Well, the flight to Winnipeg was uneventful, which I am glad to report. I ran into Keith and my cousin, Oliver, at the terminal in Thompson (Keith was working, Oliver was traveling). Oliver and I decided to get some lunch when we got to the city, so he called up Margaret while I called Esmond. I had to get my car rental, so Oliver decided to follow me while Margaret would bring along their mom and pick up Esmond at the University. It’s a good thing Margaret gets lost easily when it comes to new directions – I had quite the hassle at National.
Oliver and I got to the car rental agency spot, and when I went to pick up the rental, they gave me a choice between a Caliber and a Sebring, so I took the Sebring. I thought I would just have to sign the papers and all, but as it turned out, I would have to pay for it because it wasn’t prepaid by Inco. According to National’s strict policy, they require pre-authorization on a credit card (so that they can ding you if you skip out on them), they do not accept a prepaid option with cash, and the cardholder must be present with a photo ID. I could pay for the whole thing with cash, but they needed the pre-auth. Well, that was just suck, because I knew for certain that I didn’t have enough for the pre-auth on my credit card. Peas and rice, I just finished paying off my RRSP loan and I’ve been on a very good budget, but I don’t have any cash put away for these situations yet! Some prior notice from the company would have been nice – “Yes, we pay for the flight, but you have to pay for the rental and hotel yourself, then expense it all later.”
So, there I was, absently handing over my Visa, hoping for a miracle, and the brainless bimbo behind the counter just kept swiping my card as it kept getting declined. If it didn’t work the first time, what makes you think it would work the next few times?! Because of that, all the declined pre-auths stacked up and now my Visa is unusable. I had $400 available in the account, and now it’s all gone. I had no backup money, just the money in my account. Son of a bitch. The bimbo advised me that it would be alright, I could just call Visa and have them cancel the pre-auths and then she could pre-auth the max amount that I had available, and then come back to pre-auth the rest later. She even allowed me to use their phone. It didn’t work that way. The Punjabi guy representing Visa needed her to provide him with the exact pre-auth amounts she had made, and the bimbo forgot them, because the transaction screen closed off or some crap like that.
It was a miracle, however, in the fact that Oliver was there, and he just pulled out his own Visa and put the pre-auths on it. Thank goodness for family. I’ll have to buy him a big steak later.
I can’t stand Punjabi help desk attendants. The fact that their English is heavily accented and difficult to understand only serves to aggravate situations, whatever they may be. North America needs to stop being so cheap and start help desk contracts WITHIN our country. No immigrant employees either!
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean all that. I was just venting, and it’s really the fault of the policies set in place by companies that are only looking out for their own asses instead of their customers. They’re probably all Chinks. 😛
We all met at a noodle shop in Chinatown after finally getting the car, and it was a pleasant lunch. Margaret footed the bill, however, because I had paid for dim sum the last time I was there. Curses, foiled again! I wanted to make the company pay for as much as possible, because this damn trip started out on the wrong foot, on a fifty foot suspended tightrope with the wrong shoes on the wrong feet!
I was going to be grateful for the extra cash in my savings account, as well as the overdraft, but when I got to the hotel and pre-paid for everything, I was screwed anyway. Oh, well. It’s payday tomorrow, and I lasted this long with what I had in my wallet. It’s going to take a whole lot of receipt tracking to find out what I need to take back from my savings. After checking into the hotel, Esmond and I went to St. Vital, and though I found the games I wanted and even some manga I had my eye on, I couldn’t buy anything because I had no money to spare. Literally.
Sunday was spent visiting, really. I surfed the Net in the hotel room and ate breakfast for most of the morning, took a quick walk to find out where my training was taking place, and visited Ian and Jazmine. Jazmine made dairy-free pancakes for me. Yummy. OBJECTION!! However, I need to BUY my food or my company won’t have suffered my wrath. HOLD IT!! So, I made up for it when I went to visit Esmond in the late afternoon and we ordered two pizzas, cinnasticks, and garlic bread from Domino’s – all for delivery. TAKE THAT!! Okay, can you tell I want to play Gyakuten Saiban 3? In between that, Esmond and I managed to watch Transformers almost twice, try out Guitar Hero III, and watch a few episodes of WB’s Superman.
My training course started today, and I didn’t even talk about yesterday, so I’ll leave all that to a later date, hopefully tomorrow. Don’t worry, it will end on a better note than today’s post.
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