Journal Entries
Oh for the love of - - - -!
Posted Jan 27, 2004
I am now working for a bank selling mortgages to people who call in. These are sometimes direct customers, but usually independant financial advisors (IFAs)
I am only just out of training and still not fully up to speed and therefore have several people nearby who can help me.
I got a call from a female IFA asking if she could take an application to approval (basically the bank saying that in principle we are willing to lend you this amount of money)
I went through the system, and stopped at the most important part. The Mortgage screen shows how much the property is and how much the customer wants. I went past it as it was already complete, this then performs a credit check and goes to the illustration page, where they select exactly what kind of mortgage they want (discount, fixed, etc).
It was set at £60,000 loan and I asked if this was correct.
The IFA said: No, they only need £59,000.
Great I thought, nice and easy.
I went back to the mortgage screen and noticed that it was only asking for £55,000. This meant it had been illustrated for £5000 more than they had asked for. I changed it to £59,000 and went through another credit search.
Yup, you guessed it. It was declined. So I told the IFA and said I would refer this to the underwriters.
"That's not good enough" she said. "We need to put an offer in fairly soon."
My manager told me to put her on hold and said I should physically go to the underwriters ( a few metres away) and talk to them.
I promised to call the IFA back ASAP and did so. They told me they would work on it straight away, but didn't know how long it would take.
I called the IFA back.
"How long will it take?"
"I don't know, but they are working on it RIGHT NOW."
"Yes, but how long will it take?"
"I don't know."
"But they need to put an offer in by the end of business today. They're sitting with me now."
That's 16:30 and it was 15:15.
I promised to go back and hurry them up.
Anyway, long story short, the underwriter brought it back up to me herself, but I was on another call. This was only 20 mins after my call.
A friend of mine called the IFA back and went all the way through the application until he asked:
"Can I have the bank details for paying the mortgage and for the monthly payments."
Whereupon he was told
"I don't have them."
(all together now...)
OH FOR THE LOVE OF - - - -!
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Latest reply: Jan 27, 2004
Classically Obvious
Posted Nov 3, 2003
Just walked past a cupboard in the store room. It was open and inside was a notice saying:
"If what you are looking for is not here, please try the other cupboards."
Brilliant!
Discuss this Journal entry [3]
Latest reply: Nov 3, 2003
Once for yes, twice for no.
Posted Jun 27, 2003
I offered a customer a divert, he said there's no other number, so I then asked if he wanted an out of service message.
He grunted, which I took to be a yes.
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Latest reply: Jun 27, 2003
My journet to the Twilight Zone
Posted Jun 22, 2003
I'm at my sister's for a week. Her boyfriend bought a new optical mouse for the XP laptop he's got and installed the drivers, then re-booted as it told him.
The computer wouldn't start. It kept going to Blue screen of death and reset too quickly for me to see what was wrong, but it seemed to be a partition error.
I tried a few things.
Eventually I needed the boot disk, which was in his lab (he's a PhD student) a few mins away. Off we went, got to the lab and discovered that two medical fridges and freezers had stopped working and the specimens (very expensive and very hard to replace) were defrosting.
Quickly donning latex gloves we transferred the specimens to working frides and freezers, then got the disks and went home. Upon starting the computer, it loaded to blue screen, but asked if I wanted to skip the disk check. I said yes, then Windows loaded normally. I'm using it now.
But if it hadn't broken, we'd never have gone to the lab and £1000s and months of work would have been lost.
Spooky or what?
Do do do do, do do do do. You are about to enter - The Twilight Zone.....
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Latest reply: Jun 22, 2003
They make gevernment agencies look competent.
Posted Jun 19, 2003
I just changed jobs from faults to billing. I continue to work in the same building.
We asked: "If faults gets really busy, will we be put back?"
We were told: "No."
We asked: "Yeah, but what if there's a big problem in the country?"
We were told: "Wouldn't make a difference, you're billing now."
Yesterday there was a big electrical storm in England, lots of lines down.
We got put back on faults.
I don't mind myself, but we have a floorwalker from Dundee helping us out and she was bored out her skull and went home early. And it's YET ANOTHER complete U-turn on policy. 
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Latest reply: Jun 19, 2003
Atlantic_Cable
Researcher U196159
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