3-21-11 Monday (Ravioli Holidays)

Today was my first day on the phones, and Jim’s start to a week off from work.  He took the BMW in for service and they proceeded to try to sell him $800 worth of spark plugs, air filters, fuel system cleaner and oil change.  He declined, came home and looked over the maintenance requirements per the owner’s manual.  He’s only got 50,000 miles and replacing spark plugs isn’t even recommended until 100,000.  Rightfully, he’s angry about it.  Just because we have a BMW doesn’t mean we’re wealthy.  Even if we had gobs of money, why give it to them just for the hell of it?  Being in the automotive service industry, we used to recommend services using the manufacturer’s “severe” schedule which was in the owner’s manual.  For the BMW I only see one schedule.  Jim will call the advisor or service manager tomorrow and ask them to justify their pricing and over zealous pricing.

My first day went well.  I wasn’t nervous at all.  I, just like everyone else needed a lot of help here and there.  No worries, that’s what this week is about.  I like it.  I do.  I’m still dreading the schedule but that can be changed down the road.

I got an interesting call today.  I’ll be vague and generalize it for you.  College aged girl wants credit card, she tells me her mom was arrested last week for robbing a bank, her “home” address matches her employment address which had the words “mental health” in it’s title.  That was my second call for the day.

Sometime during the day, Jim spotted an ad or something about Bravo Italian restaurant having some National Ravioli Day or the like where as ravioli entrées were half price.  Off we went.  We enjoyed the meals, the bread, the salads, etc.  Service was wonderful except for the food runner.  He dropped off our meals and asked, “can I get you anything else?”  We requested more bread.  We were almost finished with our meals and our server stopped by again.  We asked him for more bread since it never came.  In a rare moment I decided to bitch.  I told our server, “tell runner-boy that if he’s going to ask us if we want anything, and we make a request, he should do it.”   The server had a great sense of humor and replied, “they always do that.”  Not really the best answer but oh well.  Anyway, great meal over all, good price for tonight.  Meals: Chianti Braised Beef Ravioli: Sangiovese braised beef-filled ravioli with roasted sweet potatoes, brown butter and sage. 11.99 AND Lobster Ravioli Alla Vodka: With sauteed shrimp, grape tomatoes in a tomato cream sauce topped with pesto bread crumbs. 15.99

Our new home saleswoman, Michelle, emailed us that the property had been staked.  After dinner we stopped by to check it out.  We were thinking the stakes represented the corners of the foundation but I hope not.  The right side edges didn’t line up at all.  We’d have a very odd shaped home.  That leaves us wondering what the point of the stakes are?   Maybe it’s a rough outline created by the vision impaired alcoholic measurement dude?  I’m so excited though. 

In other news, NACA, who we’re getting a great mortgage rate/deal through is kind of annoying to deal with.  There’s so many things that have happened… so many unconventional requests.  This evening was no different.  Sometime after 5pm we get an email that we need to come to their office tomorrow morning and sign: “File approved for lock in rate. Rates dropped today. Rate is good until 10:30 tomorrow morning. Can u both come tomorrow morning @ 8:45 to sign RESPA docs???”

Jim emails back and forth that I can’t get there due to a new job.  Our resolution is that since Jim is on vacation, he’s going to NACA in the morning, pick up the documents, bring them to me to sign and then back to NACA.  Ugh.  The other tricky part is that not just anyone can even get on my job’s property.  I had to contact my supervisor to find out how I can get a guest on the premises.  My supervisor is going to leave the directions on my desk.