Weekend engagement topic week 33: Best or Worst day challenge
Good evening weekend-engagement community hope you're having a great end to the week. I see another fantastic topic by 
Before I get into it I want to provide a bit of background, my wife was elected to local government in October. The first Indigenous women in Melton and Melbourne's West to do so. I wouldn't say the news was too big but it was big news in Melbourne's West. She also had a few national and international news articles written about it.
Voting in Australia is also compulsory and those who do not risk getting a fine or jailed.
Which brings me to the dilemma, local government politicians don't actually get paid. They receive less than the minimum wage paid as an allowance. You still need to work full time and fit in your local government duties. Which is why mainly old retires dominate the space. However, my wife is also a nurse.
We're currently building our dream home and received finance for the land but due to COVID lost the funding for the build. Since then I have gotten a promotion at work and my wife her election which adds to our income.
We recently sold our unit and the profit we made literally covers the difference. I.e. we sold settle the finance for the unit. Need to borrow the exact same amount as the extra the build will cost we have in cash.
Our loan "specialist" didn't calculate the money properly and some how thought we needed more than what we already had and declined it. Which we recently signed a contract to build and paid a cash deposit putting the entire project at risk.
After a heap of emails back and forth and a phone call it turns out the lender didn't know what a councillor was. They thought we made up an invoice and were requesting an ABN as my partner is paid as remittance and remittance invoices typically are payments made for services. However, it is the structure they use to pay the allowance so it isn't classed as income and falls into a different category.
I physically had to explain the role of a councillor to my banker, who I may add is required to vote for a councillor by LAW. Also, elections were held in October. They're not small events. You will get phone calls, coreflutes, letter box drops, door knocks the whole shazam.
I then had to physically source mainstream news articles about my wife AND her government website. Just to prove she was a councillor.
It absolutely drained me, then the builders wanted to withdraw from the project. Fortunately no one wants to feature on the front page of a news story and once the found out my wife was a politician agreed to continue with the project and await for the banks response.
After all this, the banker was left confused and unsure what to do and has referred it to their manager for action as they still weren't clear on what a councillor was.
Now I totally understand that not everyone is going to be across every aspect of everyday life, even if voting in elections is mandatory I understand people switch off. But we literally learn it in school. Even so, perhaps because I hold a senior position at work if I don't know something I don't make a decision or go straight for the no. I pause, I inform the person I will get back to them. I research the topic and then make an informed decision.
It has driven me insane and almost delayed the entire project. As I've sold and now renting I only have limited amount of funds to play with and any delays will cause me to bleed money. I have allocated funds for unforeseen circumstances, but I don't have time to muck around with people's stupidity.
Argh! Thursday.......
Let's hope next week is a better week, I have a whole week off work to finalise the unit and get it cleaned.