Good News Bad News
Posted in Business by CujoJune 7th, 2006 - 5:7 PM
Well it has been seeming like nothing really wants to go right lately. In the good news front my shiney new Mac Book Pro 17″ is shipping today and should arrive at the local store on Friday or Monday the latest.
Now the bad news. I don’t have the money to pay for it. Thank you NOHFC. For the uninformed I have received a grant from the NOHFC for my “young entrepreneur” business and I’ve been disappointed with the process ever since being “accepted”. Today I sent an email to my contact to see what the status of my reimbursement was (I need to submit receipts/invoices/sales orders in order to get the funds) and at first he said he was unsure. I had sent a fax in at the start of May and there are two cut off dates, mid-month and end-of-month. I should have hit mid-month and received my cheque before the month was up, nothing. So I assumed end-of-month. Still nothing. I quickly received another email from my contact and he said he has no information regarding my fax and that he never received it (or possibly lost it — he went on about a computerized distrubition system and it might be in limbo, yadda yadda yadda). The part that makes me even more frustrated is that after the fax was sent out and I confirmed with the person sending the fax that it said “message sent” or gave the confirmation that the fax went through I sent an email letting my contact know the fax was sent. No reply to the email and I just assumed he got it as nothing else was said.
So now I must resubmit all my info and wait until the mid-month cut off for them to submit it for processing which means I’m waiting until close to the end of month to receive the funds for my equipment.
This isn’t the first time I’ve been “delayed” with the process on my grant. My first submission for reimbursement (and only other time I’ve done it) I was also given the run around in regard to the grant money and didn not receive it unitl a month and a half later and incurred interest fees on my credit card (so much fun). During that ordeal I was actually told that I should get a bank loan to cover my grant which just seems ridiculous to me.
The grant has been a great business venture for me as it has allowed me to add photography to my arsenal which I think I’m excelling at right now (and hopefully continue to get better) but the headaches it (the grant) continually causes me along the way constantly makes me question if it was all worth it.
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June 8th, 2006 at 9:23 am
So what you’re saying is that there is a nice new MacBook just sitting there with no one to buy it … hmmmmm
June 8th, 2006 at 9:31 am
Close.. it’s a new MacBook Pro (even better than the Mac Book) and also with it will be Adobe CS2, Flash Pro 8, Office for Mac, Win XP, a wireless router, a keyboard/mouse combo and an HP Photosmart 13 x 11 printer. But thankfully it all has my name on it so it might turn into a credit card buy and hope the grant money comes in ASAP.
June 9th, 2006 at 10:35 am
All this government “help” can make you want to quit in no time. When Mark applied for the SEB to get the production company started, we were told it would be a “two week turnaround” on the decision…. NINE MONTHS LATER, he signed the papers. I sometimes wonder if all the red tape is designed to make recipients quit before everything goes through… Stick it out, though, I’m sure you’ll get it all reimbursed. Eventually. Sigh.
June 9th, 2006 at 11:19 am
Yeah.. it’s more like government roadblocks then help. Such a pain in the ass and causes me more stress and frustration then what I need at this moment.
As far as getting the money in… it’s not the full amount coming in (long story on that one which I’m pissed about but won’t get into right now) and when it does arrive it’ll now be end of June.
I also just received an email from CompuSmart and my MacBook Pro is on the truck to be delivered today. This freaking sucks.