. Then they must have gotten a new middle management moron or just plain lost it: Now they have their people fill in the form, print it and then fax it. Which takes them a while, I have to double check that all numbers are correct and so forth. Stupid really, since they were able to read the forms before. They just loose time. I would too, but I can use the wifi of the nearby coffee shop while they enter the same information. Month by month.
Now the money did not arrive. After 20 minute of call center hell I learned that they now require an additional number: the IBAN number. Another 21 digit number. There are already 50 digits to be filled out for each transfer. Fine. The problem was that they just did not tell their branch that this number is mandatory now. Nor did they issue new forms. Of course the number is already contained on those 50 digits. Wikipedia knows that. I know it now. But the bank, who’s business it should be to know these things, apparently does not. This -unforntunately- is no exception. Every years billions of dollars are being destroyed in endless rows of ugly cubicles by moronic concepts and TPS reports. Since all banks are the same it is hard for capitalism do what it is supposed to do: keeping people on their toes. Make them think, so that they don’t break things.

It’s gettting tricky. Flying I mean. I once spent a (paid) week on some obscure island, waiting for the laptop I had to check in to arrive. It was a compaq 286. Yes, I am that old. Since then I say good bye to whatever I check in. When looking for said laptop in Frankfurt they showed me the amount of lugage that got stuck in one week at the airport. Since it had been months since the thing found an interested owner it was kind of pointless. But fun too. Hours and hours among suitcases.

rant inspired by an interesting solution to the check-in problem

Sitting on a patio, view on to the Pacific. I am rarely more than a few miles away from the Ocean when I am in LA. Still, I never see it. Being first I had time to watch the people. Mid aged men, fresh haircuts, overweight, just not enough to risk their marriage, blue shirts and khaki pants. It seemed hard to believe, but none of them seem to have something to do with the others. It was not a convention of one blue shirted company. It’s just what the average person looks like that has Breakfirst at Shutters in Santa Monica. All of them, no execption, have Blackberries. Or is it, that the Blackberries just pick a host that is blue shirted and khaki panted? They have them, and they use them. Constantly.

Interesting glimpse into a strange world it was.

The food is overpriced and not that good.
The view (of the ocean) is. As is the Ocean.
Might try to see it again in a month or so.