Last Thursday our water got shut off. Now, I'm not as stringent about my own personal bills but when it comes to utilities I pay the bills as soon as they come through the door. Confused, I go back through my bill stubs and realized I never got a bill for March. Okay, whatever, I screwed up. I go down to the water company on Friday to get the water turned back on, only to find out... the water's not off! It's just not in my name anymore.
...wait, what?
Apparently at the end of January construction workers moved in a couple of apartments down and were going to have their company pay for utilities, except they put down my apartment number instead of their own. I thought I had just overlooked one water bill in March, but it turned out I hadn't paid since January. The Feburary "bill" was actually a zero balance. I remembered that but I didn't think anything of it, because I've overpaid my water bill and gotten zero balance bills before.
So the water company tells me everything's switched back into my name and the water's on again. Yay! I go home to take a long-overdue shower only to find out ... no, water's most definitely not on. I contact the apartment maintenance team after calling the water company again, they say the water's on. I say it's not. Maintenance guy says it's not on. Takes a bill stub and checks the meter, then calls the water company and argues with them about it. Turns out that they turned the water back on in the vacated construction worker's apartment, so the maintenance man gets the water turned off in the correct apartment and gets mine turned back on.
I will admit a good portion of this could have been avoided if I'd noticed I hadn't gotten a water bill in March, but I'll be honest - I have a lot of bills, and most of them I pay as they come through the mail box. So I screwed up in that respect - that does NOT excuse the fact that the utilities (both electricity AND water!) were transfered out of my name without ANY notification.
Is that normal? Because I'm still new to this living-on-my-own thing and it absolutely galls me that anyone can call up and get my utilities just transfered out of my name if they so please. I'll take the responsibility for my screw-up and pay the bill without complaint, but I'm severely irked about the change of responsibility.
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The other instance of severe bad suckage happened at a local DQ. It was the morning rush and this DQ only has one drive-thru window, no "pay at the 1st window and get food at the 2nd window." The car in front of me had a huge order, so by the time I pull up they snap my total. I hand over a five and they shove my drink and food out the window and shut it. Without thinking I drive off because I'm thinking "I'm gonna be late, this took longer than expected." Later on, at work, I realized that they didn't give me any change - and I was due a dollar and a half back.
Gah. Ah well, just like with the water company. Live and learn experience.