Yesterday was pay-day. Always interesting - never quite sure how much I will get. If expenditure is 20/, and income 20/6d; joy. If expenditure is 20/ and income 19/6d, tragedy.
I checked my balance before I saw my payslip. Goodness, income was closer to 30/. Can't be right. It looked like they were paying me my full time equivalent for working part-time. Someone pointed out that it would include backdated annual pay rise. I finally got my pay slip. It all seems logical and explicable but something tells me that it's not actually right. My pay is all over the place; I am in effect enjoying an interest free loan of 35/ from my employer.
I decided today that I might as well transfer all my temporarily surplus money into my so-called 'savings account'. I logged onto online banking and was surprised to see an additional CHAPS payment from my employer of about 18/.
Colleagues advised me to notify them. I did. I have had a couple of CHAPS payments this year, and I've probably been paid in error instead of some poor soul who's tearing their hair out right now. The guy who answered the phone asked for my number to get back to me. I gave him my office number but added that I have an additional number in the Caribbean. He asked if I wanted company. He then advised me to put it into a savings account so I won't be tempted to spend it.
I know it isn't a legitimate payment, but there is an infinitisimal possibility of them paying me something in the future, except that it would be offset by what I owe them (this is complicated and boring). As it happens, they will also eventually (hopefully!) pay me something, but as an ordinary citizen, not as an employee. If they did, for some bizarre reason, decide to do this through payroll, I doubt they would do it via CHAPS. And it would be a round amount, not odd pounds.
But all I can say is, I am actually quite glad that my monthly income is a bit more than twenty five shillings. Otherwise I'd be well and truly buggered...!
Come on, who actually remembers shillings. I don't.
