two tubes of toothpaste and a calender

Today was bill-paying day. I am still a little tight on cash because my paycheck yesterday was pretty small since I had the vacation at the beginning of October. I still haven't gotten used to getting paid only once a month. I'm just not that good at planning and budgeting, but I'm getting used to it.

I had to go to the bank and pay my bills. One thing I love about Korea is that I can pay all my bills using an ATM machine. That is incredibly convenient. I just go to the bank, hand my bills to the security guard, because I haven't quite figured out have to navigate the Korean instructions on the ATM, and he pays all my bills at once.

While I was waiting for the security guard to take care of my bills for me, the teller comes over and says "Hey, I have to talk to you about a transfer you made two months ago."

A couple months ago there was a problem with a transfer I made back to the States. I keep my receipts from all my transfers, and just bring them in when I want to make a new transfer. That way we can just copy the information from the old one, instead of going through the long process of routing numbers, and accounts numbers, every time I transfer. Two months ago I did the exact same thing I do every time. The problem was that my bank never got the money.

When it happened I went to my bank here, and they told me that for some reason my bank in the States rejected it. So, I asked my bank back in the States why they rejected it, and they told me that the Korean bank never put the transfer through. I went back to my bank here and told them they didn't send it through, and they tried again, and of course, the transfer went through.

My bank here tried to tell me that the reason my bank rejected it, which they never did, was because I didn't use my middle initial when I signed the transfer. I brought this up with my bank, and was told they would not reject my transfer just because I didn't use my middle initial. So, I was basically told by both banks that it was the other banks fault.

I'm inclined to believe that it was the Korean banks fault and that they didn't actually send the transfer the first time. Then, when they realized they fucked it up, they had to come up with some excuse to absolve themselves of any fault. This is important in Korean culture, it's called saving face. Nothing that goes wrong could possibly be their fault, there must be someone else to blame. I don't think my bank has any reason to lie to me.

So, anyways, the teller tells me that he has to talk to me about that. Because they had to redo the transfer, they have to charge me 8,000 won (about $6USD). He even admitted that it was not my fault, he kept trying to blame it on my bank in the US. He apologized about 20 times, not admitting any fault of course, just apologizing because he had to charge me the fucking 8,000 won for their fuck-up.

Then, to attempt to continue in his face-saving, he gave me a free calender and two tubes of free toothpaste. I now have my very own Shinahn Bank brand toothpaste. A fucking bank that gives away toothpaste?? Very strange indeed.

That's all I got tonight, that was my day. I'd been wanting to go out and buy a calender, but now I don't, so I guess it's okay.