Friday 3 January 2014

The Negative Ripple Effect

Part of the problem of being me is that I genuinely see multiple points of view at the same time. I am not sure if this is what (I hope) makes me a better writer or if I have developed this because I am a writer.

My roommate was supposed to pay rent yesterday and, well, he didn’t.  He said it was something about the bus being too late to get to the office to pick up his pay. On one hand, I get it, stuff happens. On the other hand; this is not my problem.

I have been living at this townhouse for over two years, and in all that time I have paid my rent early, at least a week early. If I pay my rent late, I get the same treatment as anyone else. On the second of the month I get slapped with a fifty dollar late fee. On the seventh I get an eviction notice.

I understand that they do this not only because they have better things to do than to chase every tenant around for their rent but because they genuinely need the money in the account on the first. They have to pay the mortgage on the whole townhouse development, I get it.

The trouble with the roommate not paying me when he had told me he would is that I had trusted him that he would.  His failure to pay me has made me look bad. (Rather my reliance on him to pay me has made me look bad).

I had made arrangements with the storage company to pay off a small portion of the bill for the first six months of storage today, this afternoon. 

I had hoped to deposit the money in the account and pay them off in full and prepay the cost of moving the bed this month, as a thank you and a goodwill gesture.

I like to equate it to your paycheque. Imagine if your boss came to you on your expected payday and said, “I didn’t get around to running payroll, maybe tomorrow.”  (My heart goes out to those people that this has happened to).

You would understandably freak out, because you need to get paid when it is understood that you are to be paid.

You need that money not because you want to go to the bar and get drunk, but because you have your own bills to pay, your own obligations to meet.

Those obligations are contingent and reliant on you getting paid when you are supposed to. The same is true for your creditors, whoever they are.

Now I have had to email them and let them know that I will pay the bill on Saturday when I go down there to rearrange the stuff in storage and pack in tighter and better. I want to make room for the bedroom furniture before it arrives. (What the heck I have to make a special trip down there anyways).

Back to roommate, while I understand that at his age rules and deadlines seem like guidelines, negotiable and not to be taken seriously. As we get older and get slapped with a few late fees and other penalties we learn that they are not an in our best interest to make sure that we pay our bills on time and in full.

I trust that he will pay me tonight as he said he would but I am now mulling if I should slap him with the same fifty dollar late fee. I probably won’t as this is the last time he is paying rent.

We are moving out this month and I am somehow doubtful he will pay his share of utilities at the end of the month. (I bill utilities in arrears so as to only charge roommate his share of what he actually used.)

If he somehow doesn’t get his pay I will simply inform him that if I am not paid by the seventh, I will be changing the locks on the eighth and he can arrange to pick up his stuff. 

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