We take our time, but you can’t!
Back in October, when I defended my thesis, I had tea and coffee with a few guests in the university’s Faculty Club prior to the start of the ceremony. The waiter said they had my contact details, so rather than paying directly, they would send me the bill to be paid at a later date. Several months passed without anything arriving, and I sort of figured they’d simply forgotten.
But lo and behold, the bill arrived at my home address while I was in the US. The invoice was dated December 31st (a good two months after the defense) and payment was requested by Thursday January 14th. I left for the US on Sunday the 17th, but as I said, it was only while I was gone that the bill actually arrived.
Also in the two-and-a-half weeks’ worth stack of mail this morning was a stern reminder from the Faculty Club that I hadn’t paid yet. Well, how did they expect me to pay a bill by January 14th if I haven’t received it by that time? Indeed, the postal stamp on the bill reads January 13th, and that only shows when the Faculty Club passed it to the university’s post office. From there it must have taken another day or two to get it to the Dutch postal services, because when I left on the 17th, I hadn’t received anything yet.
If it takes the Faculty Club almost three weeks to get an invoice delivered to the relevant party, perhaps it is a tad unreasonable to expect payment within two weeks of the invoice date. The stern reminder is equally ludicrous. It took them over two months to actually prepare the invoice, and then they apparently sat on it for another two weeks before sending it out. Surely there’s no hurry in getting the money, is there? Right, so take a hike with your bloody reminder.
[Update: To the Faculty Club's credit, when I sent them an email complaining about the whole situation, they did respond promptly with a polite apology.]