: Flirting :
Being a girl certainly has some perks to it. Today I took advantage of one of them, probably for the first time - I flirted with a man to get something I wanted.
The story began on Tuesday, which was payday, and only my second since starting work. I'm still trying to get paid for my freelance work this summer - one of the hassles of being a freelancer is hunting down your paychecks. So I set up my direct deposit to put the money in one of my two checking accounts (I have two checking accounts and a savings account, I'll explain why in a minute). After the money showed up in my account, I immediately transferred the bulk of it to my other checking account.
The reason for this is that I don't want to keep a lot of money in any account where another entity (in this case, my employer) has access to the account. Setting up a direct deposit service means that funds can also be taken out of the account if there's an overpayment. By limiting the funds in that "public" account, I can avoid having money taken out "by mistake" through this direct deposit relationship. It might sound paranoid, but my old boss Pam had this happen to her, where the payroll provider actually took money back out of her account. That sort of thing gives me the heebie-jeebies - I don't like other people touching my money. Also, I only keep enough money in the "private" checking account to pay my bills, and I keep the bulk of my money in my savings account because I earn the most interest there.
So what happened is that I wrote a check from the wrong account to pay my rent, and I got charged $30 for insufficient funds in the account, and another $30 for an overdraft fee. For a variety of reasons, I didn't think I was entirely at fault, so at lunchtime I walked to the bank branch near my office in New York. I'd dealt with the manager there last week to get a new ATM card - his name is David Lee, which must be among the five most common names in the world.
I went in and explained my situation, and I asked him to take both charges off. He said, somewhat jokingly, "For you, Michelle, anything!" While I would say that I've always been persuasive (especially in the field of consumerism), I could tell that there was some flirting happening on both sides. We talked about the weather, life in Manhattan, and his desire to visit a friend in Hawaii. I gave him my business card and explained what my company does, and he gave me his card with the bank's back-door phone number on it.
I've always felt that you get a lot further in the world with kindness than intimidation, and now I'm finding that a little flirting can help grease the skids too. Not that I'm ever going to be anyone's idea of a femme fatale, like the women in Frank Miller's Sin City, which I've just finished reading the entire seven-book series. I'll probably never even be as bold as my friend Joanna, who once got free convention tickets by flashing some cleavage to the right person (even though she's actually one of the most modest girls I know) but it's nice to know I have enough sex appeal to get some bank charges refunded.
The story began on Tuesday, which was payday, and only my second since starting work. I'm still trying to get paid for my freelance work this summer - one of the hassles of being a freelancer is hunting down your paychecks. So I set up my direct deposit to put the money in one of my two checking accounts (I have two checking accounts and a savings account, I'll explain why in a minute). After the money showed up in my account, I immediately transferred the bulk of it to my other checking account.
The reason for this is that I don't want to keep a lot of money in any account where another entity (in this case, my employer) has access to the account. Setting up a direct deposit service means that funds can also be taken out of the account if there's an overpayment. By limiting the funds in that "public" account, I can avoid having money taken out "by mistake" through this direct deposit relationship. It might sound paranoid, but my old boss Pam had this happen to her, where the payroll provider actually took money back out of her account. That sort of thing gives me the heebie-jeebies - I don't like other people touching my money. Also, I only keep enough money in the "private" checking account to pay my bills, and I keep the bulk of my money in my savings account because I earn the most interest there.
So what happened is that I wrote a check from the wrong account to pay my rent, and I got charged $30 for insufficient funds in the account, and another $30 for an overdraft fee. For a variety of reasons, I didn't think I was entirely at fault, so at lunchtime I walked to the bank branch near my office in New York. I'd dealt with the manager there last week to get a new ATM card - his name is David Lee, which must be among the five most common names in the world.
I went in and explained my situation, and I asked him to take both charges off. He said, somewhat jokingly, "For you, Michelle, anything!" While I would say that I've always been persuasive (especially in the field of consumerism), I could tell that there was some flirting happening on both sides. We talked about the weather, life in Manhattan, and his desire to visit a friend in Hawaii. I gave him my business card and explained what my company does, and he gave me his card with the bank's back-door phone number on it.
I've always felt that you get a lot further in the world with kindness than intimidation, and now I'm finding that a little flirting can help grease the skids too. Not that I'm ever going to be anyone's idea of a femme fatale, like the women in Frank Miller's Sin City, which I've just finished reading the entire seven-book series. I'll probably never even be as bold as my friend Joanna, who once got free convention tickets by flashing some cleavage to the right person (even though she's actually one of the most modest girls I know) but it's nice to know I have enough sex appeal to get some bank charges refunded.
