Friday, September 23, 2005

Collections

This evening I had quite the incident.

There is a gentleman (not really) who has owed our company money. He has owed it for 3 years, and it is a substantial sum of cash.

And the man cannot keep himself from lying to me. He tells me that he's going to be paying me money from other jobs that he's already collected from, tells me that he promises he's going to pay the entire account off by such and such a date, but when the date passes, promises it will be paid, etc...

So, we've made arrangements for this man to pay off his account by working it off on contract jobs that we have within the company. I sent him a very nice job with some good coin that would substantially knock down his account. I also gave him all of the profit from the job. It is a very easy job to do. I could have a team of monkeys do it. However, he demanded that he needed twice as much money as I was offering him. His proposal is ridiculous. He feels like he is in the driver's seat.

So, I decided that I would not put up with this any more. I'm now actively pursuing garnishees against outstanding jobs that he's poured with us.

So, I served my first garnishee on Friday. I learned a big lesson when I decided to do that.

I went to the job that he was currently working on. He was not there, and I knocked on the door. I asked if for the owner of the home (I won't use names) and his wife said that I could speak with her. I served the garnishee, and then I was informed that the man who owned the house had just had a stroke. I decided to try to explain the situation to the people. The Coles notes: The man who had the stroke jumped out of his chair, called me some horrific names and threw me out of his house. He was staggering around, slurring his speech...

I felt awful.

So, now I am very pissed at my customer. He forced me into serving a man with a garnishee WHO JUST HAD A STROKE. I feel like a first class tit. I served a perfectly good man who now thinks I'm a big jerk because he ignored his account.

Lesson learned: When serving a garnishee, do not explain anything. This is one situation that I can't make better. The next time, I'll just say, "I'm very very sorry" drop the paper and leave.

As for my customer, I can't get mad at him. Although it's his dishonesty that drives me up the wall, I'm the idiot who allowed him to charge. That's my problem, not his. I knew he was dishonest, I should have not taken his word for it.

My problem is that I take it to heart, although I know I shouldn't. Business is business, and I shouldn't take it seriously to heart. I just have a hard time dealing with a man who can look me right in the eye and lie to my face. It makes me see red.

Thanks for the rant!

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