In Focus Collections
list of the most creative and incongruous excuses I was given, partly for my own amusement, and partly so I could tell other people how difficult my job was, and what a bunch of crooks I had to deal with on a daily basis.
True creativity What follows then are all extracts from my personal archive. Most people in this industry will be quite
familiar with such staple excuses for non- payment as: l “Oh dear I have just found your cheque in a drawer, somebody must have put it in there.” l “Can you not chase a few other customers for a while and then come back to us?” l “I have lost my pen.” l “Go away, I am having a crisis.” Or perhaps these: l “I hurt my hand on the office door handle, and it is the one that I write cheques with.” l “I am sorry I have just sacked the book-keeper”. l “Do you take American Express – no I did not think that you did.” l “Ah – you are obviously one of these companies that wants paying.” l “Would you like to chase some of our customers, and when they pay us, we will pay you!”
September 2017
We all learn the hard way – at first assuming that by simply and politely pointing out the omission to the customer’s purchase-ledger technician, the problem will be immediately rectified, with the cheque arriving bright and early the following morning
But how many of us have been greeted with the following? l “Will a photocopy of a cheque do?” l “Yes it is me you need to speak to, but I am not here at the moment.” l “I did write a cheque for you, but the office dog got it before I could put it in the post.” l “Well, we cannot pay you at the moment because we are supposed to be going bust.” l “Mr Dawson is coming out of prison next week.” Or my all-time favourite: l “I am sorry but Sheila is upstairs with a client.”
The very best However the best excuse I ever received was from the daughter of the chief executive of a small telecoms company who had been helping her father with the books. After a number of broken promises from
the man himself, she told me that her father had a sinus problem which periodically and repeatedly led to oxygen starvation in certain parts of his brain, including the bit which remembered promising me a cheque! Being less than convinced, I asked for a
doctor’s note and – believe it or not – it was true, so perhaps all the others were as well? CCR
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