Things that are Awesome

When twenty-somethings think of awesome, naturally one of the first things that comes to mind is debt. What on Earth could be more awesome than thousands of dollars worth of debt, you ask? Well, call me easy to please, but I can’ t think of one darn thing!

Ok. I give up. I can’t joke about college loan debt. I tried, I failed. Forgive me. It’s just that talking to the operators at Sallie Mae is beginning to drive me batty. Just today I had to call them to ask for a 1098E (that’s it, isn’t it?) for my taxes, and I spent at least 40 Euro on the phone (mostly on hold) waiting for someone to pick up, hoping to God that they knew what the 1098E was.

With Sallie Mae, it’s all up to chance. My first call ended up with a guy hanging up on me because I was insisting that he let me talk to someone else. My second call ended up with someone telling me I really needed to be transferred to someone else, then I got disconnected. My third call ended when I hung up, furious that the woman on the other end couldn’t at least entertain my desire to see my own payment statement in writing - not on a website.

“Ma’am if you’ll just pull up the website…”
“I don’t want it on the website. I need an official letter or 1098E from you stating how much I paid this year for tax purposes.”
“Well ma’am, I’m sorry, but you can get all of that information online.”
“I DON’T WANT IT ONLINE I WANT IT ON A PIECE OF PAPER.”

Since when didn’t Sallie Mae want to send me things in the mail? Every relative I have receives mail from Sallie Mae addressed to me. They send me four bills at a time, all for the same amount, for Christ’s sake. Now, suddenly, a piece of paper in the mail is too much to ask for?

I finally spoke to Cindy, my tax preparer, and she calmed me down, explaining that she could accept a print out from the website for now, but that she’d like to eventually put an official paper in the file. YES I AM A GROWN UP, I’M DOING MY TAXES. I felt like a hundred year old woman, totally inept, absolutely incapable of gathering what I needed for a tax lady. Granted, she was a nice tax lady, but still.

This day began with me feeling like a 5 year old because of my ear infection, and ended with me feeling like a little old helpless woman who can’t find her microwave.

it’s a 1098-T and you don’t necessarily need it to do your taxes… our college has to send them out by law & they aren’t always accurate, depending on when people were billed.. not sure with the loans.. YOu can easily access the information on the SM website… I’ll call you tomorrow, we’ll talk about it