Business Banking

Posted: Thu 1 November, 2007 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Own Business, Work-related | 2 Comments »

Many moons ago, I opened a business account for the limited company I had at the time, and it all turned into an utter nightmare. The problems primarily spouted from the fact that my personal current account suddenly came under the control and “management” of the business banking people, which led to huge screwups all round. I finally closed that account back in ’05 after roughly two years of absolute hell.

Anyway, with that experience in mind, I’ve so far avoided getting a bank account for my wee business. But it’s coming to the point where I need to, so I’ve been doing some checking around, looking at fees, costs, and all that malarkey. It’s duller than shit, of course, but still stuff that needs doing.

Of course, based on my previous experience, I’m avoiding RBS like the plague because I still do my personal banking with them. So one of my primary requirements – if not essentials – for any business banking account is to make sure that the relevant bank doesn’t then insist that I have to have my personal banking with the same bank. Even if I had wanted to stay with RBS, that requirement would kill their chances.

I’m still looking around the various tosspots members of the banking community, but so far HSBC are looking like a good candidate. Now there’s a sentence I never thought I’d find myself saying.

TV dramas

Posted: Wed 31 October, 2007 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

Or, more accurately, dramas about TV.

Now, what I want to know is how come “30 Rock” managed to get itself renewed for another season, while “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” got canned after one season.

30 Rock is (in my opinion) one of the most unfunny shows currently on TV – alongside BBC’s “Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle” – while Studio60 has kept me consistently amused and interested.

Strange, the way the dramas we like are the ones that America tends not to.

Train Seats

Posted: Tue 30 October, 2007 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, MOTB, Travel | Leave a comment »

There are some occasions where being a bastard really amuses me – and one of those occasions is when I can upset selfish tosspots on the train.

Yesterday morning was a prime example – the train was busy, with no free pairs of seats. Not that I need a pair of seats particularly, but if there’s a free pair, you sit in one of them rather than cramming in next to people. If there isn’t, hey ho, you just have to sit next to someone. No big deal one way or the other, really- or at least, that’s my attitude.

However, there were a couple of tables where two people were trying to fill up the entire four seat with their stuff, and that always annoys me. If you’re going to do that, pay for all four tickets. Or pay to sit in first class – there’s no other sod in there most of the time, so just go for it. But just trying to block up the seats with a bag, or a jacket, that’s always going to be a target for me, I’m afraid.

So that’s where I sat. I was polite, I didn’t intrude into their conversations, I just sat and got on with stuff on the laptop. But man did it annoy them to have their nice plan to secure some space ruined. As the man said, “My work here is done”.

Epic Spam

Posted: Tue 30 October, 2007 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, D4D™ | 5 Comments »

I don’t normally allow spam comments to stay on D4D™, but this one is just so mad (and wordy) that I thought I’d leave it on the site.

Absolutely irrelevant, but it’s stupendously funny all the same. In fact, it’s actually worth reading – just don’t bother clicking on the links…

Still Stinky

Posted: Fri 26 October, 2007 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism | 2 Comments »

It’s fairly well known that I’m already deeply cynical about the entire Madeleine McCann thing – I’ve whittled on about it before now, and will probably do so again.

Anyway, is it just me who thinks it’s even stranger to now have an ‘artist’s impression’ of someone supposedly abducting her where

“The artist’s sketches show a man with dark, greasy collar-length hair and wearing a purple or maroon top with beige trousers, carrying a child.
The images were drawn by an FBI-trained forensic artist using details from a friend of the McCanns.
The friend saw the man but did not link him to the disappearance at the time.”

Quote from the BBC story

Maybe I’m assuming too much (again) but to (supposedly) spot someone carrying a child- a child that was dressed in the same pyjamas as the missing girl – and ‘not link it to the disappearance’ is just bollocks, and smells like someone lying an alibi…

Cutting the Wrong Thing

Posted: Wed 24 October, 2007 | Author: | Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Weirdness | 2 Comments »

File under: Bizarre and “Eh?”

A Tyneside father is trying to get a hospital to allow him to cut the umbilical cord when his child is born. Fair enough – although the local NHS trust has a policy that doesn’t allow people to do this, and has done since 1997.

But the bizarre bit is the reason for this policy to have been brought into being. From the news story…

“In 1997 South Tyneside NHS Trust banned relatives from cutting cords after a baby’s toe was accidentally cut off.”

What?!?

Maybe I’m missing something – not having been present at the birth of anyone, for example – but how the fuck can you cut off a toe “by accident” while cutting the umbilical cord? Even on a really small baby, there’s still a fair bit of distance between the two, surely?

Legalities

Posted: Mon 22 October, 2007 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Own Business, Work-related | Leave a comment »

I haven’t written a great deal about this yet (and there’s still a big ranty post in the offing about it) but it’s finally beginning to look like I might get paid for some of the work I did back near when we moved into the new house.

It’s been an absolute nightmare, but basically the client got the work I’d done, declared it OK, then when the invoice was sent out by the umbrella company that I use, refused to pay it. All of a sudden, despite a number of emails saying “that’s fine, send the invoice, we’ll pay it” (which, thankfully, I’d kept) the work became unacceptable, and they were disputing paying anything at all.

The umbrella company haven’t been great in this either – despite me being the person paying for their so-called “service”, I’ve been the one having to chase this every inch of the way. Yes, there’ll be a solid letter going to them once we’re all done, believe me. It’s taken a lot of calls to get things done, but I’ve now been told that they’re actually (finally) taking the guy to court to get him to pay up. Hey, it’s only taken five months so far.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens now. I still have a vague suspicion that this isn’t all done yet, and that things are still going to be a pain, but at least I’ve now got the support of the umbrella company, and they’re doing something about it.

I’m not going to go into details at the moment for obvious reasons, but at least things finally seem to be progressing. When I got the contract, this client wasn’t overly happy at going through the umbrella company for the work, but I’m glad in this instance that I stuck to my guns – otherwise it would’ve been even more of a nightmare, I suspect.

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