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Something I’ve noticed is that I had basically stopped commenting on Reddit because it seemed like someone always wanted to start a fight. I don’t even generally comment about politics or controversial topics, but still it felt like I was getting rude responses doubting my stories or whatever. Now I’m more likely to take a moment to share a response.

I’ve been on a memoir kick. Specifically women celebrities. I just finished Mean Baby by Selma Blair and it was good. I’m about to start Hello Molly by Molly Shannon.

I don’t think my customers were dumb but I was regularly accused of breaking the law in a previous job. This was back in 09-10, I worked for a mortgage company in the insurance escrow department processing homeowner insurance claims. The way my job worked: If a homeowner has significant property damage (fire, flood, fallen tree) and the home is under a mortgage, the insurance company will make the check payable to the homeowner and the mortgage company. If it has both names it cannot be cashed unless the mortgage company endorses the check. I was the person responsible for determining if we would sign the back of that check so the customer could cash it.

Mortgages have a clause that allows this, because it’s in the best interest of the mortgage company to make sure the property is returned to the way it was before the claim. If the claim was over a certain amount (I think it was $5k) we required a whole process of holding the money in an escrow account and doling it out in increments using property inspections to verify the work was being completed.

It was honestly a whole annoying process to have to go through, especially if you are already dealing with a traumatic situation that requires the claim in the first place. I got yelled at a lot.

Oftentimes it would start with the customer calling in to figure out why the check was made payable to the mortgage company also. The mortgage company I worked for was part of a large bank, so if the homeowner called the 800 number they were often frustrated by the time they finally found their way to me. Then as I explained that they couldn’t just have the money, we needed them to select a licensed contractor and get our approval, then we would provide 1/3, then we would do an inspection at 50% and release the next 1/3, then a final inspection at 100% and release the remainder. I would get yelled at and told it was illegal. But I would just point them to page 18 section 5 of the mortgage. I could access people’s mortgage docs and I was often asked to send the relevant pages.

Eventually people would accept their fate because they had no choice. I tried to be very sympathetic because it did suck for them. And I had customers tell me a lot of sad stories about fires and floods and tornadoes. It was a super interesting job though. I loved looking at the home inspection reports.

I once found my brother-in-law on Reddit because he posted a picture I recognized. I went to his post history to check if it was actually him and it was but he had posted a completely fake story to r/legaladvice. It was something about his landlord removing the door to the apartment to try and get rent or something. But my bil lived in a house he owned. It also wasn’t an old story he was repurposing either because I have known him since he moved out of his parents house. I never mentioned it or anything because I don’t care.