Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER
With each new job I take on I have the pleasure of working with the most delightful people who just needs some help to get on top of things. It takes courage to let a stranger into your home and go through your dirty (literally) laundry. I always understand how vulnerable and exposed people feel, but I don’t judge, I understand, however, in this case it was hard.
I was contacted by a lady from a very affluent suburb in the east of Sydney who needed some help with her study room. I dropped by and could see how hard it was to keep the space tidy with a two-year-old in tow who was fixated on trashing the space by throwing the papers around and pulling everything off the shelves. She needed someone to come in and take control, she needed me to be ruthless for her.
This lady runs a business from her office and needed to be elsewhere while I was working, so she let me in and left me to it. As usual, I always approach a room working from left to right.
As I work and move around the room, I find that there are bags full of unopened mail everywhere. I collect and sort as I go making categorised piles on the floor, mail for her, mail for him. I start to learn about this couple. She is his second wife, much younger than he. When they met, he lived in Balmain and perhaps she in the east. The mail mainly consisted of letters from the Roads and Traffic Authority, they were fines for travelling through the Cross-City Tunnel with no E-tag!!! Hundreds of them, his and hers fine mail. Then more fines for not paying the fines! Then fines for the car not being registered! Or their licences had expired. Fines, fines, fines, fines, fines…it was not fine! I just can’t believe it, who would get a fine for not having an E-tag and A, not go immediately to Services NSW to get one, and B, not pay the fine?! Who, who who!!! Are there people out there who okay with $180 instead of $5.84? Amongst the papers were utilities bill reminders and credit card statements all exceedingly high by my standards.
I get through and tidy, returning the office to a functional place where things are in order. I head home and send her my invoice. I usually take cash or direct deposit. She responds with thank you and is seemingly happy with the result, a few days go by, no payment! I usually take cash or direct deposit. A week goes by, no payment!!! I send a reminder. Another week goes by. Of course, the client with a room full of unpaid bills and fines are going to be the ones to not pay me.
I’m annoyed but find a solution, they live on credit, so I need to give them the option to pay with credit, I reach out to her always polite and calm. BPAY lets me create a bill and she paid me immediately with her Platinum Amex card! I lose a bit for commission, but it was a good lesson learned.
Ruth Evatt
Ruthless Decluttering
m: 0419 147 427