student loans

yesterday i called to set up autowithdraw on one of my student loans. it took like 5 minutes after i completed my holding penance for having taken out loans in the first place. so i call back to clarify some dates and they have no record of my payment. this is spaz time. the operator tells me i have 2 accounts. the associate i get connected with tells me i have 1 account then starts to threaten me subtley about making notations on my account if i'm not going to be cooperative. i don't know exactly what that means, but by that point i was fairly certain someone at the department of education had direct deposited money from my checking account into someone else's loans. i then asked for the original guy i talked to by name and with the number he gave me. she tells me to hold, then comes back a moment later and hautily tells me she got put on hold, as though i had given her a fake number, and resumes the threats about noting me as hostile. hostile is only the tip of the iceberg of how it feels to have my banking information lost to a guy no one can find in an enormous federal call center. i aks for someone higher up. the higher up suggests i stop payment at my bank. somehow i don't think stopping payment on a federal loan is a great idea, but it does sound a bit nicer than paying someone else's loans. i thank her for being so understanding, hang up, and call back the original number that got me into this mess. a very polite associate eventually gets on the line after another round of penance holding, and tells me no problem, i'll connect you with john, the guy at that extension. i hold for like 10mins and magically he is on the line, looks up my file, apologises for mistyping and fixes everything. now i get to call back after the first payment clears in 2 weeks and make sure my account got credited.

that was an emotional rollercoaster ride i didn't need. william is awake, laters.