It Must Be the SHOES!
Sep. 8th, 2007 07:10 amA gift from a friend arrived today, a new pair of Doc Marten's boots!
These are fantastic. And stompy. They are stompy. If I need to bust out some stompy, I am more than ready.
Yesterday (Friday) was very long. There was insurance stuff for three hours. There was hungry and tired kids dragged along to an errand. The errand was entirely unfun.
I am glad that the kind of shit service I got during this errand, the "I've got you pegged as a person of poor moral fiber," attitude and utter dismissal would've have had me in tears slightly over a year ago, but not today. The rejection, the value judgment, and the "maybe I am a shitty person." I certainly felt like crying, but I didn't. I distracted myself and the kids with a Caterpillar and a huge forklift moving an enormous PVC pipe across the exit to the road. By the time the exit was clear, I was calm.
Which is not to say I'm not still left with some anger about being judged, especially since the whole week was about being judged by people, my honesty being questioned, my intellect taken to be non-existent.
I don't accept or believe that. I mind a lot people trying that kind of shaming shit to push the "you're not nice" button they are guessing (wrong) that I have.
The insurance today was a long conversation with yet another adjuster. I dropped important phrases from the state's outline on protecting insured from being doinked by insurers.
"I will be glad to answer questions relevant to the claim. 'How did you pay for it?' is out of line."
"I was not notified when the claim was received."
"It's been two weeks and this is still not resolved. I had to call to find this out."
"I'd be happy to share with you the URL of the public photo album of my pictures of the fire."
"I've kept notes since the day of the fire in a public document."
"I have pictures of a ten-year-old driving a truck through my yard, after which he ran over a tree. After which, I had the full-time job of making sure the builder's subcontractors did their jobs. This still didn't stop thefts, drinking on the job, and a contractor trying to shake us down for cash. And the guy who pooped in a bucket and left it in our backyard." (The reaction to that last one was beautiful.)
"If I wanted to babysit a group of grown men, I would get a job as a housemother for a fraternity."
I gave Agent a nice long outline of what, even though it was none of his damn business, I had been doing in the past year. The PTSD, the weekly doctor's visits, grieving children, watching the reconstruction constantly, and so on.
"I think you can see how doing claims before now would have been difficult."
The flags on the washer, dryer and dining table were no longer on the claim, or at least not on whatever Agent was looking at. I sent the receipts anyway, because sure as shootin', someone would be saying on Monday they still needed to see proof. The flagged items today were a numbering mistake on King's part (which was due to my bad handwriting), the value of a sewing machine, and what "sewing nottons" were. (More handwriting crammed into a 1" x 1/4" space issue.) Sewing nottons were "sewing notions." And what are sewing notions? "Zippers, buttons, thread..." I also forgot to value art supplies. My guess was probably way low, I did have a total, and couldn't find my notes, but I'll get it on replacements.
We now have an agent assigned to us, one who I'm told is very familiar with the case. He left a note with the agent who talked to me that he wanted to "expedite the claim." The agent could not tell me if this meant this particular claim, or the whole of the contents.
I'm hoping for both. They've had the latest claim for nearly a month. This last one has been ridiculously difficult, and we still have to go through a metric fuck-ton of receipts and match them with claim numbers. It would be really nice to have the whole contents claim resolved fast.
Having to deal with bad news doled out piecemeal, bad practice, and bad faith makes the process even less appealing than its current appeal factor of zero.
We have reached that point everyone has to reach in their own way and their own time: we are ready to move on.
These are fantastic. And stompy. They are stompy. If I need to bust out some stompy, I am more than ready.
Yesterday (Friday) was very long. There was insurance stuff for three hours. There was hungry and tired kids dragged along to an errand. The errand was entirely unfun.
I am glad that the kind of shit service I got during this errand, the "I've got you pegged as a person of poor moral fiber," attitude and utter dismissal would've have had me in tears slightly over a year ago, but not today. The rejection, the value judgment, and the "maybe I am a shitty person." I certainly felt like crying, but I didn't. I distracted myself and the kids with a Caterpillar and a huge forklift moving an enormous PVC pipe across the exit to the road. By the time the exit was clear, I was calm.
Which is not to say I'm not still left with some anger about being judged, especially since the whole week was about being judged by people, my honesty being questioned, my intellect taken to be non-existent.
I don't accept or believe that. I mind a lot people trying that kind of shaming shit to push the "you're not nice" button they are guessing (wrong) that I have.
The insurance today was a long conversation with yet another adjuster. I dropped important phrases from the state's outline on protecting insured from being doinked by insurers.
"I will be glad to answer questions relevant to the claim. 'How did you pay for it?' is out of line."
"I was not notified when the claim was received."
"It's been two weeks and this is still not resolved. I had to call to find this out."
"I'd be happy to share with you the URL of the public photo album of my pictures of the fire."
"I've kept notes since the day of the fire in a public document."
"I have pictures of a ten-year-old driving a truck through my yard, after which he ran over a tree. After which, I had the full-time job of making sure the builder's subcontractors did their jobs. This still didn't stop thefts, drinking on the job, and a contractor trying to shake us down for cash. And the guy who pooped in a bucket and left it in our backyard." (The reaction to that last one was beautiful.)
"If I wanted to babysit a group of grown men, I would get a job as a housemother for a fraternity."
I gave Agent a nice long outline of what, even though it was none of his damn business, I had been doing in the past year. The PTSD, the weekly doctor's visits, grieving children, watching the reconstruction constantly, and so on.
"I think you can see how doing claims before now would have been difficult."
The flags on the washer, dryer and dining table were no longer on the claim, or at least not on whatever Agent was looking at. I sent the receipts anyway, because sure as shootin', someone would be saying on Monday they still needed to see proof. The flagged items today were a numbering mistake on King's part (which was due to my bad handwriting), the value of a sewing machine, and what "sewing nottons" were. (More handwriting crammed into a 1" x 1/4" space issue.) Sewing nottons were "sewing notions." And what are sewing notions? "Zippers, buttons, thread..." I also forgot to value art supplies. My guess was probably way low, I did have a total, and couldn't find my notes, but I'll get it on replacements.
We now have an agent assigned to us, one who I'm told is very familiar with the case. He left a note with the agent who talked to me that he wanted to "expedite the claim." The agent could not tell me if this meant this particular claim, or the whole of the contents.
I'm hoping for both. They've had the latest claim for nearly a month. This last one has been ridiculously difficult, and we still have to go through a metric fuck-ton of receipts and match them with claim numbers. It would be really nice to have the whole contents claim resolved fast.
Having to deal with bad news doled out piecemeal, bad practice, and bad faith makes the process even less appealing than its current appeal factor of zero.
We have reached that point everyone has to reach in their own way and their own time: we are ready to move on.