The Hassle Pile

When I wasn't working as much -- or sometimes even at all -- I kept a list of things I needed to take care of, with a stack of related documents under it. Every Monday, I went at the stack, some days for eight or more hours. As my work responsibilities grew, I had less opportunity to work on my "hassle pile", and limiting it to one day became difficult. The pile remains; some weeks it is taller and the list longer than other weeks, but I can never seem to rid myself of it completely. Today, when I got home from my classes at about 3:30 in the afternoon, I tossed a load of laundry in the washer and got to work. First up, in this order: a return call to a woman who wants me to work with her college-age daughter as a life coach. This doesn't qualify as a hassle, per se, but it did need to be taken care of. Apparently she is somewhat desparate, having emailed me last night and called while I was in class today. I don't do much life coaching anymore, but it goes hand-in-hand with college teaching in this case.

The next two items, which are both pissing me off to no end, have to do with my water damage renovation. I still have some insurance money coming to me, and the adjuster has been saying for the past two or three weeks that he will produce the certificate of completion to the insurance company so I can get the money. I need to pay it on my credit cards! He keeps saying, "I'll stop by tomorrow," or, "I'll call you," but I always have to prod him along. The other hassle concerns my cabinets; the installers did a poor job of aligning everything, so they need to come back and fix some drawers and doors. I have over $4000 dollars worth of beautiful cabinets that, for the most part, I can't use because they are misaligned. Someone from the company came out last Monday, and he said if he couldn't get someone out the following day, he would come himself on Wednesday and do it. He didn't. I texted the company manager on Friday and again today asking when someone would be out. Just as I was writing this, she texted me back to say she was waiting for some molding and a panel to come in. [This is me rolling my eyes back in my head.] I want it taken care of, but as you can imagine, after a long day of teaching, I really don't feel like dealing with it, especially when I need to take care of all the mundane household issues and yard work that always needs to be done. I guess that's how it ended up with the "hassle pile" moniker.

In most cases, I have found that customer service sucks -- especially after they have gotten your money. If I wanted to, I could pull a real bitch-move and reverse the charges on my credit card. (Actually, that idea just came to me now.) I'm giving the cabinet company exactly one week from today to take care of it, and that's exactly what I'm going to do. That will probably create an even bigger hassle, but at least it will make them pay attention.