Out of Focus Lately

I have had a weird few weeks where I'm just losing a bit of focus.

Not at work, but rather in the rest of my life.

Every day things that I usually seem to avoid. They're happening.

I opened up a T-Mobile cell phone bill last week to find $150 of overage charges for going beyond my 1,000 minutes/month. Lovely. This NEVER happens.

Saturday night, I parked in a resident spot and watched someone slap a parking ticket onto my car while enjoying a glass of wine at Stella before dinner. This after Chris parked at a meter overnight, Friday into Saturday, and had nothing on his car when he retrieved it at 1pm on Saturday. Shame on me for thinking they weren't ticketing on a Saturday of a holiday weekend. This is maybe my 3rd or 4th parking ticket in seven years. I'm good about knowing how to avoid them and when I can bend the rules. Not this time.

Today, I logged in to my checking account to find $125 in overdraft fees. I transferred some money into checking on the 3rd that did not appear until the 8th because of the holiday.

Finally, though, I think my ship is turning around - back where it belongs on course.

I called my bank this morning, explained the issue and the fact that I alerted them last week that this might happen, and the agent refunded my $125 within a minute or two. No shouting or arguing. Simple. Done. Nice job - Bank of America. We like you.

Contrast that to my hour long conversation with T-Mobile last week, trying to get out of these overage charges. (I had been tweaking my plan based on historic usage, and I simply messed up). The first agent was courteous and sympathetic, but after much pleading, he could not do anything. When I threatened to cancel, I landed with a customer retention agent who did a great job in making me feel like a dumbass for doing this, basically explaining that I was the one who switched his plan, I had been on this plan for a couple months, and that I should have known better.

Way to make me feel like an important customer. You just took an angry one (me) and made him feel like an idiot for being so stupid.

Good thing the new iphone G3 is coming out on Friday. PERFECT excuse to get one!

I'm paying out my cancellation fee and switching to AT&T.