banking 101.

if you're my friend livejournal, you've either read this already, or you will the next time you visit my livejournal. just a head's up.

let me just give everyone a few tips. it's not the bank's fault if you overdraw your account. it is not a teller's job or a manager's job to monitor your account. that's up to you. so don't come in, all pissed off, demanding all fees be reversed and threatening to close all your accounts. take a little responsibility. write everything down. save receipts if you don't have your checkbook with you. if don't do online banking, actually balance your checkbook. if multiple items are clearing on the same day, most banks pay the items in order of largest to smallest, as the large items will tend to be a house payment, or a loan payment of some sort. yes, you will probably be charged for each item that is paid once you're overdrawn. some banks will even charge a fee for each day you are overdrawn. please keep in mind that banks are not nonprofit, and they are, in fact, businesses. the tellers are not volunteers which means they have to be paid somehow.

now, i understand that everyone makes mistakes, banks included. so if that's the case, and it really does happen to be the bank's fault that your account is overdrawn, then call customer service or a branch or even go into a branch and explain the situation as calmly as possible and politely ask if the fees can be reversed.

also, don't try to sneak shit through the atm. credit card checks will probably have holds placed on them because they can come back for up to six months. and banks are not required to call the customer and inform them. they may be required to notify the customer by mail. so you may not know for a couple days. so pay attention to your account. and if any check is payable to someone who is not on the account you are depositing it into, don't put it in the atm, even if it's signed over to the owner of the account.

honestly, i could go on. but i'll just leave it here for now.

regroup.

sometimes the biggest hearts are found in the smallest people.

i've been feeling a little lost (for lack of a better term) lately. between stress at work and stress at home, a lack of ever going anywhere outside of either of those places and feeling like i'm drifting away from everyone, i wasn't really feeling like myself. i couldn't even really remember what "myself" felt like.

this past weekend, i went up to nevada city and got away from the stress of life for a couple days. at first, i felt like i was in that awkward stage between being a kid and being an adult; the youngest adult being thirteen years older than me and the oldest kid being seven years younger than me.

then a little girl showed me that it's not about how young or old you are. i can't say what the defining moment was exactly, but somewhere between the shopping and her insistance on me going swimming with her, it just clicked. when i said to her on saturday, "good things come in small packages, like you," i didn't know just how right i was.

yesterday, an eight year old girl became my hero.