Retail Banking and a Blessing

John always tells me stories about angry customers.  Let's face it; John doesn't like his job.  It was fun for a little while, but he gets sick of people yelling at him for things that can't be controlled.  I think it's horrible and hilarious that people get an overdraft fee, yell at John with every swear word imaginable and threaten to close their account because "John has treated them so horribly".  The fact is they spend money they didn't have.

So I don't get it.  Why do people get mad at the worker when it's not the worker's fault and it's out of their control?  It's pretty obnoxious.

Now here's there really good story:

Our house is up for rent.  On Monday at 3:30 we had a family that wanted to look at the house.  Whenever someone comes to look at the house, we are not allowed to be here.  Supposedly homeowners "scare potential renters".  I had to take my daughter to the doctor, so I was going to be out anyway.  At around 3:45, I came home and I saw the Property Manager and  the potential renters driving away.  I circled around the block and went home.  When I came home, the lock was broken.  It took me a few minutes to open the door.

No big deal right?  Locks break occasionally.  It just happened to be when someone else was in my home.  For some reason, I didn't worry about it.

On Tuesday I went to WalMart to get a new lock.  Olivia fell asleep in the car, so I put her to bed right when we got home.  Less than an hour after I got home, four teenage boys came out of a black car and walked up to my house.  Three of them when right to my backyard and one went to my front door.  I could see them through my front window.  I could hear the one boy at my door fiddling with my lock box.  I calmly opened my window and said, "hey can I help you?"

Keep in mind, I was still pretty calm.

The boys were pretty startled.  The boy at my door had the code to my lock box and had my house key in his hand!  He said he thought he could just go in because the house was for rent.  I told them if they wanted to tour the house, they had to call property management.  Well, there was NO WAY four 17-18-year-old boys could have the credit score to rent out our house, so I knew they either wanted a party house or they wanted to steal stuff.  Right when they started leaving, I called a friend to come over and she and her husband came within 2 minutes.  I called John and he came home from work too.  I was pretty shaken.

The blessing part is, if the lock didn't break on Monday, the kids would have been in my house and who knows what could have happened.

I called my property manager and changed my locks.

The next day I went into my property manager, they apologized profusely, and I gave them my new keys.  I asked the guy there what the lock combo was on my lock box and he just rattled it off like he had them all memorized.  I thought that was okay because I know the office all knew about what happened at my house.  Maybe that's why he knew the combo without looking it up.

So what did I do?  My friend and I went to another house that night with a lock box and tried the code.

It was the same.  ALL the houses have the same code.  AND they give it code out to anyone who wants to see any of their houses!  If you want a vacant party house, let me know.  I'll give you a list of empty houses and a code.

Is this post long enough?  Well, let's make it a little longer.

The more and more I thought about it, the angrier I was that they let ANYONE walk into my house as long as nobody lives in it.  On Wednesday, I packed up both the kids and went to property management.

Okay, going back to John's work.  I could have easily gone in and yelled at him and threatened to take my business elsewhere.  In fact, I did say I would but nicer:

I walked in, and told Jared (my property manager) that I like this property management place, but there is just one thing that I can't get over: they let anyone in my house unaccompanied.  He interrupted me to apologize again and told me that he called all his potential renters and asked if anyone sent teenagers to my house.  He said all of them said they did not send anyone to my house.  I'm not sure how true that is.  I'm just not sure how that conversation went: "Hey someone punks tried to break into a lady's house.  You send them?"  Well, I asked a bunch of clarification questions and it came down to this: I said, on Tuesday, I lost all my trust in your procedure to rent out my house.  I never want anyone unaccompanied in my house .  I never want a lock box on my house.  I just feel like I can't trust this company anymore.  Unless you can do something to build up my trust in you again, I will need to switch property management companies.  I just don't feel comfortable for my family's safety while I'm here and I don't want my property trashed when I leave.

He said that in the 700 properties that they have, that never has any one been trashed.  However he promised me that he will hide the lock box on my property and write in my file that no on is allowed in my house unless accompanied by a property manager.

I told him that that was very comforting, but the day that a lock box is put on my front door will be the day that I find a new property manager.

He was fine with that.

I felt like I handled the situation well despite the fact that I was actually in danger because of their poor procedure.  But unlike people at the bank, I never yelled and I asked for clarification.  Because yelling at a worker does nothing.

That's my long story.  Doubt anyone made it through the entire thing, but now I can just print this off and put it in my journal.  Wonderful.

Point is: never yell at a worker when the thing that you are angry about is not their fault and sometimes a broken lock can actually be a blessing.

Pinterest, You've Changed Me

First of all, Shout out to Jewel (wow, I called you by your first name) for reading my blog.  Hers is pretty hilarious!  This is one of my favorite blog entries that she has written and it's not because I'm completely self-centered and it's about me.  Unfortunately the story is not exaggerated at all.  But you seriously need to take time to read that story if it's the last thing you do today.

My friend Kate signed me up for pinterest years ago, but I never signed back in and never used it.  I recently started using it because I was copying and pasting all the websites and ideas that I liked on a word document that I never saved anywhere else.  After going through several laptops, I lost all the stuff I wanted.  Now, I'm pretty sure pinterest is one of the greatest internet things ever.

I'm a changed person.

Here's some background about me:

1.  I'm not a hoarder, but I have hoarder tendencies.  My husband is what I call and anti-hoarder.  If he doesn't plan on using something within the week, he'll throw it away.  We actually make a great team.  If he hadn't married me, he would only own 2 shirts and a pair of shorts.  If I hadn't married him, I would still have my size tiny jeans that I will never fit into again.

2.  I had some old mission pictures that were doubles that I already had in my mission album and digitally and backed up on a bunch of electronic stuff.  Point is, I have them and won't lose them unless the internet ceases to exist and California falls into the ocean.

3.  I have 21 days to pack up the house, do the last finishing touches, and clean it.  Oh, and I have 2 children and a husband that already has a ton of homework before school even starts.

So what do I do?  I can't throw away my mission pictures because I'm a boarder-line hoarder.  Then again, I do already have several copies of each pictures.  And I look nasty in most of them.

I cut them up!  Into fourths.

Then on the back of each strip I wrote down a task that I need to do before I leave.

I've been doing the whole "to-do" list thing, but frankly, it's so long it's really overwhelming.  So here's my jar:

Would I have done this before I discovered pinterest?  No.  

Here was my first task:

Yep.  Vinegar my shower heads.  Done and the strip is now in the trash.  Boo ya!

I have to admit, I think some things on pinterest are a little over the top, but I do think it's a great way to organize all the things that I want to do.  Addicting?  Can be.  But I feel like I am so much more productive because I have all the ideas organized that I can just look up quickly for Olivia and Jocelyn to do.  We keep our schedule pretty well and they are mostly happier little girls.

And I want to follow you on pinterest if you are on there.  But I still don't know how to find people, so tell Kate (my bff: "it's a tier"-name that quote) and she'll add you for me.

Pet Peeves: Just Keep it to Yourself

I feel like I've been a really boring person lately.  I've been so busy that I don't read anymore, sleep, blog, exercise (which is the worst), or even cook.  We were going to leave for California yesterday, but decided to change our plans because we have so much work that we have to do before we move.  I never thought that making a long distance move and getting a house ready to rent would take up so much of my time, but it does.

I have nothing really to write about.  Nothing has been bothering me; nobody has stolen my identity; I just don't have anything to complain about it.  Isn't that what I usually do on this blog?

I'm happy all the time, even though I'm pretty tired.  I'm neglecting a lot of people, but not because I want to.

Then I started thinking really hard.  I still do have a lot of thing that really annoy me, but I just don't think about them anymore.  It happens and I don't give it a second thought.  But here is a pet peeve of mine:

Did you know that people with no children give the BEST parenting advice?  NOT!  It doesn't happen very often but it does happen.  I have been told everything from when I should put my kids to bed, when I should potty train them, how they should act in public, what my kids should eat, how much they need to drink, I should hold them less.  STOP.  That also includes old people that had kids but no longer do.  Most of the time I just wonder if they even remember what it is like to have children.  Let me clarify this mostly has to do with strangers and even friends, not so much family members because they know my children better.  Oh!  Also when I just state a fact like "Olivia doesn't like to take naps anymore" and then people start giving me advice about how to put her down for naps or what I should do, or lecture me on how important sleep is for small children.  I get it.  I didn't want your advice.  I just said something that I wish I never said so I wouldn't waste an hour listening to unwanted advice.

That's about it with the pet peeves thing.  I also hate it when people are shocked or even angry that something happened that are out of my control.  I don't want to give specific examples, but for example someone telling me not to get sick when obviously it's not something that I tried to do and could avoid, like smoking.

On a more positive note, I am moving to another state.  I don't feel like I'm moving quite yet.  We did put our house up for rent and, I'm not going to lie, the property management guy quoted us way more than we thought we could get for renting out our house.  I don't think we'll get that price, but I hope someone falls for the trap.  Oh no, I hope whoever reads this blog doesn't find out that they can rent our house out for less and doesn't take the higher bid, but I doubt my sister, the Thiots or Keltzie Smith will ever want to move to Idaho Falls.  Yep, you guys are the only 3 that read this blog, unless you've stopped...

I have been getting pretty boring.

Just to ramble on a little more, I have recently discovered pinterest.  After years of Kate Goodman wanting me to join, I finally did.  Pinterest is just a good way to collect and organize things that I want to do.  It's not as addicting as I thought it would be, then again, when I get started, I just want to surf the internet for neat ideas.

Okay.  I think I'm done.  What's happening to me.  I feel like I use to write about almost interesting things.  I know I never did, but at least my sister thought I was funny.