Earlier this week, I got a letter from the real estate property that I rent my flat from informing them I owed them around $450 from last month still.
A couple of things surprised me about this. Not the least was I had paid my rent in full. But what I really liked was the little creative writing exercise that was undertaken while drafting the letter.
After the blunt “You owe us the moolah” was the line “think of this as a friendly reminder”. Oh OK, I’m now relaxed and getting over the shock that I may now have to find a sizable amount of money to pay something I’m pretty sure I’ve already paid so don’t have in my budget. It’s a friendly reminder. No stress.
Unfortunately, I didn’t stop reading there. Two sentences later was the line “if you don’t resolve this in the next few days we’ll start eviction proceedings.”
Hmmm. Sooooo friendly.
It’s kind of like a loan shark who you owe money too, giving you a friendly reminder to stretch after exercises because you really need to look after your knees.
Anyway, it only took a couple of emails and a phone call to sort it out. After all I had deposited the money in their account almost two weeks earlier. Then my loan shark real estate agent sent an apologetic email which (and I’m NOT summarising here) said; “OK, we have credited that amount to your account.”
Honestly, it was so laden with regret, how could I stay mad? I’m not sure, but I managed it. After all, it’s not everyday someone threatens to make me homeless. I managed to send a highly retrained email along the lines of “What the hell happened?”
I got back a slightly longer email, mentioning technical problems, blaming IT people and the promises that it would be looked in to. I think they even attempted to apologise. It’s hard to tell cause there was only one typo in the email. It was in the line that read “We are spry for any inconvenience.”
I don’t think they’re used to using the word “sorry”. I shouldn’t be surprised. After all they real estate agents, not loan sharks…
Mr Sketchy 