Mood: Meh 
Drinking: Sir Fruit Fiery Ginger
Weather: 28°C, Clear
Location: Mont Fleuri, Mahe, Seychelles
The day started out relatively well – of course it did, it’s payday for many people – and then our employee sends us a message informing us that she doesn’t feel well so she has to go to the clinic. When something like this happens here in Seychelles, expect that the doctor at the clinic will give the patient sick leave for at least 2 days. You pay a doctor SCR 200+ and they will automatically give you sick leave. That’s what gets you to keep coming back. It’s interesting how everyone is always sick throughout the month but come payday, all of a sudden they are at work and on time. My sister also had an appointment at the doctor today so we weren’t able to replace the employee due to the short notice. So instead of today being a relatively “good-earning” day, it was well below our target. The employee will continue her sick leave tomorrow so my sister and I might have to go to work to fill in. I’m just 0% in the mood to be a cashier. I think after this employee goes, I’m going to hire older people. No more young people who are just so unreliable, there is an issue every single month. We need to employ someone who appreciates their job; someone who actually wants to keep their job.
Today is my older brother’s 43rd birthday. My mother prepared a vegan meal for me, not sure what you would call it but it’s spaghetti pasta with salad. That’s pretty much all I could eat as a vegan. Everyone else had all kinds of food but as I am on a diet, I’m glad there weren’t anymore options for me. I did over do it today, with strawberries, half a beer and I even had a glass of Coca Cola, which I now consider a treat because I’ll never purchase one for myself (extremely high in calories). For lunch I had the chocolate version of Oatside, which tasted like a regular chocolate milk, but the delicious kind minus the symptoms of lactose intolerance. We went all the way to Anse Aux Pins to get some Oatside milk, they’re complete sold out here in the central region of the country. What’s up with so many people drinking oat milk all of a sudden? I doubt everyone’s gone vegan, I assume there are a lot of lactose intolerant people.
It was a relatively good day because I got to spend it with the family. The apartment rent was due today but I didn’t bother paying it. My landlord has decided to charge us the extra SCR 1k for AC that isn’t even installed. What’s the deal with that? The delay in payment might help remind him that I am waiting for him to do what he said he would do which is to get guys to install the AC. I understand that he’s doing quite a lot of renovations for some of the units here, but the least he could do is to send me an update so that I don’t just keep going back to him asking for one. Our Whatsapp conversation window is literally me asking him “hi, any update on the AC” and with him replying with an excuse.
I’ve been talking to my mother and younger brother about the condo form I filled in. I think I’ll have to make a few modifications to it. I asked them for their opinion on the whole “penalized for progress” thing and they actually believe that there might be that slight possibility that if my income is a little on the high side, they will not feel as though my case is urgent enough. As a business, even if your earnings is high, your expenses is also high and the expenses is never really considered. My sister disagrees with all this, she believes that the higher the income, the better chance we have of being approved because they will know that we are in a position to clear our debt.
Yesterday I received a message from our store’s landlord’s manager, let’s call him Mr. K. He sent me a message asking me if I was able to verify whether or not the neighbour cleared my store’s electricity bill for December 2023. Here’s what happened: On December 2023 we were preparing to go to Maldives and we were also so busy at the store so it was all hands on deck, I didn’t want anybody leaving the store to go pay our electricity bill. So I thought it’s going to be something I do when we return from Maldives by mid-January. When we resumed work on January, I was waiting for the landlord to give us our electricity bill but they never did. After I had asked for it, they gave us the wrong one. I returned it to them and reminded them to give us the January 2024 electricity bill. The guy told me that Mr. K was on holiday and he’ll give it to me when he returns (February 2024).
So on February 2024, I was expecting arrears of both December 2023 and January 2024 on top of the amount for February 2024. However, the total amounted to SCR 2000+ instead of SCR 3000-4000. Mr. K then informed me that there is a possibility our neighbours paid one of our invoices. How careless must one be, to simply pay off a bill, without even verifying that it is actually yours to pay. The landlord literally handed me someone else’s bill and in an instant I could see that it wasn’t my store’s room number. So this month (April 2024) the neighbour has been bugging our landlord to talk to me – they basically want their money back. I asked them for the receipt, as proof that they paid our bill and according to them, they lost the receipt. So they must really be idiots then. Not only do they pay my bill but they also lose the receipt.
Going back to yesterday’s Whatsapp conversation, Mr. K asked me if I was able to verify whether or not the neighbours paid the bill. my response was “I can see a deduction” and then I continued by asking him if they can give me some kind of proof of payment. Mr.K then replies “but you already said it in writing that they have paid” I laughed it off and said “I said there is a deduction, there is no proof that they paid.” How is their carelessness now my problem? If PUC comes back to me telling me that I have no proof of payment, who will pay for that? Additionally, when it’s time to file my taxes, how can we submit our complete expenses when there is literally a missing expense? I don’t want to keep the amount that the neighbours have paid, I understand they need it to pay for this month’s electricity bill is why they are so desperate to have it back. But they really need to sort out themselves. They are a business as well and they need to keep records of their expenses, how are they not doing this? They just upgraded to a bigger car, so surely they aren’t earning peanuts. They’re just choosing to get rid of all their records so they stay within the small business presumptive tax bracket. But it really is unwise to throw away receipts, you will have no paper to save your butt when your butt needs saving.
I was telling my mother that I am considering finding a job. It’s something that I might work on after my 2-week holiday. There is a part of me that no longer needs this vacation. I’m thinking of getting a job so that I can meet people and also to earn that extra cash. I basically wake up everyday at around 8:30am or so and spend the day doing nothing. I feel as though I’m a retired person. Whenever my sister and I go shopping in the middle of the day while everyone else is at work, you can literally see that the supermarket is full of retired people. I am 41 years old, I should not be living like a retired person. I’m pretty sure many retired people are depressed. It’s as though you are just wasting your life away. You’re not learning anything new, you’re not meeting people to socialize or to network. Your life starts to lose all meaning. I could do with the extra cash. I mean I earn enough to buy the stuff I need, but a little more is always good. I’m supposed to be working on increasing my savings this year, getting a job would really boost my savings.
I developed a migraine while drinking alcohol earlier. I don’t think I can drink anymore. The same thing happened to me while we were in Maldives and I was out of it for a whole day, the migraine was still with me while we went scuba diving and then in the evening I was stuck in bed while everyone else went night snorkeling. It’s probably something I will have to say goodbye to, just stick with the mocktails at this point. It’s just not worth it. My older siblings and I are now all in our 40s and we have all stopped drinking to the point of getting drunk. We just feel it’s not worth losing an entire day to a hangover.
I finally got my TIN document! SRC called me earlier today (my sister took the call) and they told me/her to come collect the TIN document. We were at the airport trying to find a TENS machine for my older brother but to no avail. So anyway, I went up to the 3rd floor of the SRC building, waited for about 20 minutes and then they emerged with my document. Here’s the thing: I entered the office, went straight up to the reception and I said “hi, I came to collect my TIN document” in Creole. She asked me “when did you receive the phone call” in Creole, and for the life of me I couldn’t hear what she was saying. I had to ask her to repeat what she said while I turned my head to the side so my ears could hear her properly. She repeated the “when did you receive the phone call” and I again replied in Creole, “today”. When she told me to go sit down, I pointed at the chair near the cashier (they have other chairs near the reception so I wasn’t entirely sure” and then she said something like “yes, over there” in English! This always freaking happens. I speak English to them, they will speak to me in Creole. I try to speak Creole to them and they will switch to English. Make up your darn minds! I’m pretty sure it’s not my accent but my mannerisms that’s obviously foreign. Tomorrow is Friday and nobody really works on Fridays in this country, so I will bill my clients next week. Tomorrow I will have to ask my clearing agent for an update on the consignment that she was supposed to help us clear by now (the documents have been with her since Wednesday but there was a delay yesterday at the cargo because people were getting sick, claiming that it was the whole gas thing that’s going around. So the whole place had to be evacuated and this would explain the delays.