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Ok, well *I* am wordless.

Wait…shit….fuck it.

Well – I may have beat all the odds and stayed afloat through the bulk of the downturn, despite the fuckers in the banking industry who’s entire goal it seemed was to make sure I failed.

Well I’d like to give a hearty fuck-you to the worst offenders.

American Express

At the start of it all I was doing well.  The business was turning between $250k and $350k/year in consulting.  I was earning the frequent flyer miles like mad and was regularly writing checks to AmEx for between $5k and $10k each month.  They were making a killing off me because they took a percentage of EVERY SINGLE purchase I made with my card.  And to listen to the vendors *THEY* were paying the brunt of it, not me.

When they panicked and randomly decided to close my accounts (stranding me in Tampa, Florida I might add) my consulting work got cut in half, because the way it works is that I front the travel expenses and get reimbursed, with which they got their money.  It’s fucking how AmEx sold me on their stupid $600/year annual fee (for all of the travel bonuses of a Platinum card – which I have to admit were nice.)  If I can’t travel, I have to stick to my region.  I’m lucky enough that my region includes DC, and (barely) stretches to RTP in North Carolina and the NYC metro area.  There continued to be enough work there to keep me busy through the recession.

So they took their fee, and dumped me, forcing me to cut back on travel and to start turning away almost $150k in business in the first year.

Fuckers.  They started the slow spiral, and their bullshit is why instead of hiring 3-5 people this year I ended up going it alone.  So their bullshit kept 5 engineers out of work just in my one case.  Multiply that by all of the small businesses they probably fucked and you’ve got a strong case for American Express being the principal cause of the current unemployment numbers.  I wouldn’t cry if their offices burned to the ground tomorrow.  Not one single fucking tear.

Then Comes Bank Of America

The original evil empire.  Second only to American Express because while they did cost me quite a bit of money, American Express cost me more.

BofA Developed a nasty habit of randomly placing 10-14 day holds on my deposits in order to ensure that the bills I’m trying to pay like a good little businessman were bouncing sky high (to the tune of $35/occurence, $350/day)

Most of my deposits were made by wire-transfer…not paper.  No waiting for checks to clear, see where I’m going?

They also process debits from biggest to smallest, to ensure that they collect as many of the $35/each fees for bounces as they can get.

It works this way.  You have $900 in the bank.  You deposit another $1,000 but the bank places a 14-day hold on it.

You write checks for $1000, $250, $100, $50, and go to starbucks a half dozen times at $5/each.  They continue honoring the debit card transactions without even warning you that you’re racking up $35 fees for each one.

Now when they do their nightly processing, if the bank processes from smallest to largest, the only thing that bounces is the $1,000 check.  But when they process it from largest to smallest, everything below that bounces, so it’s a difference of them being able to charge you $37 and (9*$35=$315)

So not only did they cause the overdraft in the first place by sitting on money you’ve deposited (earning interest I might add from the day you deposit it) they engineer the situation so that you get even more thoroughly raped without the benefit of lube.

I’m starting to look much more kindly on bank robbers..  They’re doing the public a service.

Always an asshole…

Ok, I’ll be honest, this is based on my limited exposure to them, you know, spending 2/3 of my life living within 5 miles of a marine base.

First off, if you haven’t, read this post by my other (and much better) half.

The hidden Horrors of Military Service

Then hear this.  This week I’m taking on a new project.  It’s a fairly simple one, rehabilitating a pool that has gone so bloody green you could almost walk across it.

My New Project

The nastiness that is pictured here is the result of either months of neglect or something sitting dead at the bottom of the pool.

Our neighbors moved in about four years ago.  Since then I’ve spoken to the husband a few times, the wife once or twice, and their daughter was in my son’s class a few years back when they were both in grade school.

That was it.  Not much interaction, I was disappointed because i was really looking forward to having *REAL* neighbors after the last ones left. (Anti-social is about the kindest thing I could say about them)

After a few years I just figured it was the same way with these, and I went about my business.

Then he takes off for a job overseas, in the middle-east somewhere.  And two years go by and we don’t see them…at all.  One of the neighbors says that someone came by and picked up his motorcycle.

Turns out that out he bailed.  30 year marriage up in smoke.  And it’s worse – I’m hearing stories of MASSIVE amounts of emotional abuse, including an not limited to his commitment to making sure she ends up ‘living in the ghetto’ and telling his daughter that “she’ll never amount to anything.”

Bastard.

SonOfABitch.

PeiceOfShit.

Now granted I’m only hearing half the story, but given the rest of my experiences it all rings true.

My question is this.  Doesn’t HONOR mean anything to these people?  I mean it’s only supposed to be one of the founding principles, right? It’s all they fucking talk about.

Well here is how I see it and this is to my wife’s father as much as it’s to my neighbor soon-to-be-ex.

If you’re idea of a fun time is forcing your wife to watch you put a loaded revolver to your head, you have *NO* honor.

If you bail on a 30 year marriage to go get your jollies, you have *NO* honor.

If you do everything in your power to destroy the woman you promised to love and cherish, you have *NO* honor.

If you do everything you can to tear down the emotional well-being of your adolescent daughter, you have *NO* honor.

If there was a shred of justice in the world, the Marine Corps would hold their members accountable for their atrocities, both at home *AND* on the battlefield.

Man up and do the right thing by your family – don’t leave the most important job of your life for your neighbor to do because you’re too much of a pussy to own your mistakes.

Step up, or step the fuck aside.