Disclaimer: I'm going to go off on a rant that will at first have nothing to do with banks, but bear with me, I'll get there in the end.
First off, just to make something clear: I hate and despise cell phones. They're the bane of the 21st century. Everybody seems to have one of these things, sometimes even more than one, and they seem to be using it all the time, in every annoying way possible. And don't get me started on the annoying ringtones. Oh god, the ringtones, they make me want to punch someone in the face.
I could keep on ranting about it for pages and pages, but I have to get to the banks sometime before the end of the month.
Even though most of the people I know are aware of the fact that I loathe cell phones, my current employer still wanted me to have a cell phone so I would be reachable. I don't want to be reachable. If you want to contact me, send me an email. I really like the asynchronous nature of email against the synchronous nature of cell phones. So I said - give me a cell phone and pay for a subscription - hoping that that would make them back out. Unfortunately that plan kinda backfired and I now am the proud owner of a company cell phone.
The subscription they provide allows for a certain fixed amount of call minutes for both professional and personal use. Everything above that amount needs to be payed by the employee. Because I tend to forget the cell phone (and if I haven't forgotten it, it probably isn't charged) I've consistently had a monthly amount due of 0 euros. This month was the first time that I actually needed to pay for going over the fixed amount. I had to pay the incredible amount of 43 eurocents!
So I opened up my online banking application, proceeded to fill in all the required fields and pressed sent. And what do I get: the amount you entered is too low! Oh please, are you bloody kidding me? They have a fully ajax-enabled form, but they can't warn me that the amount is too low when I fill in that field, which incidentally is the first field on the bloody form? I don't know why there should even be a threshold value, I'm doing all the work and everything is handled electronically. I guess it would probably be possible to do the transfer if I'd physically go to the bank and ask a teller to do it, but that would be an even bigger waste of time and money for all parties involved.
So now I'm sitting here with a bill for 43 eurocents (paper and postage alone probably costs more) and my bank won't let me pay it because the amount is too low! It's like I'm trapped in a catch-22. I've explained my quandary to the HR manager and she's going to try and find a solution with the telecom provider. I wonder what it will be.
First off, just to make something clear: I hate and despise cell phones. They're the bane of the 21st century. Everybody seems to have one of these things, sometimes even more than one, and they seem to be using it all the time, in every annoying way possible. And don't get me started on the annoying ringtones. Oh god, the ringtones, they make me want to punch someone in the face.
I could keep on ranting about it for pages and pages, but I have to get to the banks sometime before the end of the month.
Even though most of the people I know are aware of the fact that I loathe cell phones, my current employer still wanted me to have a cell phone so I would be reachable. I don't want to be reachable. If you want to contact me, send me an email. I really like the asynchronous nature of email against the synchronous nature of cell phones. So I said - give me a cell phone and pay for a subscription - hoping that that would make them back out. Unfortunately that plan kinda backfired and I now am the proud owner of a company cell phone.
The subscription they provide allows for a certain fixed amount of call minutes for both professional and personal use. Everything above that amount needs to be payed by the employee. Because I tend to forget the cell phone (and if I haven't forgotten it, it probably isn't charged) I've consistently had a monthly amount due of 0 euros. This month was the first time that I actually needed to pay for going over the fixed amount. I had to pay the incredible amount of 43 eurocents!
So I opened up my online banking application, proceeded to fill in all the required fields and pressed sent. And what do I get: the amount you entered is too low! Oh please, are you bloody kidding me? They have a fully ajax-enabled form, but they can't warn me that the amount is too low when I fill in that field, which incidentally is the first field on the bloody form? I don't know why there should even be a threshold value, I'm doing all the work and everything is handled electronically. I guess it would probably be possible to do the transfer if I'd physically go to the bank and ask a teller to do it, but that would be an even bigger waste of time and money for all parties involved.
So now I'm sitting here with a bill for 43 eurocents (paper and postage alone probably costs more) and my bank won't let me pay it because the amount is too low! It's like I'm trapped in a catch-22. I've explained my quandary to the HR manager and she's going to try and find a solution with the telecom provider. I wonder what it will be.
