Comment by RupertSalt | Hacker News Reader

Comment by RupertSalt | Hacker News Reader

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Have you routinely received letters or bills from bureaucrats?

I can tell you that those banks, government agencies, and hospitals know how to backdate letters, postmark them like clockwork, and land in my mailbox on a Friday at close of business on a 3-day weekend, just to jam us up and narrow any deadline that may exist.

Even a hand-delivered notice from the landlady shows up at 6:01pm when the office is already closed. I guarantee that you will be helpless to respond in a timely fashion.

It has been suggested that "bankers hours" and 9-5 office hours were originated specifically to jam up the working man, who needed to be in the mines or on the factory floor during those hours. If a bank actually wanted to serve working people, they would be open on weekends. Traditionally it was not something your wife or kids could proxy, if they did not drive or have authorization, but the single working man was doubly screwed in these situations.

This year I also have the experience of very premature "billing notices" sent to my email and text and every other place, where the bureaucrats are counting on impatience to pay a bill far too early, before it is due, luring you in with ambiguous wording. People today are warning "do not comply in advance" and I am observing this maxim with health care billing in particular.

I'm confused, are you upset about receiving letters that don't give you enough time to act, or that give you too much time to act?

yes

It's squeezing from both ends.

If a bureaucracy sends out a thing that requires followup/action, and it arrives right before the sidewalks are rolled up, then the citizen is sort of flailing for days. Might even forget to act at 9am on Tuesday. Government websites include a lot of scheduled maintenance. Also, that letter they wrote will be dated at least 10 days before you received it. I carefully staple all correspondence to the envelope with postmarks.

If someone induces me to pay a bill 60-90 days early, that is my loss and their gain. Money in my bank is working for me, available, perhaps earning interest. Money in their bank is sunk. For this reason and others, it can be an error to pay your bills too early.

I recently ordered on Christmas Day from a catalog. They charged my card right away. They still haven't delivered some of the items. Vendors shouldn't be taking your payment until the stuff is shipped. Businesses won't pay invoices until the goods/services are received and verified!

As I said, bureaucracies run like clockwork, and they will always act at the right time and date. It will disadvantage the best of us.

Any office worker knows the difference in character between the email that arrived at 9am on Monday, vs. the memo sent at 11am on Wednesday, or the phone call coming in at 4:59pm on Friday...

I’ve gotten the normal stuff via mail: bills, credit card stuff, DMV, the occasional jury summons. And I’ve also dealt extensively with U.S. immigration, which often requires numerous exchanges via USPS.

And all of these things generally work fine with the assumption that response times will be a couple of days, plus the couple of days in transit.

I can’t say I recall ever encountering mail with a strict deadline very near to when I received it. (Usually the frustration is the opposite: I wish things could move a lot faster than they do.)

> If a bank actually wanted to serve working people, they would be open on weekends.

You do know that people also work in banks, right?

Are you trying to say that banks can't be open on the weekends because then bank employees would have to work weekends? Much like any business that operates on the weekends? They would have time off during the week and wouldn't have the issue that people working Mon-Fri have because they could go to the bank on their day off on Tuesday or whatever.

> Are you trying to say that banks can't be open on the weekends because then bank employees would have to work weekends? Much like any business that operates on the weekends?

I'm saying there's a reason not all businesses (or government institutions) work 996[0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/996_working_hour_system

It's about white collar versus blue collar.

White collars have the luxury of limited hours, resting on the weekends, and being able to take time off work when they have an appointment or obligation.

This is absolutely true. When I worked as at a restaurant, the mantra from management was: "You got time to lean, you got time to clean." I've worked a lot of blue-collar jobs before making my way into office work. Blue collar workers will get chided for pulling out their phone. I'm posting this comment to HN on either side of a call that came in while I was reading the thread.

In my first real office job, I grew anxious when someone from down the hall came and conversed with my office-mate for ten minutes. We had all this work that needed to be addressed! I'm obviously acclimated to office culture now; I'm just trying to underscore the difference in work culture for those who may not have worked in physical labor environments. The people working those jobs aren't even an afterthought to many people (which I can attest from having dealt with people who mistreat workers).

>If a bank actually wanted to serve working people, they would be open on weekends.

banks are open Saturdays all over in the US. TD Banks are open on Sunday.

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