View source for 2002-10-23 email to Tigger

{{datecat|2002-10-23}}
[[category:Tigger]]
[[category:Griever]]
[[category:Red House]]
[[category:Athens]]
==Notes==
This is part of an email from [[Woozle]] to [[Tigger]] on {{l/date|2002-10-23}}.
==Excerpt==
Background, part one: there are all these leftover tents and stuff in the back 
yard at [[Red House]] (which is now painted green, actually... and Mr. W.B.'s 
bathroom mural is now painted white), left there by former occupants of the 
"[[Tipi Village]]". The Tipi Village was started during Brian Pope's tenancy, but of 
the 5 "problem areas" I'm aware of, only one of them dates from that era. That 
one, along with two others, I consider to be L&B's responsibility -- the first 
one they bought from Brian Pope, and the other two of those 3 were set up either 
by them or at their direction. The remaining two (of the total five) were set up 
by/for Frank Owens, who originally moved there during BP's tenancy, although 
they were set up after I started working there (I don't remember if it was 
before, during, or after Dan's brief "official" tenancy).

Background, part two: as part of the effort to make RH rentable (at $650/month 
with storage shed), Livia (at owner RBW's request) is having these messes 
disposed of. The Grievers are taking care of _some_ of it, but it's not clear 
that they're willing to take care of completely cleaning up all 3 of the sites I 
consider theirs. Livia was going to check into that. But in any case, at the 
very least the other two sites were remaining, and she got an estimate for 
having them removed (since she doesn't have time or truck) which came in at $900+.

Background, part three: [[Rebekah]] was talking at one point (perhaps more) about 
holding me responsible for the mess and suing me to have it removed. I'm pretty 
certain she has not a leg to stand on, so I'm not so much worried about it as I 
am P.O.ed at her for trying to foist off her problems and bully me (and Livia) 
into shouldering the burden of the cleanup when she could have had much more 
help from us and the Grievers if she had instead been pleasant about it.

[ ... ]

My issues:

One, I don't think she should be paying to have the back yard cleaned up. I kept 
coming back to this point, but in stolid Livialike fashion she kept saying "but 
if I did this and that and that then it could Just Get Done...". So I don't 
think I got through on this point.

[ ... ]

Anyway, that's _that_ issue.

The one I originally wanted to write about was the Grievers.

For awhile, Lynne was using the Red House check card to make purchases and then 
putting deposits in to cover them. This was originally done with my consent 
because they had helped cover some orders.

I had asked that she please send me an accounting, after each batch of 
transactions, listing the amounts debited (and preferably listing the payees) 
and deposited so I could keep our records in synch. I think maybe after the 
first one or two batches I was able to get her to send me these accountings -- 
though I also seem to recall it was a bit like pulling teeth. No more since then.

Then I got some windfall cash (long story... it wasn't even mine, just a 
postponed repayment of a loan, really) right around the time the RH was 
burglarized -- and in the rush of dealing with all the excess headache of moving 
stuff and getting set up at Hull Road while also keeping business flowing, I 
didn't have time to keep up with the bank balance and all the details of debits 
and withdrawals and such, so when cash got low I would just deposit some more of 
my windfall.

I was stunned to find out several weeks later that I had put $3000 into the Red 
House bank account and it had simply vanished. For complicated reasons, I 
couldn't stop everything and figure out where it went right then -- but a month 
or so later, Lynne started making noises about RH owing them some money, so I 
did a reconciliation starting on July 1 to see if they'd put in more than they'd 
taken out and if so how much. Turned out they were pretty close to being even -- 
though they hadn't always kept current, at that particular moment they were 
maybe $3 in debt to RH. Not worth worrying about.

I said as much to Lynne, and she said _her_ records indicated RH owed them 
several hundred. So I left her with a copy of my figurings on a printout and 
asked her to look at it and tell me where it disagreed with her figurings.

Several weeks (I think) go by, and she starts saying that we "really need to 
talk" about her figures so we can "get this whole thing straightened out". I try 
to insist that she should just send me her figures -- or else a list of which of 
my figures she disagrees with -- and we'll take it from there, but she makes a 
huge fuss about how that would take HOURS and HOURS to type in and if we could 
just sit down for a FEW MINUTES we could have the whole thing worked out, and 
how could I possibly think of making her take hours and hours when all I have to 
do is just sit down with her for those few minutes?

We got into a huge email argument about how I didn't feel comfortable just 
sitting down and I was really going to have to insist on seeing things written 
down... I may have forwarded you some of that... but basically I don't seem to 
have been able to have any effect on her position.

Then, a little while later, I was in NC and B & I were getting ready to place an 
order for merchandise -- my calculations showed that, as long as Lynne was going 
to make a deposit to cover the few small incoming debits I was seeing (somewhere 
in the $50-$100 range), there would be enough for the order. I asked Bubba to 
check with Lynne to see if our figurings agreed, and to please let me know by 1 
pm so I could handle it a different way if we didn't agree.

As it happened, Lynne was on the phone, and I was going out... he said he would 
let her know that I needed to know by 1 pm. And so I went out on my errands.

When I got back around 3 pm, I asked B what the situation was. He said he was 
just about to place the order -- from which one could only assume (right?) that 
he had checked with Lynne and she had agreed to make a deposit to cover the 
debits. (Note that this was long after Lynne had said she would stop making 
debits because we needed to have a "settling down" period before they could open 
their own business account so they could use their own check card instead of 
RH's...)

I think the first hint of trouble was when our supplier (with whom the order had 
been placed) called and left a message... Suspecting the worst, I checked the 
balance online to see if maybe the deposit hadn't made it in time -- and found 
not a deposit but an outgoing check (i.e. a check written from RH) for $350, 
bringing the balance down wayyy below $0 (and incurring lots of fun $30 NSFs in 
the process).

So then I go refiguring the situation and work out that [[RDA]] now owes something 
like $500 (original $100 of debits, plus $350, plus some other new ones). I'm 
immediately furious at Lynne, because this seems quite clearly over the line, 
and I send [[2002-09-26 SvsG emails#10:23 from Nick|email]] saying no more check card usage (except for Bubba placing orders for vbz, pre-approved by me) and no more checks. (This, at least, seems to have worked so far.)

And I send the latest version of the spreadsheet.

Lynne (and B too, though it later becomes apparent he's just repeating what she 
told him) comes back with something about how _her_ figuring shows that RH owes 
_them_ something like $1000, and how she always put in money to cover the money 
she spent.

Mystified as to where this $1500 discrepancy could have come from, I figure the 
spreadsheet back to June 1 and find that they owe me even more -- like another 
$800 or so. I then make a rough calculation of what their share of sales should 
be, in case they were counting that -- nothing there; they lost about $200 
(mostly unsold merchandise).

In fact, my figures showed that if it hadn't been for RDA's debits, there would 
have been about $800 in the account -- a reasonable amount to operate on. 
Instead, I'm left with a negative balance and can't place orders...

Again, I insist that she needs to show me her figures; again, she insists that 
it would take too long... it might have been at around this time that she 
suggested that if I couldn't remember all the details of a face-to-face 
conversation that I should record the conversation, transcribe it, and email it 
to myself...

Now, having been down in [[Athens]] twice now (most recently for almost a week), 
this conversation which we desperately need to have still hasn't happened -- 
even though I made it plain I was waiting for her to let me know when she was ready.

So... what I was originally going to pose to you was this: Is it not the 
responsibility of an individual or (especially) a business, in the event they 
believe something is owed to them, to be able to produce a list of the items for 
which they believe they are owed, with individual amounts and a final total? 
And, in the event that someone (call this Party B) claims that the 
aforementioned individual or business (e.g. the Grievers or the RDA -- call them 
Party A) owes _them_ (B) money and can produce an itemized statement with 
individual amounts and a final total, is it not the responsibility of Party A to 
examine Party B's statement themselves and draw attention to those items with 
which they may not agree?

It seems to me that their insistence I need to "sit down with [them] 
face-to-face" and work it all out amounts to my holding their hand while they 
get their facts straight.

I was thinking that when Lynne finally said it was time to sit down, what I 
would do as we were going over the line items is type up a spreadsheet of the 
amounts being discussed -- the exact same spreadsheet which Lynne was claiming 
was far too difficult for her to create -- and show them exactly what I was 
asking for, while producing it at the same time so that it would be a moot point.

But we couldn't even get to the point of doing that.

So what the heck do I do next? I start thinking of things like formatting the 
spreadsheet as a bill and sending it to them via registered mail, so that their 
acceptance of it becomes legally binding or something -- but when one gets to 
that point, it seems like the real thing to do is talk to a lawyer and find out 
if that's really the thing to do.