Just got a knock on the door from an Optus pay TV technician, informing me he’d come to make sure that all was well with the service they were providing. He’d been instructed to go out and check the cables as part of a regular service program, basically to make sure that the cables were still connected and everything was fine.

Such a pity that…

• We don’t have Optus pay TV turned on.
• The previous tenants had it, and didn’t pay their bill for it.
• Optus has sent more than 8 overdue notices to this address to get them to pay their bills.
• All correspondence from Optus has been returned to them unopened, with “NOT AT THIS ADDRESS. NO KNOWN FORWARDING ADDRESS” written on the envelopes, which they evidently disregard with abandon.
• Debt collection agencies have been notified about the non-payment of the bills, and have sent correspondence about this.
• We have returned correspondence from the debt collection agencies.
• A different Optus technician showed up to the house in February and took out the component from the cable box on the side of the house that makes everything work. The box on the side of the house now only contains non-connected cables, so there is no service being provided.

The guy that showed up today was just following instructions to attend the address, so can’t be considered the SPOTD, but the person who ignored all the returned mail and the fact the service is not even connected, and sent him out here would have to be.

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The Bi-Lo supermarket chain includes among it’s specials this week, a box of Arnott’s Shapes biscuits for $1.37, which seems like a good deal but as so often happens, activities we get involved with end up with a SPOTD report.

We went there this evening to buy some groceries, and bought a couple of boxes. We noticed there were two boxes of a new flavour - Chicken Drumstick - that were promotional packaging, different to the regular sized boxes. These two boxes were clearly marked: 30% EXTRA FREE - TRIAL PACK in a bold font, with letters roughly one inch tall.

Wonderful, we thought, seeing not only a good price anyway, but the additional bonus of extra product for free. Gotta be happy with that. Alas, it was too good to be true. When the boxes were scanned at the register, the price indicated was $2.09 instead. Naturally we drew the register operator’s attention to this error, because they should have been at the lower price indicated in the first sentence.

She looked at us like we were stupid and patiently explained that it cost more to buy because it was “a bigger box”.

Us: “Yes, it’s bigger because it’s free. So it’s the same price.”

SPOTD: “No. It’s a bigger box. You got to pay more ‘cos it’s bigger.”

Us: “But it’s a trial pack with EXTRA FREE. It should be the same price as all the other boxes.”

 She called a guy from the floor to come and check the price. Off he went to the aisle and returned briefly to inform us that yes, we were correct and the price should be the lower price, not the one it was scanning at. However, he apologised, he did not have the authority to change the price.

Our cretinous register operator then waved them in the air at us, clearly taking great pains to provide us with the least amount of customer care she could muster, and barked

SPOTD: “So do you want ‘em or not?”.

Naturally, we declined.

So there’s a lesson for us all - at Bi-Lo, it’s only free if you pay extra. Somewhat ironic since the store slogan is “Why Pay More!”…

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My SPOTD of the day is somewhat anonymous today, mainly because I don’t know who made the decision to keep me living on air alone. My adventure, like so many, begins with the red tape of the University.

I was employed during the first half of the year on a casual pay basis, for which I lodged forms detailing hours of work, and the pay came through on a fortnightly basis. On 15th July, I changed to a permanent staff payment due to the new job, and the pay is also supposed to come fortnightly. The Uni pay system works by paying casual staff and permanent staff on alternative weeks, so that in any month, the payments go :

Week 1 : casual staff
Week 2 : permanent staff
Week 3 : casual staff
Week 4 : permanent staff

This allows everyone to get fortnightly payments spread over a weekly basis as far as the Uni is concerned. All well and good so far.

Due to the change in my pay fortnight, it was decided to hold off on my casual pay packet one week, and to pay me in the permanent pay in the following week. That was fine with me - I could survive for a week without income due to savings in the bank. Unfortunately, that’s where it all unravelled.

Earlier this year, it took me 3.5 weeks to get paid because, among other things, a form was lost in the internal mail system. I decided to get around that possibility by simply walking the form over myself and lodging it personally, which is allowed for anyone, but obviously takes more work than just popping it into the internal mail. Despite this effort, it took over 9 days for the form to be processed, and so the first pay period was missed.

At this point, the person processing the payment must have decided that they could simply roll the pay into the next pay period. Never mind the fact that the casual pay had been rolled into the permanent pay beforehand, so I was not receiving any income at all. To make matters worse, I did not receive my casual pay this week because I am now a permanent staff member and the income is tied to that fortnightly system.

Due to the timing of the payments now, I will receive my casual pay earned in the first week of July and three weeks worth of permanent pay in one lump sum. I am getting the money, I guess, which is better than a kick in the head, but due to the slow processing and stupid decision made to hold my casual pay, it means that I was last paid on 3rd July, and will not receive any income until the middle of next week when the permanent pay is delivered - 5 WEEKS BETWEEN PAYMENTS.

Naturally, due to the fact that I have been “earning” money at the University, the dole for both of us was cut off, because I was “earning” too much to continue to receive welfare payments, so the past month has been just a barrel of laughs all round with no income whatsoever. Whoever made the decision that it would be okay to not pay someone for five weeks needs to have their pay cut off for the same time period to see how they like it…*grr*

The appropriate person(s) in HR wins my SPOTD award for this little funny game.

Trav.

PS: The HR response to how this could have happened is that they “don’t know, but it’s funny in a way, isn’t it?”. Um, no. It really isn’t. Not surprising they don’t know what’s going on since, in the process of transferring my call to the relevant person in another HR section, I was transferred to a Chemistry laboratory telephone which meant I had to hang up and call back HR again…*mutter mutter*

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