One of my replacements received a quarterly revenue report from one of the credit bureaus that pays us for the data.
October: $10,218.74
November: $7,449.19
December: $8,670.49
[Total: $$26,338.42 for Q4 2025] Hm. I wonder what happened between October and the end of November? (Probably just seasonal fluctuation, but I still think it looks nice. )
I was informed by Tampa that they will not work on a particular contributor’s data, because it must be manually entered into a template. (They are unable to send machine readable files, and send their quarterly a/r files as scans.) I don’t know how much we make of of their data, but now we won’t make anything from it. Another contributor can’t send customer files, so we have to request complete name/address/phone information from them every month. I’m betting we’re not going to take their data anymore either. Then there’s the octogenarian who sends Z-fold printouts. No uploads for him!
Yep. Data quality matters. We get paid when someone pulls a credit report on a company that is being reported by one of our contributors. If the record does not pass validation for whatever reason, it never makes it to the report; so we would not get paid for it. If a company stops reporting (or if we tell them we’re not going to load their data), then whatever the last amount that was loaded stays on the credit report for three years. This, of course, results in ‘stale’, inaccurate reports that might end up denying a credit applicant credit. And then, of course, there will be mis-merges and split files. But TPTB have decided quality isn’t important enough to ensure quality data.
And you know what? In a month, I’m not going to care.
I’ve completed the USPS assessment test for the rural mail carrier job. I passed, and my profile says ‘Eligible’. Mostly ‘What would you do?’ and ‘personality’ questions. I passed anyway. I was hoping for/expecting some logic puzzles like ‘finish the sequence’.
I was going to go to Costco after work. I called to find out how late the HR people are there, and was told that they only accept online applications, that they have no openings now, and that they usually do their hiring in Spring.
I had an interview today, with a company just across the border. My contact there was enthusiastic to help me. I met the HR guy in Bellingham. I think they’re looking for someone with manufacturing experience, rather than someone looking for a career change.
I’ve received a conditional offer from USPS for a Rural Route Carrier position in Blaine. (Monday I applied for two in Bellingham.) The hourly wage is 82.5% of what I make now, and it’s described as a part-time position. It could be 20 hours one week, and 60 hours the next. I need to click a link, fill out some stuff, schedule an appointment for fingerprints, etc. I’ll wait until after breakfast, anyway. I have three days to accept. Note that this is a conditional offer. There’s a line in the letter that basically says, ‘Don’t quit your day job.’
I love having backup plans. We have a propane furnace for heat, plus a wood-burning stove insert (very pretty to watch), plus radiator-style electric space heaters. We have an electric stove/oven, an air-frying toaster oven, a microwave oven, a propane barbie with a side burner, numerous Svea 123 and other camp stoves, and a Colman two-burner stove. There are flashlights in most rooms, a drawer with candles in the kitchen (and cantle lanterns in the living room), and a couple of Colman lanterns (one of which is easily accessible). We have a 3 KW Honda generator so that we can have light, coffee, TV, Internet (as long as Xfinity’s pole-mounted box has power), and DVD player. We can use our phones for WiFi hotspots (though we have the lowest-gig plan). I buy consumables before they are consumed.
So, yeah… Backups are nice.
In actual thread-related news, I’ve completed the background investigation form, and have requested an appointment for fingerprinting.
Drip coffee maker, backup drip coffee maker, Keurig, two French presses, two Vietnamese coffee makers, an old percolator (and maybe a camp percolator in the storage unit), and of course a kettle, filters, and urns.
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