silentq (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
silentq) wrote2025-08-13 11:31 am
silentq) wrote2025-08-13 11:31 am
boy that sure was a long August... oh
So yeah, getting covid right after the Terminus festival (though feeling bad enough despite testing negative that I skipped the last night and brunch meet ups) started off my August with a lot of cancelled plans and quarantining. I had the fever and sleep for hours on my still negative days, positive days were about moving as little as possible as I was exhausted. I barely had an appetite, which was good as I had a full enough pantry to last until I was negative again. At which point my appetite came roaring back this past weekend and now I'm hangry all the time, guh. I tried to take it easy as I caught up on out of the house stuff, though returning the (quite heavy) not installed toilet to the hardware store with my sister was a challenge. A nice fellow building person offered help to get it down the stairs and into the SUV and despite my initial gasping refusal I took the help. Thank goodness we found a cart to wheel it into the store.
I've been plotting out painting approaches to get rid of the beige, so I now have a nice supply of paint chips and a couple sample cans to play with. I want my red dining room walls back, and I think I'm settled on a dark green + cream theme for the master bathroom. Still waffling over the master bedroom, I have art that works with the light green of my old bedroom but I never liked that colour all that much. Kind of want to recreate the other room colour schemes though, the ice blue in the workout/gear room was nice... and I want my bright kitchen back!
Though most of that is on hold for a bit as I got laid off (finally!!!) yesterday. We'd had about 5 of our remaining about 20 people quit right after the year cliff on the stock grants vesting and I'd been waiting for the trading blackout period to expire so I could sell (and learning about capital gains). That expired at the end of last week and then we had a very last minute all hands meeting called Tuesday morning by HR. They'd been warning of restructuring for months after they cancelled our product in April, and I'd just started working with the safety CPU team to do integration testing but was pretty sure they wouldn't have noticed that new work and only focussed on my lack of depth of UI work. That hunch played out as I was contacted for my 1:1 in the being let go group. I have some digging to do regarding AB employment standards as they only offered me 6 weeks severance, but I need to find my notes on my service dates[1] and find out what they're basing that number on. Also sucks that my salary now is a *lot* lower than it was in the USA so even if I were to get closer to the 20 weeks I should get if you count from when I started at Veo, the dollar amount won't be super great. No idea how much I'll have to pay an employment lawyer if I have to retain one either. :-/ Guess selling that stock grant might be worth it.
I also had an outstanding expense report, and need to deal with the locked 401(k) that they weren't letting me touch from my time working in the USA after the acquisition.
Still very glad that I underbought when I got a condo here, I've got a very nice cushion left, and I also can stop worrying immediately about contributing to an RRSP that I might not have any contribution room for. Oooh, and I might be eligible for unemployment insurance! They're paying me through Friday and that's when I'll get the termination letter and know more details. Right now I'm just dreaming about running away to sea or the mountains. :-)
I also need to jump gently back onto the workout train after my covid slump.
But it's also Pride Month here, so I have some fun things to look forward to that shouldn't cost me much money (might have to pass on the one drag competition if I can't get the cheapest ticket). I've also got some airline miles to use and should go visit my parents. Hrm, with lots of time on my hands, might see if I can find a cheap train journey to take as well. *resists looking at last minute Arctic cruises*
[1] Turned out I'd only texted my sister (on Jun 12) the information on service dates, so duplicating it here so that I can find it better in future:
Length of Service was recorded as 6+ years (from my Veo start date which was listed as my Continuous Service Date). Time in Position and Time in Job Profile were both 10+ months though (calculated from Hire Date when we were acquired).
The service dates are the ones they should use to calculate severance so they're gonna be on the hook for 6+ years rather than just over 1. That anniversary was going to be Sept 4th, just missed out.
I've been plotting out painting approaches to get rid of the beige, so I now have a nice supply of paint chips and a couple sample cans to play with. I want my red dining room walls back, and I think I'm settled on a dark green + cream theme for the master bathroom. Still waffling over the master bedroom, I have art that works with the light green of my old bedroom but I never liked that colour all that much. Kind of want to recreate the other room colour schemes though, the ice blue in the workout/gear room was nice... and I want my bright kitchen back!
Though most of that is on hold for a bit as I got laid off (finally!!!) yesterday. We'd had about 5 of our remaining about 20 people quit right after the year cliff on the stock grants vesting and I'd been waiting for the trading blackout period to expire so I could sell (and learning about capital gains). That expired at the end of last week and then we had a very last minute all hands meeting called Tuesday morning by HR. They'd been warning of restructuring for months after they cancelled our product in April, and I'd just started working with the safety CPU team to do integration testing but was pretty sure they wouldn't have noticed that new work and only focussed on my lack of depth of UI work. That hunch played out as I was contacted for my 1:1 in the being let go group. I have some digging to do regarding AB employment standards as they only offered me 6 weeks severance, but I need to find my notes on my service dates[1] and find out what they're basing that number on. Also sucks that my salary now is a *lot* lower than it was in the USA so even if I were to get closer to the 20 weeks I should get if you count from when I started at Veo, the dollar amount won't be super great. No idea how much I'll have to pay an employment lawyer if I have to retain one either. :-/ Guess selling that stock grant might be worth it.
I also had an outstanding expense report, and need to deal with the locked 401(k) that they weren't letting me touch from my time working in the USA after the acquisition.
Still very glad that I underbought when I got a condo here, I've got a very nice cushion left, and I also can stop worrying immediately about contributing to an RRSP that I might not have any contribution room for. Oooh, and I might be eligible for unemployment insurance! They're paying me through Friday and that's when I'll get the termination letter and know more details. Right now I'm just dreaming about running away to sea or the mountains. :-)
I also need to jump gently back onto the workout train after my covid slump.
But it's also Pride Month here, so I have some fun things to look forward to that shouldn't cost me much money (might have to pass on the one drag competition if I can't get the cheapest ticket). I've also got some airline miles to use and should go visit my parents. Hrm, with lots of time on my hands, might see if I can find a cheap train journey to take as well. *resists looking at last minute Arctic cruises*
[1] Turned out I'd only texted my sister (on Jun 12) the information on service dates, so duplicating it here so that I can find it better in future:
Length of Service was recorded as 6+ years (from my Veo start date which was listed as my Continuous Service Date). Time in Position and Time in Job Profile were both 10+ months though (calculated from Hire Date when we were acquired).
The service dates are the ones they should use to calculate severance so they're gonna be on the hook for 6+ years rather than just over 1. That anniversary was going to be Sept 4th, just missed out.
3eanuts (![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png)
3eanuts_feed) wrote2025-08-11 02:04 pm
3eanuts_feed) wrote2025-08-11 02:04 pmSeptember 14, 1957 — see The Complete Peanuts 1955-1958
September 14, 1957 — see The Complete Peanuts 1955-1958
3eanuts (3eanuts_feed) wrote2025-08-04 02:03 pm
3eanuts_feed) wrote2025-08-04 02:03 pmSeptember 13, 1957 — see The Complete Peanuts 1955-1958
September 13, 1957 — see The Complete Peanuts 1955-1958
Siderea (siderea) wrote2025-08-03 11:44 pm
siderea) wrote2025-08-03 11:44 pmEntry tags:
How Not to Run a Bank, Credit Card Edition: Stuck Like Blue [banking, surrealism]
I finally got around to pursuing a replacement of what we in the Bostoniensis Household refer to as the Lorem Ipsum card, which was itself a fiasco.
(Recap: PayPal, an organization full of people who are not as smart as they think they are and blessed with perhaps the deepest marketing reach in the US into the small business market for financial services, decided to offer to its business customers the greatest credit card deal of their lifetimes, unlimited 2% cash back on all purchases, and the market responded with all the decorous restraint of a river full of pirhana given a whole cow. Apparently we collectively took PayPal for all they were worth – I heard of small tech companies running their cloud services bills to the tune of five figures a month across on the card – until sometime in Sept 2024, when the grown-ups at PayPal discovered they were hemorrhaging money, and very abruptly shut the party down and exit the business credit card market all together. The hard inquiry on my credit report lasted longer than the actual card did. At the time, it was pretty upsetting, but now it's just hilarious.)
A couple weeks ago I decided to apply for an American Express Blue Business Cash card, which has no fees and has a cash back offer. I have to say, absolutely all the customer service agents – five now – I've spoken to have been exemplary. Yeah, alas, that's foreshadowing.
Unfortunately their IT services are demented. First there was the fact they sent me a notification saying my application had been, and I quote, "DENIED", with a link to find out why, and when I followed the link, I discovered my application hadn't been denied: it said that they couldn't run a credit check on me because my credit reports were locked (true), so I need to go unlock the specified credit report and let them know so they could continue processing my application. So I called in and did it in real time with an agent on the line and was approved on the spot. Fabulous. "Okay, you will be getting your card at your home address in three to five business days." "Uh, it's a business card, could you send it to my business address?" "Oh, no, it won't let me send your initial card to any other than your home address." "*sigh* Very well."
My new Amex card arived at my home on like the 30th or 31st, while I had my nose to the grindstone writing. Friday the 1st, I opened the envelope to find my new card, and then to activate it at the website.
I couldn't get it off the paper.
Or rather: in attempting to get the card off the paper, I wound up with a layer of glue and paper stuck on the back of the card, such that I could not read any but the first five digits of the card number, and the CVV was completely covered. It was like the paper was superglued on. It was annealed.
So I called Amex, and discovered that you can't get through the phone tree to a a customer service agent about an extant account unless you can prove you're the owner of the account with, yes, the CVV. Which I can't read. Because there's a half thickness of paper glued across it.
Also, you can't set up an account on their website without the full card number, which I also couldn't read, because there was a half thickness of paper glued across it.
So I called the number for applying for a card in the first place, and threw myself on the mercy of the sales agent, explaining why I was calling them instead of regular customer service: I can't get to customer service without knowing the CVV, and the problem I need help with is that I can't read the CVV. "I know I shouldn't be laughing," he said, "But this is kind of hilarious." He kindly set up a three-way call with customer service so I didn't wind up wandering unattended in a phone tree maze, and once I was talking to the nice people who could replace my card, he ducked out.
The customer service agent and I then discovered that Amex doesn't let you replace a card, for some reason, until an account is 10 days old. My account was, as of that moment, nine days old. She gave me a direct number to business card services in the hopes I could avoid the phone tree of doom; the agent also gave me some pointers about pressing zero to get through it, which trick I had tried on the other phone tree and it hadn't worked.
Saturday I was busy sleeping. Today, I called the phone number I had been given for business card services, and despite the phone tree trying to authenticate with the CVV, I managed to confuse the robot enough it finally found me a human. I got to explain all over again about the disfigured card, and they transferred me again to card replacement, who put the order right in.
I observed to the agent that the issue with the glue and the card might have something to do with them sending it to my home, where I have a black mailbox on a south-facing side of the building, and we had been having a heatwave, and maybe they would like to send my replacement card to my business address, where the mailboxes are indoors in air conditioned comfort? She agreed that would be a much better plan.
So now I await my new Amex. It's a 2% cash back on purchases offer, but only up to the first $50k of purchases, so companies can't use their AWS bill to bleed them dry, so maybe it will stick around a little longer than PayPal's Lorem Ipsum card.
Speaking of credit card offers possibly too good to last, for any of you sad you missed out on getting your own bite of the cow:
I recently discovered that AAA – yeah, the American Automotive Association, the roadside assistance people – has a really great credit card offer. (This may be region specific – I'm in their "Northeast" region.) Their Daily Advantage Visa Signature card has 5% cash back on groceries, no annual fee. Only the first $10k of grocery purchases per year, and then 1% thereafter – which is good, actually: it has a chance of sticking around. But that does mean up to $500/year in cash back on grocery purchases. Given what's happening to the price of food and paper goods, having a permanent 5% discount on groceries is freaking fantastic. It also has a bunch of other features (3% cash back on gasoline or electric car charging stations, e.g.) and 1% cash back on everything else (no limit).
The interest rate is usurious, so under no circumstances do you ever want to carry a balance on it. But if you are the sort of person who can reliably always pay off their balance every month on time: permanent 5% off groceries!
And, no, apparently you do not need to be a AAA member to get the card. (Though we are.)
We got one and I just finished reading the fine print. Seems reasonable. We don't know that our grocery delivery service will be recognized by the card company (it's Comenity Capital Bank under the hood) as a grocery store, but the service is run by a grocery store, and the charges have appeared on the previous card under the name of the grocery store, so here's hoping. We'll know later this week – our next grocery order is for Wednesday, and the charge typically shows up a day or two after that.
Also, we've never had a card with Comenity, so we don't really know how their IT and customer service are. The web interface for account management is very nice. We'll report back as we know more.
I'm not generally in the practice of recommending credit cards, and I can't wholly recommend this one, having not really exercised it yet to discover its landmines. But what's going on here in the Bostoniensis household is that we're cashing in on our good credit scores to take advantage of financial offers that pinch our pennies for us, as a form of hardening our household financially against inflation and other future economic vicissitudes. This has generally meant getting credit with better terms (either lower rates or higher rewards), and opening High-Yield Savings Accounts for our nest egg and my estimated tax payments as a self-employed person.
Given that eating food is a pretty universal custom and groceries are getting scary-expensive, I thought I would mention for anyone who wants to do likewise, and is in a position to do so.
Edit: Oh, yes, it worked with our grocery delivery order just fine. We're delighted.
(Recap: PayPal, an organization full of people who are not as smart as they think they are and blessed with perhaps the deepest marketing reach in the US into the small business market for financial services, decided to offer to its business customers the greatest credit card deal of their lifetimes, unlimited 2% cash back on all purchases, and the market responded with all the decorous restraint of a river full of pirhana given a whole cow. Apparently we collectively took PayPal for all they were worth – I heard of small tech companies running their cloud services bills to the tune of five figures a month across on the card – until sometime in Sept 2024, when the grown-ups at PayPal discovered they were hemorrhaging money, and very abruptly shut the party down and exit the business credit card market all together. The hard inquiry on my credit report lasted longer than the actual card did. At the time, it was pretty upsetting, but now it's just hilarious.)
A couple weeks ago I decided to apply for an American Express Blue Business Cash card, which has no fees and has a cash back offer. I have to say, absolutely all the customer service agents – five now – I've spoken to have been exemplary. Yeah, alas, that's foreshadowing.
Unfortunately their IT services are demented. First there was the fact they sent me a notification saying my application had been, and I quote, "DENIED", with a link to find out why, and when I followed the link, I discovered my application hadn't been denied: it said that they couldn't run a credit check on me because my credit reports were locked (true), so I need to go unlock the specified credit report and let them know so they could continue processing my application. So I called in and did it in real time with an agent on the line and was approved on the spot. Fabulous. "Okay, you will be getting your card at your home address in three to five business days." "Uh, it's a business card, could you send it to my business address?" "Oh, no, it won't let me send your initial card to any other than your home address." "*sigh* Very well."
My new Amex card arived at my home on like the 30th or 31st, while I had my nose to the grindstone writing. Friday the 1st, I opened the envelope to find my new card, and then to activate it at the website.
I couldn't get it off the paper.
Or rather: in attempting to get the card off the paper, I wound up with a layer of glue and paper stuck on the back of the card, such that I could not read any but the first five digits of the card number, and the CVV was completely covered. It was like the paper was superglued on. It was annealed.
So I called Amex, and discovered that you can't get through the phone tree to a a customer service agent about an extant account unless you can prove you're the owner of the account with, yes, the CVV. Which I can't read. Because there's a half thickness of paper glued across it.
Also, you can't set up an account on their website without the full card number, which I also couldn't read, because there was a half thickness of paper glued across it.
So I called the number for applying for a card in the first place, and threw myself on the mercy of the sales agent, explaining why I was calling them instead of regular customer service: I can't get to customer service without knowing the CVV, and the problem I need help with is that I can't read the CVV. "I know I shouldn't be laughing," he said, "But this is kind of hilarious." He kindly set up a three-way call with customer service so I didn't wind up wandering unattended in a phone tree maze, and once I was talking to the nice people who could replace my card, he ducked out.
The customer service agent and I then discovered that Amex doesn't let you replace a card, for some reason, until an account is 10 days old. My account was, as of that moment, nine days old. She gave me a direct number to business card services in the hopes I could avoid the phone tree of doom; the agent also gave me some pointers about pressing zero to get through it, which trick I had tried on the other phone tree and it hadn't worked.
Saturday I was busy sleeping. Today, I called the phone number I had been given for business card services, and despite the phone tree trying to authenticate with the CVV, I managed to confuse the robot enough it finally found me a human. I got to explain all over again about the disfigured card, and they transferred me again to card replacement, who put the order right in.
I observed to the agent that the issue with the glue and the card might have something to do with them sending it to my home, where I have a black mailbox on a south-facing side of the building, and we had been having a heatwave, and maybe they would like to send my replacement card to my business address, where the mailboxes are indoors in air conditioned comfort? She agreed that would be a much better plan.
So now I await my new Amex. It's a 2% cash back on purchases offer, but only up to the first $50k of purchases, so companies can't use their AWS bill to bleed them dry, so maybe it will stick around a little longer than PayPal's Lorem Ipsum card.
Speaking of credit card offers possibly too good to last, for any of you sad you missed out on getting your own bite of the cow:
I recently discovered that AAA – yeah, the American Automotive Association, the roadside assistance people – has a really great credit card offer. (This may be region specific – I'm in their "Northeast" region.) Their Daily Advantage Visa Signature card has 5% cash back on groceries, no annual fee. Only the first $10k of grocery purchases per year, and then 1% thereafter – which is good, actually: it has a chance of sticking around. But that does mean up to $500/year in cash back on grocery purchases. Given what's happening to the price of food and paper goods, having a permanent 5% discount on groceries is freaking fantastic. It also has a bunch of other features (3% cash back on gasoline or electric car charging stations, e.g.) and 1% cash back on everything else (no limit).
The interest rate is usurious, so under no circumstances do you ever want to carry a balance on it. But if you are the sort of person who can reliably always pay off their balance every month on time: permanent 5% off groceries!
And, no, apparently you do not need to be a AAA member to get the card. (Though we are.)
We got one and I just finished reading the fine print. Seems reasonable. We don't know that our grocery delivery service will be recognized by the card company (it's Comenity Capital Bank under the hood) as a grocery store, but the service is run by a grocery store, and the charges have appeared on the previous card under the name of the grocery store, so here's hoping. We'll know later this week – our next grocery order is for Wednesday, and the charge typically shows up a day or two after that.
Also, we've never had a card with Comenity, so we don't really know how their IT and customer service are. The web interface for account management is very nice. We'll report back as we know more.
I'm not generally in the practice of recommending credit cards, and I can't wholly recommend this one, having not really exercised it yet to discover its landmines. But what's going on here in the Bostoniensis household is that we're cashing in on our good credit scores to take advantage of financial offers that pinch our pennies for us, as a form of hardening our household financially against inflation and other future economic vicissitudes. This has generally meant getting credit with better terms (either lower rates or higher rewards), and opening High-Yield Savings Accounts for our nest egg and my estimated tax payments as a self-employed person.
Given that eating food is a pretty universal custom and groceries are getting scary-expensive, I thought I would mention for anyone who wants to do likewise, and is in a position to do so.
Edit: Oh, yes, it worked with our grocery delivery order just fine. We're delighted.