Drop a dime

I opened my credit card bill today to find they'd charged me a $29 late fee because my check for the full balance of $0.50 wasn't delivered by their deadline. When I called to ask if that could possibly be right, the customer service lady actually laughed—at her overlords, not at me—and corrected it on the spot. She lowered my interest rate while she was at it.

We've been getting a lot of wrong numbers lately—two or three times a day, sometimes—all for different people, which makes me wonder if our phone lines are getting crossed again. Many of these calls are automated, "Please hold while we connect you" or "If this is Fenric Thistlethwaite, please call..." sorts of things, which bother me anyway; they clearly think their time is more valuable than mine. But if they're wrong numbers, and if they come every morning when you're trying to sleep, they're more annoying still. I finally called one of them back, and after I maneuvered through their navigation system they very apologetically took our number off the list, and thanked me for the correction.

Moral of the story: sometimes it's worth it to call the annoying people back.