Saturday, September 10, 2016

Changes

I keep a to-do list on my Google calendar. It gives me the feeling that I'm halfway in control of my life.

And the longer the list gets, the more valuable I feel my time is. When I get over a half dozen things on the list, my focus becomes intense. Until I at least get the priorities out of the way.

But yesterday, while having an early breakfast because I wanted to get a jump start on things - the fraud department at my bank calls.

They wanted to discuss several transactions to see if I had made them. There were about a dozen of them, none of which I had made. I Googled the company name where the charges were made. And it took me to a video gaming website.

I called them but no answer. I also tried getting help on their site. But there was no help button. I started to wonder who I knew who played video games and few came up - mostly grandkids. And I didn't want to believe that anyone close to me would buy something without my permission. Or even had access to my card number.

Anyway, to keep this short, my bank said they were freezing the card unless I could tell them those were my transactions. And that they would reverse them if they weren't mine.

finally, after being on the phone with them for half an hour, I get to my office. When I open my computer I find that from the time I left home ten minutes earlier there were now almost 20 transactions. Somebody was having fun with my card for sure.

Anyway, because I spend a lot of time preaching patience I had a chance to get some practice yesterday.

I was still able to meet all my deadlines in spite of the time I wasted on the phone. And while I often say that change is all we can expect in life I understand others' frustrations when changes upset all our good planning.