Tentatively Tasmanian

Way back in 1989, the “recession we had to have” was in full swing and as a newly-graduated non-expert in English Literature and Roman Art and Archaeology, the ANZ bank decided that I was a good bet for recruiting as a loans officer/graduate trainee at their bank. I was just grateful to have a job.

Cheques – remember how we would automatically receive a cheque book when opening up a savings account – took three days to clear. We used to write debits and credits on actual paper slips, bundle them after closing and they would be collected by a courier for the back office wallahs to pair up and process. That three days was needed.

It’s now 2023, and $5 is instantly whipped out of my bank account when I swish my phone over the cash point thingy to pay for a coffee. The app on our phones means my husband and I automatically receive a notification of anything spent, so I know when he’s having a Char Kway Teow for lunch and he knows if I’m browsing too long in the Reject Shop. It also means that if you want to sneak around without your other half knowing your business, it should all be done via bartering, sign language and cold hard cash.

Larger amounts too take nano-seconds. The accountant finished our tax returns at 9am this morning, and as soon as we had both e-signed the documents, a bit over $1000 speedily sprinted out of our savings account a few minutes later. That’s technology for you.

We sold our apartment in France a week ago. Don’t worry, there is a tenuous connection with the witterings above.

Before we left France to return to Australia six weeks ago, we gave the notaire the power of attorney to sign all mortgage release documents, transfer details etc on our behalf. “Don’t worry, we won’t run away with your money,” she joked at the time.

Now, a week after the official settlement date with added roadblocks of the Bastille Day holiday, the weekend and banks never being open in France on a Monday, I’m ever so slightly keen to know just where THE PHUCC our money is. Our lovely old French neighbours have already sent us a photo of the new owners who have placed a sign apologising for the noise and disruption that might happen when they move in later this week, so we know that the sale did happen.

So whilst we can swish our phone over a pin machine and $5 is instantly taken to pay for coffee, or $1000 for tax returns, it is has been EIGHT DAYS since the settlement and the cash still has not appeared in our account.

Sure, we all know there have to be rigorous checks and balances and accounting blah-de-blah, but we live in a world of computers, electronica, AI, instant change, automatic notifications and google sending us SMSes about all sorts of suspicious log ins (sorry, only me, on the bus in a different suburb) or malware. So just WHERE does the money go for eight days? Computers don’t take national holidays, the weekend or Mondays off, surely?

Someone somewhere is earning a sneaky bit of interest when our ‘funds’ are being ‘processed’ for over a week. It’s not 1989 with paper batching, reconciliation by hand and peering at the faded computer dot matrix print outs that arrived in enormous plastic binders the following morning.

Being on the other hemisphere is another challenge. I rang on the dot of 4:30pm which is 8:30am bank time in Ferney-Voltaire. They already have Mondays off, but someone had not switched the message machine over, so I heard a bit of pan pipe music with an occasional person telling me to visit the website in French for twenty minutes before someone strolled in with their café et croissant, turned on the lights and changed it to ‘we are now open and your call is important to us.’ No, I’m not translating that into the Francaise originale.

When I did get through to a human, he tried to transfer me to our ‘client services’ officer and let it ring, ring, ring out for ten minutes before clicking back to me and saying, “I don’t think ‘e is ‘ere yet. Can you call again in five minutes?”

OF COURSE. It’s only Australia and our money and your client officer can’t be bothered turning up on time, but sure, I’ll call FRANCE again in five minutes.

Which I did.

“Sorry madame, ‘e is in a meeting. Can you call back after one ‘our?”

I politely demurred, explaining that I was told to call back in five minutes, which I had done and now I wanted the client officer to call ME back, on my Australian number because it was URGE—–

The phone cut out. No idea why.

I redialled. A different human being answered, dutifully said that the client officer was in a meeting and could I please call back in—

“No, sorry I can’t. I am in Australia and we are wondering just where OUR MONEY is that should have been banked there a week ago.”

The girl took down my Australian mobile number and said that he would call me back. Strangely enough, I did not quite believe that this would occur.

An hour went by. No call.

Dear reader, there are times to just be patient and there are times to be the noisy mosquito who plagues you in your bedroom at 2am with a whining bzzz bzzz zzz. An hour-long meeting; just who was he talking to in a town of 8,000 people, the local Elon Musk (or Elön Musque)?

I phoned again.

The same girl answered. When she heard my accent and my request for the client services officer, she did not seem quite so friendly.

“I explained you ‘e is in a meeting.”

“Still?”

“Yes.”

“And can we just go through my number again to make sure it is corre—-”

—click—

Should I be worried now?