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So, when we last left our fleshy-nosed hero, he'd barely had time to complete a particularly grueling assignment at work before the next enemy attacked, in the form of a former landlady decidedly unkeen on turning back a not insignificant pile of cash she owed him.
Well, languish no more,devoted fans idle bystanders. I am, this minute, holding in my hand a check from to her to the exact amount still due.
Interestingly, it all worked out when I took a deep breath in, stopped hiding behind the litigation option, and tried instead to turn to empathy, in an attempt to figure out what the hell might have prompted her to send me such an incendiary letter in lieu of the cash still owed.
Not an easy step to take, because the letter really held little nice content and much accusatory instead, and the figures sent along as justification to keep my cash were rather convoluted, and markedly devoid of explanation.
But it's the letter, in the end, from which I figured out the probable spirit of the whole disagreement.
See, that letter was in response to a reminder I'd sent earlier, that she still owed me the deposit I paid for the flat's rental by then, and which, to be legally receivable in court, should it come to that, had to follow certain norms and a certain wording, even though I tried to soften it where I could.
And, it only then occurred to me, that made her completely freak out, and her response was the equivalent of running behind the couch screaming and throwing pointy things at me from there.
... So I replied with a resolute but extremely courteous letter pointing out in what way the necessarily legal wording of my previous one did in no way detract from its fundamentally pacific intent, and where I thought she'd erred in her calculations and assumptions.
Response: my check, and a letter of apologies.
Score one for empathy.
So at this point, you'll be wondering why our still fleshy-nosed hero is not jumping for joy all over the place?
Well, it's like in those Japanese RPGs, where by the time you figure out the means to beat the top bad guy, it turns out there's a bigger bad guy still waiting for you from within a cloud of darkness and bad vibrations that totally dwarfs the baddy you just beat.
In this case, the ever shadowy tax service.
Apparently they fucked up something masterful in their calculations of years past and may I please fork over a huge chunk of cash that they forgot to demand until now? (That's the general idea anyway, they just didn't say please.)
It just never freaking ends, does it?
Well, languish no more,
Interestingly, it all worked out when I took a deep breath in, stopped hiding behind the litigation option, and tried instead to turn to empathy, in an attempt to figure out what the hell might have prompted her to send me such an incendiary letter in lieu of the cash still owed.
Not an easy step to take, because the letter really held little nice content and much accusatory instead, and the figures sent along as justification to keep my cash were rather convoluted, and markedly devoid of explanation.
But it's the letter, in the end, from which I figured out the probable spirit of the whole disagreement.
See, that letter was in response to a reminder I'd sent earlier, that she still owed me the deposit I paid for the flat's rental by then, and which, to be legally receivable in court, should it come to that, had to follow certain norms and a certain wording, even though I tried to soften it where I could.
And, it only then occurred to me, that made her completely freak out, and her response was the equivalent of running behind the couch screaming and throwing pointy things at me from there.
... So I replied with a resolute but extremely courteous letter pointing out in what way the necessarily legal wording of my previous one did in no way detract from its fundamentally pacific intent, and where I thought she'd erred in her calculations and assumptions.
Response: my check, and a letter of apologies.
Score one for empathy.
So at this point, you'll be wondering why our still fleshy-nosed hero is not jumping for joy all over the place?
Well, it's like in those Japanese RPGs, where by the time you figure out the means to beat the top bad guy, it turns out there's a bigger bad guy still waiting for you from within a cloud of darkness and bad vibrations that totally dwarfs the baddy you just beat.
In this case, the ever shadowy tax service.
Apparently they fucked up something masterful in their calculations of years past and may I please fork over a huge chunk of cash that they forgot to demand until now? (That's the general idea anyway, they just didn't say please.)
It just never freaking ends, does it?
no subject
But insisting on being a loser means that you don't even see when you've won. Is the secret of happiness a sufficiently short-sighted outlook at the future ? :)
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