Yes... I'll get back to that title, and it's relevance, later. It's been a good long while since my last post. Simply, because very little has occurred in my life to warrant it's online documenting and publishing. I have been employed in the employment of finding employment. Between a worrying number of 'personally signed' automated rejection letters, or: "Sorry, but the position's been filled," phone calls, I have found new part-time employment in a pub, bringing my number of employers to 1.5. Why 1.5? Well. Let me keep it simple. I don't know if I'm still working for my possibly-previous-possibly-not employers. Apologies if my ambiguity is confusing, but understand if I don't want my innermost exact details plastered all over the internet. Willingly, at any rate... So I have little to no money at thos moment in time. A hardly surprising fact, I'm sure, yet one I feel needed clarifying. To attempt to blindly make ends meet, I do as several million others find themselves doing on a national scale: I sell junk I don't want on ebay. I have become quite proficient in it as well, utilising my relatively advanced knowledge of HTML 4 to at least make my listings look uniform, if a little stark. This success in managing to sell virtually any item through the website warranted my boasting of my skills. This attracted the attentions of friends who needed items selling, and being the thoughtful chap I am, I agreed to do my best to sell them. A friend's laptop had a reserve of £200 on it - knowing it would not sell for nearly that much, I told my friend did he want me to lower the price, to at least guarantee a +£100 sale. He said no. That loss cost me money, but it being near to his birthday, I decided to let it pass. And let it pass again when I relisted it, and once again the laptop failed to reach it's reserve... But the biggest loss of all these friendly ebay-favours, came with the selling of another friends' tablet pc. The tablet in question, I learned later, was in high demand, as there was a shortage of the devices, and prices from many resellers had skyrocketed. There was therefore a lot of interest for the device - more so than any item I had sold previously on the website. It was with some amazement that I found a paypal payment for nigh-on £300 waiting to clear in my paypal account. The buyer said he'd made a mistake, and would like to have the item posted to a different address - to the extreme of having the payment halted until such a time. I saw no err in this - many people before this had done the very human thing of specifying the wrong address to have an item posted. I waited til the buyer's payment was being processed, and made the usual arrangements to post the item - sending it via recorded delivery, to ensure it arrived. I saw that it had arrived, but also that it was being held by paypal. Because no specific reason was given for the holding of the funds, I surmised it was a simple matter, and would clear at a later date. With confidence, I posted the item to the seller's personally required address. It came as quite a shock when I received an email from paypal stating - you guessed it - £298 had been reversed entirely. And what's more, I had to pay the servicing fees on it as well! So we come to the title of this post, and the mood in which I now write this - reflective of the weather I currently sit sheltered against, waiting for a train to a destination I have never been before: Margate, via Ramsgate. At the time I wrote this next piece, I was still in a slight state of shock and disbelief of the circumstances. Indeed, the only thing that had calmed me in the slightest was calling my lovely housemate, Alistair, who would be the full recipient of the transaction's money. "It's only money, after all." Were the kind words which greeted me at the other end of the phone: a testament the great and fair discipline of mind Alistair holds unto others and himself. Though a man of God, or at least a believer of His exalted existence, his temperament is more a testament to the evidential infinite capabilities of human-kindness, than any atheist I have yet had the pleasure to meet. It was with a stern, confused and angry for the loss of the finances to such a dear friend, that I worded such a rash and cool letter with my demand for payment from the seller in question: "If this request for payment from Transaction #1K008350R36691349 is not met or responded to within a period of 30 days, I will treat this matter as an act of theft, and will seek my right to reclaim all costs pertaining to this transaction through a court of law. I hope we can come to an agreement." I regret the wording of this now, but with a ridiculous limitation of 300 characters, I could think of little other sentiments that accurately portrayed my Armada of frustration which I carried at that moment. I should have waited longer, before penning such an important document, but it should succeed in grabbing said buyer's intention. I hope. Now I have recounted most of my current anguish, I hope to now celebrate Sam's birthday with all the enthusiasm it deserves. Even if all I could afford as a birthday present was an impromptu home-made necklace and a carton of 'add hot water' porridge. Either way. Margate awaits.
