I’m tempted to sign up for this class just to see what they’re teaching and who they’re teaching it to. Then again, I guess I wasn’t that curious, since I didn’t even bother to take one of the free catalogs.
I need a new hobby.
In other news, Deborah won her suit against her non-paying client. Since the case was heard by an Arbitrator rather than a Judge, there is no appealing the decision and the woman is required to pay up within thirty days. We’ll see. Deborah contacted the woman, as suggested on the back of the judgement slip, but she hasn’t heard back. I have a feeling it’s not going to be as easy as that, but Deborah is determined to see it through, whatever it takes.
It would be nice to get the money in time to blow it all in Atlantic City, where Deborah and I are going for Deborah’s birthday in a couple of weeks. I’m not sure why we chose to celebrate in Atlantic City, other than the fact that it’s so close — although, that was never reason to go before. (I’ve only been to Atlantic City once in my entire life.) Las Vegas is a couple of thousand miles away and I’ve been there more often. Then again, I’ve never been to Las Vegas as a destination in and of itself, either — only as a brief layover on my way to Utah or Death Valley or some other remote desert location with the intention of getting away from all the nonsense represented by places like Las Vegas. Still, I’m determined not to think about things too much and just have a good time. Either way: photo ops up the yin yang.
After waiting a couple of months for a check — submitting and re-submitting an invoice — it became clear that one of Deborah’s clients had no intention of paying her for the bookkeeping work she did. “I should always go with my gut,” Deborah said, referring to the fact that she had a bad feeling about the client from day one. But work is work so she tried to stick it out. In the end, though, she reached a breaking point and it was either quit or go insane. “I don’t think it’s a good fit,” she told her client, although she may as well have told her the truth: “You’re a kook.”
Deborah sent an invoice for the days she worked, waited a month, resubmitted the invoice, waited another month and then began calling to see what the problem was. When she finally got the client’s elderly man-friend on the phone — a guy Deborah had met before, but whose role at the company was never made clear — he admitted that they had no intention of paying her. “We thought is was suspicious that you quit so suddenly,” he said, implying that she quit because she didn’t know what she was doing.
Deborah has been doing freelance bookkeeping for years and, although it’s not her passion, she’s quite capable and has never had a complaint or a problem with any of her other clients.
“See you in court,” she said, just like they do in the movies. She hung up the phone and immediately began investigating how to file a Small Claims suit.
Deadbeat clients are a real problem for freelancers. They aren’t offered the same protection from the Department of Labor as full-time employees are. While progress is being made, for now the only recourse for a freelancer is to take a deadbeat client to court. Fortunately, Deborah’s wages fell within the limit allowed to be pursued in Small Claims and she was free to file. Freelancers who get stiffed for thousands of dollars are up shit’s creek.
I was surprised at how quickly she was able to get a court date in what, according to the New York City Small Claims Court website, is one the busiest Small Claims Courts in the world (no surprise) but when we got to the courthouse and saw the clerks barking orders in their thick New Yawk accents, it was clear they didn’t fuck around. “If you don’t ansuh when ya name is cawled, ya case’ll get dismissed and you’ll be outta luck, so listen up people! And no tawking!”
Scheduled for the evening session, we arrived in the courthouse fifteen minutes early, at 6:15PM, and sat in a room filled with about 50 or so other litigants. Deborah was well-prepared, but anxious –”I just want it to be over with already.” — but not nearly as anxious as the Weeble-shaped bald guy sitting in the row ahead of us. He was with a guy who seemed to be acting as his lawyer, although there are no lawyers at a first hearing in Small Claims Court claims court (no doubt another reason why things moved so quickly) so I assumed he was an interpreter who happened to be helping out with some friendly advice.
Apparently the bald guy was the defendant in a case. He was fidgety, his Jimmy-leg shook the whole row, and he kept wiping his face and wringing his hangs. “I dun unnerstent why dis ist happenink,” he said in what sounded like an Eastern European accent. “I didn’t do annytink.”
His advisor had several pages of printed notes that had been typed in an extra-large font. “It’s just procedure,” he said as he flipped through the notes, finding key words and sentences to highlight with a Day-Glo yellow marker. “Even a serial pedophile can get his day in court,” he said. “and this? This is way way less than anything like that. This is nothing. But you gotta follow the procedure, that’s all, otherwise whaddayou got? You got Nazi Germany.”
True enough, and so, doing our part to promote the American Dream, we waited for Deborah’s name to be called. When it was, she and her nemesis were sent to another room on an different floor to, again, wait for their names to be called. It was slightly awkward waiting for the elevator, but thankfully there was a bank of three or four elevators and we managed to get on a different car than Deborah’s enemies.
Although the dingy yellow room we were sent to was a court room, it was essentially just being used as a holding pen. Glued, slightly crooked, to the back wall was a small engraved brown plastic sign — the kind you might see on a mens room door or a middle manager’s desk — that said, “In God We Trust.” It had been painted around, not very carefully, several times. Under the sign was a Judge’s bench, sans Judge, and next to that was a dingy American flag. In front of the Judge’s bench were two desks, pushed together into one. Two guys were seated behind the desks, one in a Police uniform, the other was in an ill-fitting suit and had a bushy salt and pepper mustache. They took turns calling names from a stack of papers.
At one point, a woman who was standing at the front desk muttered something under her breath as she walked away. The mustached man blew his top. “Say that again and you’ll be leaving here in handcuffs!” he bellowed. The woman left the room and a few seconds later we could hear a disturbance in the hallway. The mustachioed man leapt from his chair and bolted out of the room. It was several minutes before he returned and the roll call continued.
Deborah’s name was literally the last one called. She and her nemesis were offered the choice of having the case heard immediately by an arbitrator, or scheduling a date with a Judge a month or two down the road. The only difference, at least as far as I understood it, was that by going with an arbitrator, you waved your right to an appeal, but since the filing fee for an appeal was more than the money Deborah was seeking, going with a Judge offered no advantage. Both sides needed to agree to an arbitrator, however, but thankfully Deborah’s nemesis was sensible enough to want to get things over with. Once they signed their names, they were sent to another room, this one set up like a court room too, the only difference being that it was empty save for a woman seated in the Judge’s bench. Deborah and the woman she was suing stood before the arbitrator while the elderly man-friend and I sat in the pews.
They got right to it. Deborah went first. She was focused and composed, speaking evenly, making her case clearly. Even as the dead-beat client gave her side of things, the only sign Deborah showed of tension was reaching into her bag for her lip balm and putting it on her lips. As things progressed, they got a little heated, though nothing like some of the screaming we heard coming from behind a door along the way. After some relatively even-tempered back and forth, the arbitrator told them she’d heard enough, “You’ll get my decision in the mail in about a week.”
And so we left the courthouse without knowing whether she won or not.
“I need a drink,” Deborah said. We stopped at a nearby restaurant, sat at the bar and reviewed everything that happened. “I think you won,” I said. “I really do, but regardless, you stood up for yourself and I’m proud of you. If it had been me, I probably would’ve just written it off. Good for you, cheers.”
“Cheers, thanks.”
Racing a Floating City
I drove Deborah to the airport yesterday morning so she could catch an 8:30 AM flight to Pittsburgh. On my way back, while driving along the Belt Parkway, I saw what looked like a giant wedding cake slowly making it’s way up New York Harbor. Easily ten stories high from what I could tell. I dug out my little point and shoot and did my best to snap a photo of it out the car window. I can’t remember ever seeing a ship that big before. In fact, I thought it might be some kind of optical illusion.
But this morning, a quick check online tells me that it’s Norwegian Cruise Lines’ brand new ship, Epic — the largest cruise ship ever built by Norwegian cruise lInes and the biggest ship to ever dock at the Manhattan Cruise Terminal.
How big is it? It’s so big that it squeezed under the Verrazano Bridge (just south of where I saw it) by a mere 2 feet.
153,000 tons, 200 feet tall, 4,100 passengers.
Apparently it’s going to be christened here in New York today with a celebration hosted by Reba McEntire, who USA Today calls “a longtime Norwegian Cruise Line fan.” Who knew? Needless to say, Reba and I aren’t on the same page.
I don’t get the attraction of cruises — I’ve never been on one, and don’t plan to ever go on one — so I don’t suppose Norwegian Cruise lines gives a rat’s ass what I think, but man, that is one ugly boat.
Anyway, in the meantime, I’m home alone while Deborah is away for a week. What to do, what to do…
We recently bought a water filter for our shower. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s true — though it’s not what this post is about. A few weeks after installed the filter, a representative from the filter company called. I didn’t recognize the phone number and didn’t bother to answer the call, but he left a message: “This is a courtesy call to see how you like the filter, if you have any questions about it, or need any help installing it, and to make sure you know about our ‘Water For Life’ program that entitles you to a discount on replacement filters…”
Water for life, eh? Apparently the filter isn’t just a product, it’s a lifestyle. I saw no reason to return the call.
Yesterday, I was waiting for a work-related phone call from a woman who was in town for a couple of days who wanted to get a CD of files from me before she flew back to Paris. I had spent the day running errands in Manhattan carrying the CD with me all day, but when I hadn’t heard from her by dinner time, I headed home to Brooklyn. “Watch,” I said to Deborah as we sat down at a restaurant near our apartment for supper, “she’ll call as soon as our food comes.”
No sooner did I say it than my phone rang. “What did I tell you,” I said, but when I looked at my phone, I noticed the call was coming from a toll-free number. “Probably the water filter guy again,” I said, and debated whether to answer it. “Fuck it, if he’s this persistent, I should pick up or else he’ll just keep calling. Hello?”
It wasn’t the water filter guy. It wasn’t the French woman, either, it was a representative from my the insurance company that insures my motorcycle. “Uh oh, the hell is this about?” I wondered as the rep introduced himself.
“I have a woman on the line who claims to have found your wallet,” he said. “She found your insurance card and called us in an attempt to locate you.”
“Wait, what?”
“Well, first of all, did you lose your wallet?”
I reached down to feel the familiar lump in my front pants pocket. (No, the OTHER lump) and realized it was gone. Shit, I DID lose my wallet.
“It must’ve just happened,” I said.
It was found just outside of my apartment where Deborah and I had gotten off a bus only fifteen minutes earlier. Curiously, it was the very same corner where I’d lost my wallet exactly a year ago while getting out of a cab on the way home from the airport after a 15 hour flight — only that time there was no phone call.
“I have her on the other line,” said the rep. “I can either giver you her number and you can call her back, or I can connect you two right now.”
“Put her through,” I said.
“You’re not on a date are you?” was the first thing the woman asked.
“A date? No, why?”
“Oh my friend and I were just thinking how awful it would be if you discovered that you didn’t have your wallet while you were on a date. How embarrassing it would be when you went to pay.”
“Well, no, I wasn’t on a date, but I did just order dinner at a restaurant, and it still would’ve been embarrassing when it came time to pay.”
“But you’re not on a date?”
“No, not on a date.” I said. “Where are you now?”
“I’m at the Cuban restaurant on Washington Avenue.”
“Will you be there for a few minutes?”
“Yeah, sure, I’m just having a drink with a friend.”
“I’m ten minutes away, I’ll be right there.”
“We’ll be here.”
I told Deborah the story, excused myself and told her I’d be back in a flash, and then I sprinted the four or five blocks to the Cuban place. When I got there, I asked the first people I saw — a couple sitting at the bar — if they were the ones who found my wallet.
“No.”
I asked the bartender if she knew anything about it. She gave me a puzzled look. “No, no one turned anything in.”
“They literally called me five minutes ago.”
I remembered passing three women on my way in who were sitting at an outdoor table so I went outside to ask if they were the ones who found my wallet.
“Wallet?” they said, shaking their heads. “No, no wallet.”
“Weird.”
“There were two women sitting over there,” one of them said, “but they left a couple of minutes ago.”
I panicked for a second thinking that maybe I was the victim of a scam, one that “happens all the time” but I was too stupid to figure out.
“Do you have a phone number for the person who found it?” one of the women asked.
“Oh yeah, duh, I do,” I said. “Good idea.”
I dug into my pocket and pulled out a scrap of napkin on which I’d scrawled the woman’s phone number. If it hadn’t have been for the insurance rep, I wouldn’t have remembered to write it down.
I called the number and the woman I’d spoken to earlier answered the phone. “You’re here already? We’re inside at a table. Where are you, outside?”
“Yes, but I’m coming back in.”
I pulled open the door, and this time the woman was waiting there with my wallet in hand.
“Here you go,” she said.
“Oh man, thank so much, I really, really appreciate it.”
“You weren’t on a date were you?”
“No,” I said. “not on a date.” She and her friend had concocted a date scenario and didn’t want to let it go. “But I did just sit down to eat at a restaurant and it would’ve been embarrassing just the same. My food is on it’s way now, actually, I should run. Are you guys eating? Let me pay for your dinner.”
“No, no, please. Pay it forward,” she said.
“At least let me pay for your drinks.”
“No, seriously, just pay it forward.”
I thanked them, and then thanked them again, before running out the door.
“Put your cell phone in your wallet!” the woman yelled to me as I ran.
I arrived back at the restaurant just as the waiter was putting our plates on the table.
“Perfect timing,” said Deborah.”How did you make out?”
“Got it,” I said. “I offered to buy them dinner, but they just told me to pay it forward.”
“Aw, that was nice.”
“I know, right? But I’m not so sure about this paying it forward business. I kind of wish they let me pay them so I could just get it over with.”
I hate rereading old posts and finding all the typos, grammatical errors and awkward sentences they contain. Sometimes I find myself correcting posts that are weeks, months, or even years, old — long after anyone is likely to read them. Don’t ask me why I’m writing about this now, except that I just reread my post from the other day and cringed as I re-worked it. Not that anyone cares. Funny thing is I’m posting this from my cell phone right now which means it’s likely to have as many, if not more mistakes than the one I just fixed. Maybe I should tell you to stop reading this right now and come back to it in a month or two after I’ve had a chance to clean it up a bit. (Once I hit “publish” I’m not likely to look at it again any sooner than that.)
I’m in New Jersey right now for a review and run-through of some video projections i’ve been working on for the past few weeks (elements for an awards show at Alice Tully Hall this weekend.) Waiting for the client(s) to arrive and killing time by writing about it. Trying to get back in the writing habit, for better or worse.
A post is never finished, only abandoned.
