When I was in the job hunt, there remained the spectre of a job possibility that haunted me. I knew that there was a job waiting for me if I would just take it. I feared, however, that it would ultimately be another OmniStar, where I wouldn't be able to stay for any prolonged period of time for ethical reasons.

Debt collections.

I have nothing against debt collection per se. Someone has to do it. My neighbor at the Bickford Barrios apartment in Houston was particularly good at it. I've always been a debt hawk and a believer that unless it keeps you out of the rain or comes with four wheels and an engine, you never spend money you don't have. So I'm sympathetic that the companies want their money back (and then some).

But I don't like debt collecting tactics. I know this not because I've declined to give people money for services and/or goods rendered, but because I haven't and it doesn't seem to make any difference.

On my birthday a couple of years back, I got an eviction notice. I had three days to leave the premises because I hadn't paid my bill. Never having recieved an eviction notice, I thought that it was a pretty big deal. Apparently, they hand them out like candy. I got three while I was at that apartment. The first because they changed their accounting system without my knowledge and my checks were no longer valid because I was not the "primary renter" (Danforth was). The second was after we put it on automatic payment, but they forgot to do it. The third was when, the next month, they forgot to do it again. Each time I was effectively kicked out until I cleared up their screw-up. It wasn't about actually getting kicked out; it was about scaring the living heck out of me whether I'd done anything wrong or not.

Debt collection, I've learned, works in much the same way.

Right before I left OmniStar, a very dear jacket was stolen. A couple of days later I realized that the jacket had my checkbook in it. Since I needed to move my account up here, it was easy enough to switch banks and cancel the account.

A couple of weeks later, a check was written on my checkbook for $60 worth of pizza. The pizza chain turned it over to the credit bureau, who kindly contacted me about it. Well, they actually contacted my parents because that's the address on the account. I can hardly fault them for that because they didn't know that I had cancelled the account and that it was forged. They said I had a month to reply and I did, explaining the situation.

With one hand, they wrote me back telling me that I needed to go to the police station and file an affadavit of forgery. Simple enough. But with the other hand, they wrote me another letter telling me that I was a deadbeat whose credit record was going to be shot all to hell if I didn't pay them pronto.

Mom recieved the letter and, scared to death, called them about it. They told her that yes, they'd recieved my letter. They could tell it was a forgery (the forger's sig doesn't even remotely resemble my own). But the hand sending the nasty letters doesn't care what the hand that is actually taking care of the problem. The entity itself has apparently made a decision that it's easy just to send everyone scary lessons and letting the chips fall where they may rather than actually taking into account the circumstances that I'm sure they deal with on a regular basis.

I understand that there are people that they need to extract money from.

I just wish that they'd understand that I'm not one of them.

Scratch that cause they do understand. I just wish they'd care.