Gawd ALMIGHTY!

Well! What a to-do!

I got to work this morning to be confronted by both Bitch and Colleague; Bitch looking grim and Colleague looking anxious. Wondering what was going to happen, my footsteps slowed to near on a stop, but that didn't help, as they merely made their own way towards me.

Steeling myself, I smiled brightly and waited for the storm. Something that I had done, hadn't done, hadn't done properly...?? ...Nope! It was none of those; in fact, it was nothing that could conceivably be considered my fault.
    What had actually happened was that Colleague's wages had been wrong (again) and that having finally gotten through to a person that had the power to delve into the system and attempt find out what had happened yesterday afternoon, she was informed that the amount owed to her HAD been paid, but Into MY account. MY as in 'me'; Alice Collison (in case that hadn't sunk in).
    Stunned, I opened my mouth and closed it (do a very good fish impression, me) and looked from Bitch to Colleague and back again. There had to be some kind of mistake...but no, apparently, there wasn't. I was flabbergasted. Getting the amount of hours wrong, sure - not acceptable, but at least understandable - but surely they couldn't have actually paid someone else's wages into a completely different bank account, even if they did work at the same place. Our 'contract number' may be the same, but the 'payroll' numbers - the one the system supposedly uses to calculate hours and wages and whatnot - are COMPLETELY different from each other, and although our first names begin with the same letter, our surnames are...=counts=...four letters apart from each other. And it wasn't a case of adding the hours onto the wrong wage slip accidentally, either, as when I received my slip it showed that MY wages had been (miraculously) correct, but a full separate payment; money that should have been paid to Colleague.
    There was no real explanation as to how this had happened; they had no idea. It "shouldn't have" happened; all that could be put forth as a reason was (yet ANOTHER) "computer glitch". A very BIG "computer glitch".
    Anyway, after a few more fish impressions from me (I really AM very good), Colleague explained that the woman she had spoken to (henceforth known as Pleasant But Generally Useless Arse, or PBGUA for short) had said that going from where they were now - with Colleagues money currently sitting in my bank and not hers, that was - there were only two options. Option one was for ME to pay HER the money directly, either by cash or cheque. Option two was that the company start the proceedings for the money to be deducted from MY account and then paid into hers afterwards. PBGUA  did admit, when pushed, however, that the second option would probably take a lot longer than the first; by about FOUR WEEKS.

=SIGH. HEAD-DESK. SIGH=

Colleague had "gone mental" (her words) over the phone at that point; and terribly justified she had been, too. She had bills to pay and food to buy for her and her children (she's a widow, managing alone) and thanks to the company messing up her wages and underpaying her over and over again fortnight in and fortnight out since she started work for them a year ago, there was NO MONEY in her account, an account that had direct debit payments pending RIGHT NOW.
    As she told me all of this, I could see that she was close to tears; a woman at the end of her tether, and rightly so. I assured her that I would check my account - I was due to go to the bank and get cash out today to pay a couple of bills anyway - to see if the money was there (which, knowing the company we were dealing with, was a 50/50 chance) and then contact her.
    So off to the bank I trotted after my shift. Sure enough, there was an extra payment of £143.45. I texted Colleague: would she like me to write her a cheque? Forty minutes later the phone rang: Colleague. She was really really really sorry, but if I wrote her a cheque it would take at least seven business days to clear and she needed the money NOW; please please please could I get it out in cash? She needed to pay it in by 11:30-am to cover the direct debit payments.
   Now, ordinarily this wouldn't have been a problem; after all the money was there and it wasn't an amount that I'd banked on (no pun intended), but the thing was; I had already removed the daily limit in cash with my card for the bills (which had already been paid, by now). Again, not a problem ordinarily because I could write myself a cheque and get the money over the counter, but; I hadn't got my cheque-book with me, and there wasn't time to go home and get it, then go back to the bank and queue up, then get the money to Colleague so that she could then get it to HER bank and cash it all in, before 11:30-am. I told her this and she started to panic. Did I bank over the internet at all? I didn't. Couldn't I draw more money out over the counter with my card, so long as I had identification? Her bank let her do that. I didn't think I could, but I assured the poor girl that I would try.
    So back to the bank I trotted (I had been in the ironmongers at the time, looking for impossibly thin wire for The Grandmama. Long story) with Mother - who had been paying bills with me - in tow to see what could be done.
    The short answer, as it turned out, was "nothing". Without my cheque-book and with my limit already reached there was no way to get any more money out (as per rules/agreements etc.) with my bank card, no matter how many forms of identification I had with me (only one, as it happened). Crap, crap, crappity CRAP!
   At my wits end, I stood there staring with helpless pleading at the un-moved bank clerk (you know, as a mature adult does) doing my fish impression (yes, again), trying to think. All seemed hopeless. I was lost... And then out of the blue; Mother (who had remembered HER cheque-book) stepped in and came to the rescue! Hooray Hurrah! A cheque was written - twice, actually: she made a mistake writing the first one. I thought she was going to start screaming there and then - and cashed to the sum of £143.45 and placed carefully into an envelope and we exited the bank at warp speed. There was still time, just, to meet the deadline...
    Fifteen minutes later, Colleague had her money and gratefully signed the receipt we had written out (in case company tries to deduct the money from me anyway) and mother and I headed home a full hour later than we had intended to. Whew!

So! Now I am waiting to be able to get in touch with PBGUA to inform her that the money has been paid (to try and waylay the sending of any snotty letters in my direction), I am mightily pissed off with the company yet again (as is everybody else), an hour of my life has been wasted due to someone else's (gross) mistake and I owe mother £143.45.
    Oh, and get this: the money paid to me instead of Colleague wasn't actually the correct amount. She is still owed another £100 after this.

=SIGH. HEAD-DESK. SIGH=

Alice xxx