AmEx da Great
One of the biggest problems when you start working is that your expenses go up and you have no clue where all the money is going away. You have a thousand things to take care of including the pending bills, the loan repayment, telephone bills, investments if financial year is coming to a close and so on and so forth.
One thing i can say with reasonable amount of confidence is that i am perhaps one of the worst tax planners that you would find in the country. When i joined the company i did not declare any of my investments and as a results the TDS for me was one of the highest in the batch and consequently the take home was the lowest in the MT batch. To top all that i suddenly realised that I went on a spree of saving company money at my own expense. So today the company owes me close to 50 grands of money.
On top of all that I had a credit card bill of close to 32 grands (All official expenses for those of you who think I have left my miserly way of life). And on top of that i had to pay close to 11 grands on account of my educational loan repayment. I had kept it pending for quite a long time and so i decided to do something about it. However all my good intentions nothing came out of it and consequently it was the last date for the payment of my bills. That date fortunately or unfortunately happened to the day before the colourful festival of holi.
So I decided I should take my cheque book along so that on my way back from gurgaon i could stop by around Saket and drop my cheque. And while on my way back the weather took a turn for the worse and before I realised it was raining cats and dogs. And while i was heading towards saket i suddenly realised that i did not know the location of the drop box where i was supposed to drop my cheques. And when i located the AmEx telephone numbers i suddenly had the "LOW BATTERY" messages flashed across my cellphone screen. The last stick on the charge indicator was on and by the looks of it, it wasnt going to last long.
So i did the next best thing and got the cell of the guy next to me and called up the AmEx guys again and got the nearest location in Saket. Then i sentified my co-passengers to stop by near the drop box so that i could go ahead and drop the cheque. They relented and we headed to the location and my offical cab waited while my friendly colleagues waited fuming inside ;) It was raining bad and the roads were overflowing and there were vehicles all around. The net result was that the pedestrians had no where to walk and if they did manage to move the vehicles and the rains gods ensured that no part of you remained untouched by water.
Despite all that I went on and with great difficultly I reached the place where I was supposed to drop my cheque and found it closed. Me foolishly thought that saket is a big place and there would be more places around where I could drop my cheque. So I got back to my cab and got my laptop and asked the guys to leave. And by that time my cell was completely discharged and poor me had to call up the AmEx guys through a PCO. I must say from very many past experiences that they take a lot less time that most of the Bank Call centers. However still that took me about 5 minutes to get all the details. And when I got the address of the next place to drop my cheque I realized that too was closed :( So I got all the drop box addresses in the five km radius and headed towards Savitri which happens to be a bit far away and in a direction quite opposite of where I stay. But before I left another piece of information that I extracted from the call center agent was that there existed an AmEx drop box right next to my office. But now that I was all wet and being the last date to submit without a fine I decided that I had to go for it & submit it. So I called for a few autos and I saw a practical implementation of something called differential pricing. The buggers had the balls to ask for 80 bucks for a less than five km ride. I said balls and got a hitch to the same place. Aha I said at least something is going my way.
Finally reached the place which was at least a km away from where it was supposed to be. But despite all that I reached and dropped the box and got an auto back home. While on the way was my PSU bank which had started this new feature where in you could drop your cheque into their drop box. I was so tired that I actually slept off on my way back ;) and narrowly missed my bank where I was to deposit my loan repayment dues. When I realized the thing I had the auto guy drive back and when I reached the bank I suddenly realized that I have the cheque but no pen. And to top it there was not a single soul around that place as the bank was situated right in the middle of Central Govt Offices where people are so very conscious of their work life balance. Fortunately my auto driver was literate and he had a pen to spare for me and I had the cheque deposited and happily headed back home. Next day I checked my ATM and it was lower by about the amount that I was to pay on account of my loan repayments.
All there was in my account was close to the amount that was required to pay for my credit card bills. But I just had to survive till the next pay cheque and nothing else. Wow man. Broke after a degree from IIMB. To top it off I had to make an investment of 13 grands to save tax and pay my telephone bills. Had two of my office buddies lend me the money for the investments and had Anjali pay the telephone bills and at last moment took 2 k loan from her ;)
I thought at least I had all my bills paid ;) And then came the funny part. The AmEx cheque came back cos I did not mention the date on it and the SBI returned all the money that had been debited from my account due to reasons I am yet to figure out. Call that luck man.
One thing i can say with reasonable amount of confidence is that i am perhaps one of the worst tax planners that you would find in the country. When i joined the company i did not declare any of my investments and as a results the TDS for me was one of the highest in the batch and consequently the take home was the lowest in the MT batch. To top all that i suddenly realised that I went on a spree of saving company money at my own expense. So today the company owes me close to 50 grands of money.
On top of all that I had a credit card bill of close to 32 grands (All official expenses for those of you who think I have left my miserly way of life). And on top of that i had to pay close to 11 grands on account of my educational loan repayment. I had kept it pending for quite a long time and so i decided to do something about it. However all my good intentions nothing came out of it and consequently it was the last date for the payment of my bills. That date fortunately or unfortunately happened to the day before the colourful festival of holi.
So I decided I should take my cheque book along so that on my way back from gurgaon i could stop by around Saket and drop my cheque. And while on my way back the weather took a turn for the worse and before I realised it was raining cats and dogs. And while i was heading towards saket i suddenly realised that i did not know the location of the drop box where i was supposed to drop my cheques. And when i located the AmEx telephone numbers i suddenly had the "LOW BATTERY" messages flashed across my cellphone screen. The last stick on the charge indicator was on and by the looks of it, it wasnt going to last long.
So i did the next best thing and got the cell of the guy next to me and called up the AmEx guys again and got the nearest location in Saket. Then i sentified my co-passengers to stop by near the drop box so that i could go ahead and drop the cheque. They relented and we headed to the location and my offical cab waited while my friendly colleagues waited fuming inside ;) It was raining bad and the roads were overflowing and there were vehicles all around. The net result was that the pedestrians had no where to walk and if they did manage to move the vehicles and the rains gods ensured that no part of you remained untouched by water.
Despite all that I went on and with great difficultly I reached the place where I was supposed to drop my cheque and found it closed. Me foolishly thought that saket is a big place and there would be more places around where I could drop my cheque. So I got back to my cab and got my laptop and asked the guys to leave. And by that time my cell was completely discharged and poor me had to call up the AmEx guys through a PCO. I must say from very many past experiences that they take a lot less time that most of the Bank Call centers. However still that took me about 5 minutes to get all the details. And when I got the address of the next place to drop my cheque I realized that too was closed :( So I got all the drop box addresses in the five km radius and headed towards Savitri which happens to be a bit far away and in a direction quite opposite of where I stay. But before I left another piece of information that I extracted from the call center agent was that there existed an AmEx drop box right next to my office. But now that I was all wet and being the last date to submit without a fine I decided that I had to go for it & submit it. So I called for a few autos and I saw a practical implementation of something called differential pricing. The buggers had the balls to ask for 80 bucks for a less than five km ride. I said balls and got a hitch to the same place. Aha I said at least something is going my way.
Finally reached the place which was at least a km away from where it was supposed to be. But despite all that I reached and dropped the box and got an auto back home. While on the way was my PSU bank which had started this new feature where in you could drop your cheque into their drop box. I was so tired that I actually slept off on my way back ;) and narrowly missed my bank where I was to deposit my loan repayment dues. When I realized the thing I had the auto guy drive back and when I reached the bank I suddenly realized that I have the cheque but no pen. And to top it there was not a single soul around that place as the bank was situated right in the middle of Central Govt Offices where people are so very conscious of their work life balance. Fortunately my auto driver was literate and he had a pen to spare for me and I had the cheque deposited and happily headed back home. Next day I checked my ATM and it was lower by about the amount that I was to pay on account of my loan repayments.
All there was in my account was close to the amount that was required to pay for my credit card bills. But I just had to survive till the next pay cheque and nothing else. Wow man. Broke after a degree from IIMB. To top it off I had to make an investment of 13 grands to save tax and pay my telephone bills. Had two of my office buddies lend me the money for the investments and had Anjali pay the telephone bills and at last moment took 2 k loan from her ;)
I thought at least I had all my bills paid ;) And then came the funny part. The AmEx cheque came back cos I did not mention the date on it and the SBI returned all the money that had been debited from my account due to reasons I am yet to figure out. Call that luck man.
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