Eye-rollery and a work-hobby

I'm not trying to one-up my sis, but I was just so fed up with the nightly agitated half-discussions half-arguments with mom.

My sis is a little.... socially awkward and such and she works at a shelter. I'd guess she loves the job as she doesn't have to deal with a lot of humans.

So apparently the shelter has been owing her money for a while. She keeps saying it's fine that she's keeping track and that this month they've given her an astronomical amount of pay to her. Ping and pong with mom about the amounts, what is still owed, and such. She's confident that the shelter doesn't owe her anymore, mom is worried that she's being bullied, and every night it's the same fight, agitated half-screams.

My sis also is on the lazy side, or puts things off. For example, she'll promise that she will do this one thing. But then she's not going to do it now, because, it's dark. She'll do it tomorrow bright and early. And then tomorrow comes and she forgets or goes about doing other things. *shrugs* personality clash with me.

I was so fed up with listening to their bickering, I said just have 2 columns of what is supposed to be paid and what is paid, by month, and get the difference then you know, no need for long discussions. And then they both each hold a pen and pen paper and start saying things like "look, this payment is triple so it covers the past 3 months."

So. Secretary at work here. I took out my laptop, booted up excel, asked one question: "When have they started to short you your salary?" and she had a very resolute "2024 April". Started a spreadsheet starting with April 2024, looked at her pay slips and listed out every month what she's supposed to receive, then looked at her bank records.... there were no records of anything in 2024?

"Oh, i didn't update my passbook for too long, so the printing machine couldn't print so far back." Like it was the most natural thing in the world.

My blood pressure was seriously going up at this point. "I can't make any calculations if I don't have the figures. It's your salary, not mine, are you not worried about your salary?" and here mom chimes in to agree with me and such. Then I looked at her older bank records and noticed. "Why are the payroll items all irregular and so ridiculously low in 2023?"

"oh, they have also been delaying payments."

WTF. "So when did they START shorting your pay?" And she keeps quiet. She fucking doesn't know. WTF?

Her pile of pay slips go back till 2020, so I had to extend the records to 2020. Long story short, ignoring the inexistent figures of 2024, just between 2020 till 2023, they have shorted her almost 3 months pay. No figures in 2024 so I can't say, then 2025 also shorted her almost 3 months pay. And then this year 2026 they paid an astronimcal amount, saying all balance cleared, but after my calculations, it doesn't cover everything.

So today mom goes to the bank and gets her banking history for 2024 as well. And after I update the list, I have all the figures, and heh, Ok, they managed to short/delay her pay in 2020 but did settle the balance, but from 2021 up till now, even with the big amount today, they still owe her around 4 months of pay. All simply in less than 15minutes of actual work.

And to think mom has chosen to buy that I-don't-know-what-insurance-policy-that-can-only-have-one-beneficiary under my sis name because she trusts her enough that sis will share the funds with me in future. Geezus, I'm also confident my sis will not purposefully cheat me out of anything, I just don't have the confidence that she'll actually remember/claim in time or know to check the figures when the time comes.

oh, i must also pat myself on the back that THAT Excel spreadsheet is so beautifully crafted lol. The formulas and formatting are just on-point. A masterpiece lol. (I was mucking around and found an interesting function that I can in one click hide the monthly records and just show the aggregate annual, with the grouping function on a list using the subtotal formula. Whatever, that's just geeky talk.

(confession: when the company finance or accounts people send out spreadsheets and such I love clicking on every cell to check out the formula used and how to use these formulas for my own spreadsheets).

Similarly, I love to investigate Word functions as well lol. 

Friday Five 2026.02.27

thefridayfive 

1. What made you happy this week?
I got some new ideas on pottery pieces to make!

2. What made you sad?
My car park cats went missing very suddenly. Though after 2 full days of disappearance, today one of the Mama cats came out again. So I fed just this Mama cat. My sis thinks it's spring and probably the cats have dispersed to mate or something, and since Mama cat is with kittens she didn't go hiding? (at least, we think so, she has a huge belly) I can now touch this Mama cat when I'm preparing her food, but outside of this interaction, she doesn't let me hold her at all. I've been seriously considering doing a private TNR type of thing for the car park cats, but the cats still do not let me carry them.

3. What made you angry?
oh my previous post - the ongoing bickering between mom and sis. It's a simple matter, no need to make so much fuss.

4. What are you looking forward to in the next week?
My sacred pottery time tomorrow.

5. What are you not looking forward to?
Nothing really, everything's looking to be going smoothly, I guess!