My mother is right about another thing.

My mother always told me to be very nice to clerical staff. She said it's rarely their fault if things go wrong and they often know how to smooth the way.

Last summer, we were dead broke for a while- credit cards all maxed out, borrowing rent money from C's mom, really really glad about the extra fifty bucks Ryan and Amy gave us for the hotel room, because no one likes to chance running out of gas on highway 89. College broke. Except worse, because while I didn't have a job in college, I also didn't drop a k-plus on gasoline each month. Also car payments, student loans, hotel rooms in Bakersfield, apartment we couldn't really afford. Last summer can die in a fire.

The job was slow about reimbursing me. During the darkest days I suspected foul plots- in retrospect, I think I made a few errors in filling out the forms and the clerical division was understaffed. (I kept listing destinations that were not in their database. Also, most campgrounds don't give receipts.) It's hard to stare at the wreckage of your bank accounts and then go be pleasant to the person sorting out your travel. I tried to be pleasant, lord did I try.

It appears I succeeded, because the lovely woman who had me submit 36 lost receipt forms was at the conference, and she was delighted to see me. Also she now works for the most awesome database- I picked her brain, learned some of the problems they were having, and was actually able to make some suggestions! (Your problem will be totally fixed by entering the data I collected. Totally.) She's since sent me some plum state jobs- I don't know that I'm qualified, but I typically get a lot of overlap in jorb postings, so seeing new things is nice.

Yay Mom, ftw.