Thought it was easier to do it right the first time?

Maybe not. I spent some time today trying to get a number of things changed or corrected, and it must not have been easier to do it right the first time.

Most important one, at least in my warped priority system: Freya’s URO2. I know I have bored or irritated some of you who are not psycho dog people yourselves with my insistence on keeping close tabs on the dogs’ title progress from the day we first start competing for a particular title, until the day the paper certificate is in my hands. So I feel vindicated that I finally have a discrepancy to report. I’m not saying I am pleased, because I am quite far from pleased. But at least now I can point and say, “see, it happens.”

Only two of Freya’s three Level 2 legs were recorded as qualifying and the other was recorded as non-qualifying. I spoke to a very nice and helpful person (Beth) in UKC’s Dog Sports Department, and I am almost 100% sure that a review of the original trial paperwork will get the records corrected. There were only four dogs in our RO2A class so it can’t be that hard to straighten out. At least, I hope that’s the case. We have the qualifying ribbon and even a placement ribbon. Unfortunately, there may or may not be awards photos, and I did not get copies of our score sheets at this trial. You can bet from here on out I will do that without fail, regardless of who I have to inconvenience. Sorry, show secretaries. I don’t want to be a bitch; that’s Freya’s job. But I want to have all the proof I can gather in my own hands in case of anything like this happening again.

ADDED 3/31/10: I just received an email from Beth letting me know that she has heard back from the judge, who is out of town but will check his records upon his return home on Friday. Very pleased to hear that they are very much on top of things!

ADDED 4/7/10: All is well! Thanks, Beth!

Two other annoyances involve credit cards and banking, so are obviously much lower on the priority grid than Freya. I mean, Freya is FREYA!!! and money is only money, right? The credit card one was easy but aggravating. The APR was arbitrarily raised a few months ago for no reason that I could see. This is a credit card that I have had for about 20 (yes, 20) years. There have been a few late payments over the years, none within the last year, and it has never been over limit. I advised them of these facts and they agreed that the APR was inappropriately high, and adjusted it back down. Had I never called, they would have never done a single thing. I almost never carry a balance on that card, and perhaps they raised the rate because of that fact and because I don’t use it often. But really. How screwed up is that?

As for the banking annoyance, I do not think it should take two emails and a phone call to resolve a mistake made on the bank’s end. I won’t say which bank because everything else has been fine so far. New checking accounts of the type I recently opened are supposed to get the initial check order at no charge. When I saw a charge for checks on my statement, I emailed to verify that the free checks were not a limited time offer. The bank’s reply confirmed that, apologized, and said there would be a credit issued that day. It wasn’t. A few days later, I emailed again to inform them of that fact. They apologized again, said the branch had been notified, and that I may want to call them. Ummm, no. I do not want to call anyone. I want it fixed without my having to call anyone. You guessed it. I had to call. I got a long wait on hold, yet another apology, and at least this time, an immediate credit that was visible right away when I checked online. But should I have had to initiate contact this many times for a problem this simple that was their error from the get-go? I think not.

I’m not sure what category my last annoyance fits into. It’s a bit unusual. The company that services our phone system at work doesn’t usually cause much annoyance, so I won’t mention their name. However. Their trouble ticket system has had my name and email listed as primary contact on someone else’s account for some time. So whenever that account has a problem, I get a confirming email from the trouble ticket system. Since those confirmations do not say anything about the email address being unmonitored, and I never got a bounce-back from my emails trying to inform them about the error, I assumed they had received them. Until today, when I got yet another confirmation. This was extremely annoying because their website lists NO way to contact them via regular email. I had to phone them. The person I spoke to did not sound stupid at all, but it took forever to get across to them that not only was I not the right contact for that company, I had no idea who they even were, and that it was pointless to ask me who the contact should be, because I didn’t even know who worked there. I think they finally got it. I am wondering who will get the confirmation email the next time our company has a problem, though!

(NaBloPoMo | March ’10: 30 of 31)