Work

Work felt really creepy tonight.  After 9pm, the girl I was working with went home and I spent the last two hours alone in the office.  Normally this doesn't bother me but tonight it did.  It might have to do with my desk being moved.   Where it's located now, prevents me from being able to see the entrance and I kept hearing things that made me think I wasn't alone.  Luckily, I didn't need to go to the bathroom because in order to do that I need to leave the security of our particular office.  The whole building is locked but that hasn't prevented me from seeing stranger lingering in the hall late at night.  It's disconcerting sometimes.  Dave actually drove to make sure I walked out okay which was comforting because for whatever reason the security on Saturdays is terrible and I normally end up walking into the empty parking lot by myself.  Anyone could grab me and no one would see or know I needed help.  I wish I was better suited to protect myself but even a blackbelt in karate can't prevent someone from shooting them.

Anyway, it's all good now.  I'm home and I'm safe and Dave was there.  That's what matters.  It stinks that in less than seven hours I'll be back there what can I do?  I did agree to this afterall.  I felt really good today and I think that's because I was able to catch up on some sleep.  I had a ton of energy at work which turned out to be a good thing because our fraud monitoring systems was being a pain.  I get that it's there to help prevent fraud and the majority of time, it works well but sometimes it's just inconvenient for everyone.  For example, I understand why it would block a card after seeing 15 back to back transactions at Macys.  Yes, this couple made 15 separate transactions over $150 each when they called in because there card was blocked they said that they were in making purchases in different departments.  I didn't know Macys had 15 departments and I actually asked her if she knew that she could make purchases from one department in another?  She had some reason or other for the multiple purchases but said that she would  consolidate her purchases next time.

I understand that being a reason to block the card or when $15,000 is spent in a jewelry store.  That's not normal behavior.  That is a bit suspicious.  However, when someone calls the bank, tells them that they will be traveling in Florida, and then has to call in a ton of times while they're there to unblock their card, that's just not okay.  What's worse, is that there really isn't even a decent reason for the card being block that I can tell them so they just end up yelling at me.  So many times I want to say that it makes me just as angry because I hate answering the phone and listening to people yell at me because our system is stupid.  I want to tell them that I hate it too and I wish they would change it as much as they do.  I want to tell them to get a different bank but I can't.

With Christmas around the corner this will become more and more frequent.  If it was up to me, I'd allow any transactions in Florida, New York City, and Boston to go through without question for all of our Bermuda and Cayman island clients.  It's where they go every year.  They come to Boston and New York all the time but it triples when Christmas comes.  They arrive and spend thousands of dollars.  Not hundreds, thousands.  I do think that I will ask them how they get all the gifts back home this year.  Do they really bring thousands of dollars of gifts back on the plane with them?  Do the merchants ship back to their homes in Bermuda?  I can't imagine how they go about doing it.  I really wish I could ask them what I really want to know: what do you do for a living?  We joke about how we want to make that one of our "identification" questions.  Can I have your name? Your mother's maiden name? What's your occupation? Sadly, I can't ask that.  I just wish I could ask what they did for a living because I would really like to get in on that.