Bank 3, Customer 0

For sixteen years, my bank had no problems getting my name right. Then, out of the blue, they misspelled it on my new ATM card. I called them and got some guy overseas who told me he couldn't fix it. After fifteen minutes of wrangling, he told me he had, but I hung up unsure what exactly he had fixed it to. I had to call back after at least 24 hrs. to order a corrected card anyway--and when I did, I found out that he hadn't fixed the error after all. I didn't realise he had introduced a new error until today, when I got my replacement card. The guy I called this morning also told me he couldn't change my name over the phone and I told him I knew he was lying because two other dudes had done just that. In the end, it became clear that the only way I can ever be sure to get this right is to do it in person. Three calls, and I still have to go into a bank branch and watch over every goddamn step.

I didn't get to use my stinging comment--"You know, I bet Washington Mutual could spell my name right!"--but I've got it in reserve. I don't know that I'll follow through--as good as it was to hang up on SBC, I really don't want a repeat of my early problems with RCN--but it might make me feel better to assert my putative freedom of choice. As a consumer in a commercial paradise, it's my only solace.

Oh, somehow I left out of my recent I am an idiot entry that I managed to destroy my original card and my new one when I got a new credit card from my bank and assumed it was the corrected ATM card. (Each card carries both the Visa logo and my bank's.) As a result, I've been without an ATM card for over a week now. Good thing I have no use for money or anything.

Kinderreimstunde

Salomon der Weise spricht:
Laute Buhe stinken nicht.
Aber diese butterweichen
Die leise durch die Hose schleichen
Kind, vor denen hüte dich!
Denn sie stinken fürchterlich.
(Aus: Geständnisse eines Touristen, Christoph Ransmayr)

Politics and the office

Well, I've avoided having another political discussion with Mr Fallujah = Tet, which is all to the good. Like respectable superpowers, we're reduced to proxy wars. That is, I think he's trying to goad me into one, but I refuse to be moved.

Sometime last year--I may have mentioned this here--I got a "signed" letter from Dubya thanking me for my support. Since I've never knowingly given a dime to the GOP in my life (I don't even buy Coors beer! Or Oberweis milk!), I found this funny. My best guesses were that I'd ended up on some RNC mailing because of a magazine subscription (sign up for the Economist today you'll get free offers to subscribe to the Wall Street Journal or the Financial Times from now until THE END OF THE WORLD) or that a friend was having me on.

My reaction was to take the picture to work and pin it up outside my cubicle. It would be amusing to see what responses it would trigger. The local reaction can best be summed up by a quote from the tremendous Hessian who said, "But, muckefuck, ve don't like him!" At one point, I remarked to Mr Smith that perhaps I should've provided some darts as well and he responded, "No, that would've been too obvious."

But Mr F=T seems to have taken the affront very personally. First, he stuck a post-it onto the picture saying "Bring it on!" Then, he pinned up the notorious photo of Mr Bush's daugther displaying her good breeding. Yesterday was when I first noticed a photocopied page saying "THE COMMUNISTS HAD PRAVDA, THE REPUBLICANS HAVE FOX NEWS!" and now today he brought in a picture of Kerry and Edwards and asked if it he could put it up since "we should have the opposition represented as well." (He always makes a point of informing me when he adds something.)

It was at this point that I casually inquired why he feels the need to post thing in my space rather than his own. That made him a little bristly as he asked if I felt possessive about the space. I told him, no, he can hang stuff there if he wants. Next time, though, I'm going to ask whether he's trying to force a confrontation or what. Why does a portrait of the Chief Executive threaten him so much that he feels he must respond in kind?