Technology = teh sux

Seriously. At this very moment I am currently at war with a machine in our office that is supposed to fold pieces of paper, and then stuff them into envelopes. All I'm asking it to do is stuff one sheet of folded paper per envelope. It's not that hard. I mean...I'm sure the machine is much more complicated and complex, but its worked for me just fine in the past. I guess I am asking it to do a "C-fold" (three sections with both folds going on top of the middle section) instead of my customary request for a "Z-fold" (three sections of the paper, with one fold going on top and one going underneath the middle section). Seems easy enough right? FALSE. Stupid machine still won't cooperate. It's telling me to "clear the sealer." Well I'm not using the sealer (a function that actually moistens the envelope and seals it as it spits out the stuffed envelope), and am using a programmed setting that has the sealer OFF....AAAAAAAAND there's so sealer solution anyway. Taking out the empty bottle didn't do the trick...so I just. don't. know. Gonna try and find something online that gives me a quick fix otherwise I get to stand there pressing "trial piece" and watch fold & stuff one piece at a time. Faster than doing it by hand? Yes. Still a monumental waste of my time? Yes. Damn machines.

So I've decided to "put the machine in timeout" until tomorrow. I turned it off and unplugged it. Hopefully this will reset it, or give it time to realize how stupid its acting. I don't care what happens so long as it works properly tomorrow. We'll see tho...


Earlier today I was thinking about some of the weird phone calls I get when I cover the front desk. Yesterday I had a guy call up looking for one of the BLCs (Banking Loan Consultants) who's manager is also my manager here at the HLC, but BLCs work in one or more branches. Now all of my manager's BLCs work in Seattle, but spread out all over. This particular man worked at the MLK Jr branch as well as Rainier. So this guy who called is irritated that he's called so many number now, and still can't get ahold of this guy. I told him the BLC did not work here, but I could give him the number listed for this BLC on our contacts sheet. About 30 seconds later the same guy was calling back...apparently getting transferred from the number (that I just gave him) he called. So now this guy is all kinds of pissed off and taking it out on me. What didn't help was that English was not his first language, and so as he got more irritated it became increasingly harder to understand him. He eventually hung up...and I just laughed. I understand the frustration, but hanging up isn't going to help you get ahold of this guy. Oh well.

Then some guy called from California looking for the list of homes with WaMu mortgages that were going into default...or something like that. He was looking for the "main branch" or "headquarters" where he could get this list. I told him no such branch existed, which is true, but that most of the CEOs and big wigs for the company work in Seattle. He was much more understanding and thus proceeded to just talk my ear off for the next five minutes before I could give him the number of the switchboard...which hopefully could direct him to the right place. I don't understand why so many people are given our number (Home Loan Center) for anything relating to loans. We are not loan servicing, we are not processors, we do not have lists for anything...we only take loan applications/originate loans. Meh. That guy was a little off, but pleasant and so I didn't mind his ramblings as much.

Then a guy called looking for someone who was out of the office that day. I asked if I could take a message or transfer him to her voicemail. He opted for the ladder....well the cheat sheet for how to do that was gone so I had to go searching for it. Found it. Followed the directions...but I'm pretty sure I hung up on the guy. Sorry guy. Then I tried to forward a call from the front desk to someone's direct line in the office and thought I remembered how to do that. Nope. Ended up playing the "I'm just covering and my cheat sheet is gone so can I give you her direct line?" card....the stupid lady said she already had that number. ugh. THEN CALL THAT NUMBER FIRST!!! OMG. Don't call the front desk, looking for a specific person, when you have that person's direct line. Seriously. That makes you look incompetent. Or lazy. Or both. Either way she won the award for worst phone call of the day.

Then there's the lady I'm currently trying to help. She called up and harassed Lo at the front desk about a loan servicing issue. I told her that, due to the nature of her problem, she really need to contact loan servicing to get the answers she was looking for. Nope. This lady was going to be difficult. She already called them and they gave her a "cookie cutter" answer....which was not the answer she wanted. So I agreed to take the call from her, seeing as she doesn't deal with loans. This woman is clearly intelligent, but does not completely understand the product she has. She understands loans, and how they work, just not the one she has. Ha. Great work by her loan consultant there. Well this loan consultant, or whoever set up the loan, is on "indefinite medical leave" and can't help her. She has an equity line of credit, with the entire outstanding balance fixed into a specific rate. Its almost like a mini-subset of the line of credit. Anyway, its set up like an installment loan with a specific number of years set in place to pay off the balance. In this case its four years. So her payments are all going to be the same for four years, at which point it will be completely paid off. Well she thinks that if she pays down the principal balance, the loan should re-amortize....or adjust to reflect that less interest is being accrued, and thus the payment should be less...or at least the amount of interest being paid should be less. With a floating, variable rate loan this is true. But she has this portion of her variable loan fixed in. Therefore large principal reductions will do nothing to the payment amounts or the amount of interest being paid and simply reduce the time it will take to pay off the loan. I tried explaining this to her, and she refused to accept it...saying it went against simple, 5th grade math. OH DEAR GOD. Now I have to call her back and attempt to explain it again. I'm not holding my breath for a positive, understanding response from her.

Hooray for crazy people on the phone...err...not really. I wish we had technology that could detect the level of stupidity in the person calling, and then only let the call through to an actual person if they knew what they were talking about. Man that would be divine. Oh well...probably doesn't exist nor would WaMu pay to get the technology...I mean they won't give my boss, Fred, a newer model computer even tho his keeps crashing. He's on his third computer, and each "new" one is simply a used version of the model he already had. Great idea. Let's recycle the same model that is currently causing problems. GENIUS.

Still better than being in the branch tho :D