Call Waiting

The SacTownGuy HATES call waiting. It seems like deja vu as I think about this so if I have already blogged about it… tough s’… you can read it again. I just don’t like call waiting. I am not a huge fan of cell phones either but we can talk about that another day. So, I was talking to this highly annoying client (engineer & do-it-yourselfer type) today. I should say I inadvertently pissed him off at our first meeting when he was proudly talking about how he and his wife both drive Porsche’s; her a Cayenne and him a Boxster. I innocently said something like, “one day I will get a Porsche but it has to be a Carrera….” He replied something like “well ladi-dadi for you… a Carrera….” I knew I hit a soft spot since he has a soft car and I wanted the real deal. I mean seriously, a Boxster is not a Porsche. It’s no more a Porsche than Suess’ 924 back in college. It’s a souped up V-dub and if you didn’t know that then you know it now! Boxsters simply suck. If I ever try to satisfy by Porsche craving with a Boxster please shoot me. However, that’s not the point of this post.

So today I am talking to Mr. Boxster as he hasn’t signed his trusts since we first met a year ago and thus he and his wife are unprotected from an estate planning side and they have needs both financially and his kids/her kids. I am explaining why my trusts are written the way they are and why they are better than an on-line form trust and why he should not try to do it himself and why his father’s will from 40 years ago was only 1 or 2 pages is irrelevant to estate planning in 2008. I finally said in a strong but semi-friendly voice, “I will give you two choices: 1) I will block off 2 hours and we can sit down and go paragraph by paragraph through every document so that you can understand them to your satisfaction or 2) since you are a referral from a good referral source I will put away your file for good and wipe off all time spent.” He owes me about $2,500 for two trusts but I would wipe it away to be done with him.

Speaking of two trusts, I should also add that he is getting two trusts even though I explained 5 different ways that one trust would satisfy their needs as the second trust was only going to receive a small asset which could easily be dealt with in a single husband and wife trust without changing the characterization of the asset as separate property. So what did he tell me yesterday? “Why do we need the second trust? Can’t I set that one asset up in some other way to make this simpler and avoid the second trust?”

Ok, so I finally got him to agree to the meeting and as we are confirming the time his call waiting clicks in and he starts to say, “ok, I gotta go my other line is rining….” I am trying to give him my address for my other office since we haven’t met there before but he says, “ok, see you in a couple weeks… [click].” You know what, I DO NOT GIVE A FLYING F’ IF YOUR OTHER PHONE IS RINGING. FINISH THIS F’ING PHONE CALL AND THEN DEAL WITH THE OTHER F’ING PHONE CALL! If it’s that f’ing important the other caller will call back. Plus, what are the odds somebody important is calling you? It’s probably just a telemarketer and you are the kind of guy that probably engage the telemarketer with comments that you think are witty that are in that email that has gone around the world 5,000 times about how to respond to a telemarketer. They are remotely funny but why waste the time? Just say, “no thank you” and hang up. Back to the point at hand though, call waiting sucks. Seriously, is it just me or is call waiting the ulimate slam. It’s basically an excuse to say, “someone better might be calling on the other line so I got to hang up with you.”

Ok, now my grandma, GG, pulls this on me just about every time I call her. She is 92 so can do whatever she wants! This asshole is retired and just sitting around his house thinking he has a cool car; note: HE DOES NOT. I am not going to call him back though because the thought of talking to him again sounds awful. Plus there is a 50% chance he will cancel his meeting at which time I will advise him that I am putting his file away for good.

Anyway, that’s all I got to say for today on call waiting and semi-related topics.

Picture of REAL Porsche below; black, hardtop, Carrera. Not a V-dub with Porsche logo.

peace out.