I've found that the imprecision of verbal orders can make than more memorable.
There, my lord, is the enemy! There are your guns!
I wish that I could get more precise instructions at work. We're undergoing a big reorganization at work, because the State Department of Mental Health is finding that we're not billing Medicaid enough.
We've been told so many different things which is really frustrating. We got told that there was a specific expectation of so many hours in group homes etc.
I'm looking for work that I want to do more, but it's still dreadful for everyone else. I may have an interview coming up. I applied for an RA job (3 year grant-funded) with a written recommendation from a friend in a similar field, and the Professor's admin asked for a lot of follow-up advice plus transcripts and a pretty thorough series of questions including my plans for my future career. And the questions reflected a fairly thorough reading of my materials. For example she wrote "You say in your cover letter.."
unfogged, keep your finger crossed. Sorry to go off topic, LB.
Fingers are crossed.
I'm directing the Honors Program at Heebie U this next year, and it was impossible for the longest time to get anyone to tell me why the previous director was being removed. I kept getting told things like "We need someone to breathe fresh air into the program!" and "It needs to be more of a flagship program. Right now it's stale." and both of those are completely meaningless to me, in terms of what, concretely, would accomplish this. (Eventually I got some people to be very specific about what the last person was doing wrong, so I feel more grounded now.)
I'm about to go into work and get my first-ever feedback about legal research done for real lawyers in a real case. I have no idea whether what I did was adequate; on the other hand, I'm not getting paid for the summer. Hoping to come across $5 on the way in.
I have to say I pretty much refuse to do anything any more if I haven't got it in writing. "Yes, that sounds good. Ping me an email with that in it and I'll turn it round by Friday." Otherwise it's not just me that gets the shit, it's the whole organisation.
re: 6
Yes, ditto, more or less, unless it's my direct line manager, who I trust. I've had a colleague, twice, try to stitch me up recently when she realised that a project might fall under the Sauron-like eye of a higher manager, and who in turn might be put out that he/she hadn't been consulted. So she tried to claim that I'd done it, on my own initiative. Shame there was a nice email trail with explicit instructions both requested and given.
Not too long ago I went out on a thin, thin, thin limb at work. I should *not* have done that, except I know that the Holy of Holies here would have wanted that. On the other hand she would not have kept my boss from firing me.
Shame there was a nice email trail with explicit instructions both requested and given.
A helpful technique for getting a written instruction out of someone who is ostentatiously busy or otherwise disinclined to put their instructions unambigously in writing: send an email to the person with a clear, brief statement of what you understand the instruction to be, with a friendly "Please reply to confirm that I am understanding your instructions correctly. I will get started on this as soon as I hear from you."
A somewhat inferior variant is an email with "Here is what I understand the instruction to be. I'm going to do it like that. Please advise if not OK."
That sort of thing, although done more sketchily and shoddily than I wish I had in retrospect, is what kept me out of trouble in last week's mess.
re: 9
Yes, although I have work colleagues who will i) decline to reply, and yet, ii) be very very annoyed if the work isn't done by the date they want it. Luckily I'm largely immune to come-backs on this sort of thing, so the only real end result is they get annoyed.
11: I just cc my boss to get around people trying to give me deadline pressure when I have specific instructions to finish something else first or when I can't get a response that I need to do my work. It feels a bit like calling the cops so I only do it when I get really annoyed.
I've had a few cases in NY where I've thought "why didn't they just bring this in state court"? On the other hand, NY state courts.
Getting people to write what they want is a great start. But when they write that they'd like it round and also square, or steam-powered and also able to fly, the next steps are tricky.
Also, the approach of logging all work requests can easily lead to gridlock with inter-group interactions unless all management shares at least some common goals; in turn, this shared vision is likely iff people live under incentives that make sense.
Basically, enthusiastically reiterating that every tiny morsel of cooperation was lovely seems like the best way to build trust, along with finding things to do that are actually useful.
I'd vaguely known that the City HRL was always at least as strong as Title VII and sometimes stronger, but this is the first time I've had occasion to really look at the standard, and it's wildly stronger since a 2005 change in the law, especially on hostile work environment. It's so strong that I wouldn't expect a federal court to really apply the same standard the state courts are applying (they're required to, but that doesn't mean they will). Whatever you think about the quality of NY state courts, anyone who's bringing an employment discrimination action who could be relying on the City HRL and isn't is leaving money on the table.
15 -- that sounds great (or terrible! depending on what side you're on); I was mostly joking and don't really do employment cases, thank God.
The one straight up employment case I did was for one of the worlds-most-generally-recognized-as-evil companies, and involved things like demanding a psychological exam of various plaintiffs who were claiming emotional distress damages. Blah blah blah we were right on the law, but whatever. Never again.
It can occasionally be useful to have my boss not put things in writing, as he's old, and it's entirely possible he'll forget he asked you to do them.
Right, but say he forgets and you show up with two 40s and a Lawrence Welk DVD. Then you might want the documentation.
12: Seriously, how did you do that? My BF's boss is always changing what he says and forgetting what he just said. Plus he comes in at 5AM and is a workaholic. He's had a lot of illnesses and is starting to look worse, so maybe he'll have to retire.
He's always going on about how Obamacare will ruin the country, until my BF said that his experiences in Canada were great. He wants to retire in North Carolina, but he might have a hard time getting individual insurance if he did that before he's eligible for Medicare. I'm a bad person, because I kind of want him to confront that.
And the deadline on one project keeps changing. It's "oh you need to focus on scaling this up to 100g--even though the chemistry is shitty--but then, you need to register more compounds."
His boss has totally inflated his registrations by registering compounds that he got contractors in India to make and doing really simple ones. The latter practice is irritating and kind of cheap, but the former just sounds like cheating.
This kind of thing is driving a co-worker of mine crazy. Well, there are a dozen things driving her crazy, of which this is one. She's the manager of a project team, and we have missed several deadlines because people on the team don't respond to e-mails asking for approval. They reply at the very last minute, and often don't reply by e-mail at all and wait until the next meeting and wonder why it hasn't already been dealt with.
But then, like I said, there are many things driving her crazy. This project is a mess all around. A deadline that was almost literally impossible, team members with managers with conflicting priorities... I come right out and call it "the doomed project" when talking to most people.
20.1: I'm talking about cc'ing my boss to get relief from people who aren't my boss asking for work to be done. Obviously, it has no impact if my boss is the one that wants the work done. There are various people that he collaborates with, some of whom have different priority structures and I'll try to accommodate them as best I can. When I can't, some people press me and I just pass the buck.
The mess from last week continues, and pretty much the only comment I can make about it on a family blog is "Ph'nglui Mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn."
I am now sending very clear emails.
So, if I end up losing my job or my license*, which may be the options I'm picking between, what's a good second career for a disbarred attorney?
*I am, in fact, being overdramatic. It's not going to come to that.
That involves touching gooey stuff. Come up with a career lacking in gooey stuff.
LB, no one is very clear the way that you are very clear. Those must be some impressive emails.
Psychiatry involves touchy stuff, but not touching stuff.
25: And we'll just strike porn star from the list as well.
28: I have always had an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.
Hacking away at two or three lives would probably solve you problem.
I assume acquiring a Life Machete would be a prerequisite.
I continue to think that industrial engineering, especially for process water, is going to be a nice growth area for the next two decades.
Buy yourself time to make a decision by going to grad school.
There was a splash park by the condo we stayed at over the weekend, and halfway through merrily splashing it occurred to me what a massive waste of water it was, and I felt bad. Do those things collect and reuse the water ever?
23: what's a good second career for a disbarred attorney
I'm picturing a one-hour dramedy, sort of Cheers meets Ally McBeal, where you get a job as a wisecracking bartender in a neighborhood joint in Brooklyn that is in the process of being taken over by hipsters. There'd be a love interest (sorry, Buck) who was a aristocrat-of-the-working-class type, a white ethnic guy from the neighborhood who worked for Con Ed (do they still have that?) or something, and came in every evening for a shot-and-a-beer and would commiserate with you about the hipster kids. Then there'd be the ditsy goth girl barmaid who looked on you as a mother-figure, her love interest, a Puerto Rican DJ who was always about to get seduced away by some groupie, the owner, a comical Russian gangster who had a stock of malapropisms that he'd dip into whenever he was angry, the male bartender, a humanities grad student who was always quoting Baudrilliard, and a couple of female regulars, say two African-American women who worked for the MTA and were always dispensing loud, unasked-for homespun advice.
You should be getting a million an episode by the third season.
Pour red food coloring in the drain of the splash park and see if the water comes out red.
Depends how expensive water is in that community, but I would expect it to be gathered, chlorinated and re-pumped. Except for evap, I'd predict it is a closed system. I'd be shocked by a once-through system, but sometimes the world is shocking.
Or you could have eaten some asparagus and let nature work.
39: Sweet! Now all we need is the story of the comical mixup that got LB disbarred in the first place.
42: Oh good. I bet water is expensive there - we were at Port Aransas, which is a little island near Corpus Christi. I don't think water is plentiful there.
39 is great, but I'm bummed because I don't think there's a part for me.
44: Right, that would be an opening montage/credits sequence where we see LB riding her bike in Manhattan, getting splashed with mud by a Town Car and flipping off the passenger, who then turns out to be the judge in the case she's arguing that day. There could be some kind of kicking-her-heels-up moment, a la the Mary Tyler Moore show opening sequence.
46: You think there isn't going to be a meek-but-sincere janitor who has an unrequited crush on LB and is always trying to get her attention with a devastating quip, which she never quite catches over the noise of the bar? Dude, you're getting all the best lines!
39 is indeed great. What can I be?
You think there isn't going to be a meek-but-sincere janitor who has an unrequited crush on LB and is always trying to get her attention with a devastating quip, which she never quite catches over the noise of the bar? corpse on the floor?
I closed 50% of the tags in that comment.
48: Well, if it is an hour-long show, there's obviously going to be a lot of it outside the confines of the bar. You'd probably be the next-door neighbor in LB's fabulously-unrealistic converted-factory loft building, a starry-eyed young dancer who kept coming up against the cold realities of show business, but somehow always got up the courage to get back out there and put her whole heart into the next audition.
47.2: Wow! You've plugged into my essence!
54: Everybody has to take small parts while waiting for a break.
I guess 55 means I'm, at best, a corpse.
GLUNGGLUNG!!
We actually have real-life opera singers one floor down; maybe they could be subbed in for the dancer.
That sounds perfect. Maybe I can have a back-alley abortion, arranged by a big fancy pants director? When word gets out, only LB's acumen can make him pay.
She kills him, then we have need of a corpse.
23: Medieval Studies?
60: Well, isn't that the problem. I am a highly evolved, specialized, delicate fleur, and outside of my niche I'm not much use to man or beast.
Things aren't actually that bad -- all the higher-ups in my organization are being supportive. It just makes me nervous being in a position where I need the backup.
Can I be the grad-student-turned-hipster-postal-worker in this Brooklyn bar sitcom?
grad-student-turned-hipster-postal-worker-Chipotle-associate
"I use salsas you've never even heard of."
I seem to have gotten a job as a copy editor/secretary. I'm find it rather amusing that I'm being paid to edit other people's writing.
Any job is better than no job. Congratulations!
Can I be the douchebag banker who comes in every evening because he has a poorly disguised drinking problem and an equally poorly disguised (and thoroughly unrequited) crush on the hipster grad student letter carrier?
My character's shtick would be that he always makes ill-advised bets with LB, which he eagerly seeks to resolve by looking up the answer on his blackberry browser. The result would invariably be that LB was right.
Look, we're not bringing in new writers until at least the first six episodes are in the can. Jeez, you guys!
JM, you're the lesbian hotdog vendor. KR, you're the angry super in LB's building.
No, okay, you guys can be what you want, I can't stay mad.
I'm . . . I don't know what I am.
I'm the guy who shows up as a guest on one episode in the first season, is in three episodes of a 5 episode story arc in the second season and becomes a regular in the third season, but I have no idea what it is about me that causes the audience to cheer my addition to the cast.
The writers would probably have a good time with a lesbian hotdog vendor.
[/standpipesblog]
Dibs on the crewman number six part.
KR, you're the angry super in LB's building.
Damnit, Natilo, you know good and well that part was written for my client and my client alone!
75.--Don't let them put you in a red uniform!
OP a & 14 (which is a good summary of the dilemmas inherent in the topic): Right now (with first new boss in ~12 years) I am in ultra "write it down" mode. May be too late as I have become caught a bit flat-footed in the middle of one of those "large organizational initiatives which are purposely not written down but people at the very top are holding someone accountable" thingies. Bad timing all around. Not too surprisingly, they've basically paid me to jump into precisely those situations for the past 18 years. How is the bomb squad guy likely to die? Perhaps overly dramatic; but half the fun is in finding out!
I never actually meet the people who do "large organizational initiatives." I heard two of their consultants talking one day while I was eating lunch. It reminded me of the time somebody called me a "resource."
I'm the crazy alien wth the stupid accent who is added late in the series run in an ill-considered attempt to goose the ratings!
Not too surprisingly, they've basically paid me to jump into precisely those situations for the past 18 years.
That sounds like a potentially interesting but rather odd career niche. How does one get recognized as the appropriate person to scout minefields?
Not being in the room when they pick the person to scout minefields?
Bob plays Dirk Nowitzki.
WHO WANTS TO PLAY MUTOMBO?
I'm the crazy alien wth the stupid accent adorable wisecracking child who is added late in the series run in an ill-considered attempt to goose the ratings!
82: Dazzling dancing ability. I was a semi-respectable if essentially irrelevant "individual contributor", and then I got thrown into something (with a partial lifeline) where I got to distract and entertain everyone for nearly two years while a vendor failed yet again to deliver certain software. "Look over here, shadow puppets!" And then it came out and it was semi-crap and there were massive politics, and through not really sleeping or relaxing for a few years we made it work and deployed it widely.
79, 87: All pretty minor league in the grander scheme of things.
My new favorite minor league team is the Richmond Flying Squirrels, if only because I want them to win the championship so I can get rich selling T-shirts that say, "Squirrel'd Series!" Except I probably shouldn't have written that idea down on the internet where someone else can steal it.
89: "And now, here's something we hope you'll really like."
The writers would probably have a good time with a lesbian hotdog vendor.
I went to a roller derby bout this weekend. It was interesting.
Wasn't there somebody on this blog who wrote for TV and/or the movies? We should pitch that dramedy.
23
So, if I end up losing my job or my license*, which may be the options I'm picking between, what's a good second career for a disbarred attorney?
You could follow Henry Blodget's path and start writing about legal matters for Slate.
So what's your take on the Walmart decision?
76: I laughed out loud alone in a hotel room, like some sort of freak. actually I think mcmanus will be the local crazy dog-walking who rants about blood in the streets to lb as she opens up the giant metal grilles in front of the bar and stuff.
93: I interviewed for a job with him as an equity research associate before he went to Merrill and was at Oppenheimer. He was surprisingly nice, and when he couldn't offer me the job, tried to hook me up with people in Boston.
I wonder whether that was a narrow miss.
93: Haven't read it yet, but my snap reaction is that the powers of darkness are probably right on this one -- I don't see how you get past the problems of proof on this kind of a class. Not that it's too big, but that the actions leading to injury are too decentralized.
I might backtrack on that after reading, though -- if there's a coherent theory that would make proof possible, that would change things.
ttaM, dsquared and the rest of us will show up in about series 5 when the writers run out of ideas and decide to take the cast on holiday together to England. I am practising my evil effete aristo accent right now.
As a long-time east-ender, I plan to base my accent on Johnny Depp in From Hell.
96: On a quick read of the opinion, Ginsberg's concurrence is righter than Scalia's opinion.
98
I might backtrack on that after reading, though -- if there's a coherent theory that would make proof possible, that would change things.
I skimmed the partial dissent. The theory seems to be that Walmart corporate had a duty to monitor things more closely. And that statistical disparities are strong evidence of discrimination.
The decision seems to be unaminous that the Ninth Circuit got it all wrong, the partial dissent was about whether they should get another shot. Not sure why the liberal Ninth Circuit judges think setting themselves up to be overruled like this is a good idea.
The theory seems to be that Walmart corporate had a duty to monitor things more closely. And that statistical disparities are strong evidence of discrimination.
This is right -- the problem isn't so much with proving that Walmart is responsible for discrimination, it's proving exactly who they discriminated against. For each individual one of the class members, establishing how they were affected by Walmart's failure to prevent its managers from discriminating on its behalf seems impractical to me other than on an individualized basis, and that seems to me to be enough to defeat class certification. (I'm still talking off the cuff -- anyone with a strong opinion on why the class should have been certifiable should argue with me.)
And now that I've read it more closely, I agree with the decision only to the extent that this class should not have been certified, but Scalia's reasoning is wrong and if followed will prevent the certification of other classes that should be certifiable.
I was imagining this table of random Brits who are always there in the background as a sort of knifecrimey Greek chorus.
At some point there could be an enormous shock plot point when one of them becomes involved with one of the gang up at the bar.
I have to say that, around the Tenderloin in the early morning, there are quite a few people who made me think "I wonder...is that Bob McManus? But I thought he lived in Texas. Still, on the Internet nobody knows you're a dog..."
My comment on another politically-fraught Supreme Court case seems relevant. OK, admittedly there's little reason to expect the SC to mete out justice beyond the legal sense. (Except for the fact that it actually did do that during the Civil Rights era, the fact that most cases that get to them are genuinely ambiguous on questions of law and it's at their discretion whether to change things for the better or worse, the fact that there's the word "supreme" in its name...) But cold rationality aside, the fact that they're choosing not to is frustrating because no one else is.
Clearly all the Brits need to be hilarious miscast and visibly slumming it; RSC types doing really bad British accents that are not their own. I'm aiming for a mix of Anthony LaPaglia in Frasier, and Mel Gibson in Braveheart.
105: or Dominic West as McNulty doing a terrible British accent in The Wire.
"It's a man purse. European men carry them."
all the Brits need to be hilariously miscast and visibly slumming it
Boy, that fits my career path fairly well.
The horror continues. I may need to start scripting this TV show after all.
109: Good luck, LB!
But no need to worry about writing the script -- Natilo has that covered! You just need to practice your wisecrack delivery.
Oh dear. Wishing you every good break.
Yikes, LB. So sorry to hear things aren't improving. I'm in a horrible mortgage purgatory and sympathize extra intensely with your ongoing stress, but at least it doesn't feel like my job is riding on it.
||
Sigh, more bad news.
I just got the automated rejection for the job that I thought I was in the running for. I'm sure that the other candidates were probably stronger on paper, and it sounds like they may have wanted to get somebody rather than have one of them take another offer.
I'm lucky to have a job, but it was nearly the perfect job for what I want to do, and it's been so long since I got something that I really wanted.
|>
And let me stop wallowing in self-pity and say to LB that I hope things get better, and I'm praying (or whatever the atheist version of prayer is) that you hang on.
Oh, I'm being dramatic. The worst thing that's going to happen to me will leave me indoors and employed somewhere, this is stressy but not actual hardship.
I am trying to locate the name of a legal recruiter I've used in the past, though. I'm not really sure where I fit in the private sector at my current seniority, but if I end up wanting to jump over this, I might as well have made the call ahead of time.
Is this where we complain about less than pleasant problems? My boyfriend managed to get himself effectively barred from the country (let's just say, we were naive and didn't use a lawyer for a non-immigration visa, and once denied there's little a lawyer can do)! It'll all work out just fine, but holy fuck we've been in bureaucratic hell.
Oh, um, I meant to add sympathies to all those with job issues, mortgage issues, and anything else that is plaguing the commentariat!
I have bad gas because I'm not really used to Korean food.
oh, Paren, that's really frustrating too! In our case, we're just (probably) losing a house that was never officially ours and that's a hypothetical future I found very appealing but nothing like the bigger complaints here. Plus when all this is done, I'll be left with five dollars.
(OT: OMG, I'm supervising Mara's bathtime and she's using her little plastic containers to give her tub animals baths, mimicking the language I use with her. Only three and she's already all meta! Plus she pronounces the T in "castle" and says "orange" like "ornj-uh" so I'd be amused and delighted anyway.)
Oh this is sort of the same thing, Thorn - the end of one hypothetical future and the creation of another. Really, it's fine now, but the transition from one plan to another kind of sucked.
Do you have to marry him Paren to let him in? Green card/immigration issues are such a bitch.
123: The annoying thing is that we never wanted to settle in the US permanently. But yeah, basically!
What country do you guys want to settle in?
I get to join the UK commenters! With the denied visa to the US, we mostly just wanted to buy some time and have him explore the US further, rather than make an attempt to get him a green card at the moment since there are far more compelling reasons for us to be in his country than to be in mine in the long run. Now, we just have to rearrange our timeline and while it's going to cost more and require more time apart it is hardly a tragedy. One big annoyance: until he and I marry and show a substantial commitment to the UK (or break up in a demonstrable manner, I guess), he won't be allowed into the US as a tourist.
One thing that this whole experience has really brought home is how difficult* the US has become to visit; I guess I vaguely knew that we now required everyone to either have a visa or be registered in the visa-waiver system but I didn't really understand how that worked.
*In terms of handing over a great deal of personal information to the US gov't, fees, need for internet access, and how easy it is to deny entrance now.
show a substantial commitment to the UK
I think watching every episode of Are You Being Served? would prove it, assuming you could survive.
I didn't know that UK citizens needed a Vida to enter the US. I went to France in 89, right after they removed the Visa requirement, but I haven't personally experienced the reverse. The last time I was in Europe was in 2000.
I am considering a quick courthouse wedding for green card reasons with an actual ceremony and party a few years later.
My health insurance wouldn't be taxed but my student loan payments would be higher.
128: You don't need a visa, but you need a visa waiver (the ESTA program) to come for under 3 months. If you think you want to stay longer as a tourist, you have to apply for a visa. That's where we made a mistake!
Have fun with the quick wedding, if you end up going that route!
I need the complaining thread. My ear won't pop and I'm worried it's going to turn into a full blown ear infection if I go to bed without it popping, and it hurts, and I'm tired and cranky and I can't get it to pop.
I want to suggest a bit of rubbing alcohol, a drop or two. But I'm not 100% on that suggestion, and I'm not a doctor.
Warm, and dripped in the ear? I think my mom used to do that when I did this.
No,actually I think she used cooking oil.
I think the rubbing alcohol is to get the water out of your ear after swimming in a lake. It breaks the water tension.
Boo! I hate ear problems. But I have no clue what to do about it.
What made you want to pop your ear? I only do that on flights. In any case, have you tried chewing gum? I've found that makes things easier. Other than that I've heard of people putting a wick in their ear, lighting it, and drawing the wax out that way...
Chewing gum as we speak. I've got a weird cold, in that I've had the weirdest collection of short-lived symptoms - digestive problems for an hour, nausea for an hour, both on Sunday. Then Sunday night I seemed to get acute pinkeye in the span of 20 minutes. I woke up at 3 am with massive eye gunk. But then barely any formed between 3 am and 7 am, and it's been fine since. Then I started having ear problems.
I've never tried drawing the wax out, even though people also say it helped their ears pop, because of the outer ear canal/inner ear canal thing. I just assume they didn't actually have clogged eustachian tubes.
But I've been relying on pseudoephedrine+fexofenadine (which are both available at a pharmacy and are the base ingredients of Allegra-D) for clogs. They dry me right out.
Available without a prescription, I should add.
The thing is, my nose isn't clogged at all. Does a Neti pot actually get up in your eustachian tubes? I thought it was just up one side of the nose and down the other.
I tried to take a hot shower, but we have the weakest water heater in the world and I couldn't get it very hot.
Good lord, other people's clogged ears are depressing.
144: My experience with neti potting does make my ears tingle, so that's why I suggested it. The only medical professional I could bug about this issue is already asleep, and you're not a horse, last I checked.
I'm reduced to a position of offering sympathy, which isn't much help.
Hydrogen peroxide for ear?
Just woke up choking on bile from heartburn I had tried to inhale while asleep. Not fun. Very gross.
The ear candle thing is a complete hoax, it doesn't work. The kind of suction you'd need to draw stuff out of the ear would blow out your eardrum. Any residue you see is just from the candle itself.
Hydrogen peroxide for ear?
Please do not pour corrosive rocket fuel into any of the holes in your head. Warm olive oil is just fine.
Well, it's still clogged, but less painful somehow. Also my eyes gunked over again last night in my sleep. I'm considering using Hokey Pokey's pink eye medicine.
They have those kits you buy. My doctor said that if my ear got really clogged (enough that everything was really muffled), I should use one of those for a few days and make an appointment with an NP to have it cleared.
an Australian podcast said that UK researchers said that bulb flushing works just as well as the kits.
The softener may cause problems.
The NPs in the doctor's office I used to be a receptionist in would clean people's earwax out by dripping in warm oil, plugging with a cotton ball and letting it sit for ten or fifteen minutes, and then flushing with warm water. I don't know how well this worked, but it seems like the sort of thing that couldn't possibly hurt.
And my situation is probably fine, by deus ex machina. I'll know if it's actually fine sometime around four, when the god actually finishes emerging from the machine. Thanks for all the sympathy.
Still waiting for the phone to ring. I'm just about to wander downstairs for coffee, in the hopes that leaving my desk will make the phone ring.
Still waiting to hear a little better. No pain, though.
Still waiting to hear from Lee about what the underwriters say in detail and whether we can trust their positive offer, but she's pretty sure it'll be positive news and I'm staying skeptical.
Still waiting to hear from Lee about what the underwriters say in detail and whether we can trust their positive offer, but she's pretty sure it'll be positive news and I'm staying skeptical.
155. As long as you can balance, let it take its time.
Still waiting to hear from Lee about what the underwriters say in detail
Gah. We got our chain yanked all over the place doing modest cash out re-fi. Credit union number one (where we've banked for like 12 godamn years) dicked around for a week after making me fill out a bunch of paperwork and then told us they don't do FHA's. Just because I specifically asked the lady at the local branch about refinancing an FHA and she handed me an app with a "type of loan" box to check labeled "FHA", I, like an idiot, assumed they serviced FHA loans.
Credit union two says they do FHA's and after two months of approvals and paperwork and waiting their underwriter comes back last minute and says he'll approve a refinance but not one that involves any kind of a cash out. Hey fuckwit, the cash out to redo the house exterior is the entire purpose of the loan, as you should damn well know as it's clearly printed on the fucking application under "reason for re-finance".
You know who was by far the easiest and most competent organization we went through for the loan? Wells Fargo. The local credit unions can bite me.
Yay! Problem solved. I still have stuff to do, but nothing that's any kind of an issue (well, a deeply embarrassing phone call to opposing counsel in front of whom I have looked like an utter clown, but no one ever said that I had a right not to be made to look foolish by my clients in front of opposing counsel.)
Looking forward to my first good night's sleep in a week.
159: There have been some servicing problems that made the news, but on the underwriting and originating side, Wells Fargo has had their shit together to an unusual extent, for several years straight now (at least compared to the other megas, admittedly weak competition). Something about having a real "underwriting culture", as opposed to Chase/WaMu, BoA/Countrywide, Citi, etc.
Of course I'm sure it also varies by loan officer; some of them happen to be good at their jobs.
OTOH there's some slight reason to believe that I'm seeing a sample biased towards the better loans they make (or at least the better loans they sell), so discount my opinion accordingly.
But I'm glad you found at least one lender that was minimally competent.
Our refi will close on Tuesday, meaning we can buy our new house after the three-business-day waiting period. At that point, I'll finally stop being furiously stressed all the time, I hope.