My father
is not a man you want to meet on business. He works as an EJO, which is the Northern Irish equivalent of a bailiff except without the bloodsucking tendencies and the murderous fees you poor British bastards have to suffer. EJOs are employed by the Government as part of the Courts Service, and act as the absolutely final last chance saloon, brink-of-abyss style saviours of the chronic debtor.

To give you an idea of just how serious the cases he deals with are, bear in mind that they've all been dealt with by private firms, been through court (usually on numerous occasions), and generally are at the point where bankruptcy is no longer an option due to one of the parties involved wanting their money very badly indeed.

A bedridden old gentleman, riddled with cancer with only a few months to live, being told he had to pay his mortgage of £30k or his home would be seized. He died before it went that far.

Early-retirement Lothario who blew his savings on yachts, Alpen ski lodges and other such trappings of the obscenely rich, who sat in his front garden in a deckchair, swigging from a bottle of brandy while his house was all but stripped. His wife didn't even know about the debt until she came home to find the furniture missing.

Successful career-minded woman in her 30s, middle-manager sort, owed about £70k on cards. She was in the tax bracket that could afford to negotiate a decent repayment rate. Then she was made redundant.

He has a very large filing cabinet full of cases like these, and that's just for his small team of 8 men. I just pulled a random one from it, Jackie Mc******* owes the Royal Bank of Scotland £22k from his mortgage. Case has dragged on for 2 years, and he just doesn't seem to have the funds to pay it back. I've got a million of 'em.

The worst one he ever mentioned, and the primary reason behind him taking 18 months off work due to stress and depression, was the tale of two young men in a partnership for some high-capital enterprise. One couldn't manage a stack of pennies, and blew all the capital plus a bit more on what was frankly a load of useless wank. Then he deciding to blow the country, leaving his business buddy to pick up the bits. Even flogging every single thing the business owned only cleared about a third of the debt, so with his personal items next on the list the chap hanged himself.

His son found him.

He was 10 at the time.

Debt isn't funny. This QOTW isn't funny. It's harrowing for the readers, even if it's cathartic for the authors.

To end on a positive note, my father's advice to avoid debt can be summed up in a few lines:

'Don't spend more than you earn. Only use a credit card for the interest-free period. Budget extensively. Get help before it escalates to the point where I call at the door.'
(SurferRosa causing the lamentation of the womenfolk since, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 23:36, Reply)