Take your time... I'm only about to collapse

I succumbed to my illness and spent yesterday and today at home. I feel much better now - I think mainly because I was on my own, so didn't talk, so didn't cause myself to cough so much. I'll be back at work again on Monday.

I tried not to work too much while I was off - I did better at that today than yesterday. I had to keep checking my e-mails for the payroll reports from our accountants so I could schedule the wages payments, and I don't think anyone would have been happy if I'd left that till Monday. But once I received the e-mail at lunchtime today I stopped working.

I went to the bank yesterday to make a couple of international payments from the business account. I do this on a monthly basis, and make anywhere from 3 to 6 payments a month. The process has changed recently: I used to have to fill in a form with all the details, take it into the branch, have it checked and stamped, then I'd get the carbon copy and the top copy would be faxed to the central international payment processing department. This procedure wasn't without its problems: twice in the past 6 months one of the forms has got 'mislaid' between the branch and International and the payments were delayed for up to 2 weeks (but of course we still got charged when the payment eventually did go through). Now I just take the payee details with me and the payment gets inputted straight onto the screen in the branch, printed out for me to check and sign, and e-mailed straight to International. Sounds quicker, right?

Wrong. I stood in that bank for 45 minutes, wishing I had brought more tissues with me, while Steve behind the counter arranged my two payments. It was 10 minutes between my telling him that I had two international payments to make and him asking me for the payment details... what he was doing for those 10 minutes I don't know; he just seemed to be pressing random buttons on the screen. After 20 minutes I complained, and he sympathised, saying that there were so many more checks they had to carry out these days to comply with the more stringent money laundering regulations that everything took longer. What he failed, or refused, to see was that he wasn't helping matters by typing with only one finger, and being seemingly incapable of locating half the letters on his keyboard. At one point he got up from his chair and stood in front of the printer behind him, cursing because it was taking forever to print, when I looked over at his computer screen and saw that he hadn't actually pressed OK on the print window. When the printing eventually did come out, he had spelled the company name wrongly and there was a mistake in the account number of the payee. He asked me if I wanted him to do the form again. No, Steve, just go ahead and send the money to the wrong account. Seriously??

UPDATE TUESDAY 08:30: The payment didn't go out of the bank on Thursday, like it should have. It didn't even go out on Friday. It finally left our account yesterday, which means it will be in the payee's account by the end of the week. Over a week to send a payment. No wonder the banks are making so much money.