What’s my problem, than? I’ll tell you what my problem is. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but another thing that’s becoming trendy (or so I think since I’ve only seen it happening in the past year) is for your credit card companies to send you checks to use for whatever reason you wish (to pay other cards, to pay bills, to transfer some money into your bank account etc.). Overall quite a good idea. I don’t know if you’ve gotten any of them (I believe you would need to have a balance lower than 50% of your credit limit to get them). These checks usually have an expiration date, meaning you can only use them by a certain date, which in my case, on most batches I received, was about three months from the date I got them.

And now we’re getting to the problem (finally); two weeks later I’ll receive another batch. And two weeks after that, another one. And so on and so forth. I mean here you are encouraging me to go paperless to save the trees, yet you don’t even wait for the expiration date on the checks you sent me just two weeks ago to come and you send me another batch. Absolutely wasted paper. And needless to say they don’t send only the checks. A bunch of other junk advertising comes along with them (don’t even get me started on that one).

As I said, I do believe the whole idea with the checks is a good one – you never know when you need them. But there’s two things these banks could do (either one of them or both of them in the same time). Either keep your mouth shut (so to speak) and don’t try to make me feel guilty about ruining the environment with my paper bills, when you yourself couldn’t care less about it and when the actual reason for which you prefer your customers to go paperless is because it cuts down on your costs, thus increasing your profits. Or/And have a software that tells you the expiration date of the last checks you sent me and, in the same time, whether I have used any of them so far or not. And have that software tell you when to send me the new checks: when I have only a couple of the previous ones left or when there’s about a week or so left before they expire (whichever comes first). Don’t even tell me you can’t have something like that (’cause I’ll take it as if you think I’m stupid). As for whether this would be cost effective or not, well… I guess it’s less expensive for you to waste the trees. But then I go back to my problem: stop trying to sell me paperless on environmental reasons.

In the same area of wasted paper, here’s another thing that bugs me. I have a checking account. Attached to that account is my debit card. When I opened the account, the bank representative offered me to have that card work like a rewards credit card (you know the deal: you buy on credit you get something in return). In my case we’re talking about United Airlines miles. Considering I’ve never had a rewards card of any kind so far, I accepted the deal (which costs me about $25/year without me ever being able to use those miles – they’ll expire before I have enough of them) just for the heck of it.

Ever since then, I receive, from the guys at United, credit card offers. And they’re linked with that debit card I mentioned. Each and every one of the offers comes with an updated balance of my miles together with a big fat number of free ones I could get if I apply for this credit card. Of course these offers have expiration dates as well. But do you think they wait for those offers to expire before sending me new ones? You got it: NO. And just like the case with the checks, new ones come in, literally, every other week. Sometimes the envelopes just sit there on my desk for weeks and weeks just pilling up. I don’t even open them anymore.

And you’re telling me you care about the environment? And you’re trying to sell me paperless to save the trees? Are you freaking kidding me?

I know what many of you are going to say: Dude, it’s just marketing. Everyone knows these things are going on and you just have to live with them. Just let it go.

And I ask you: Why? Why should I let it go?

You can rest assured I’m not as naive as to even imagine I could have anything changed about it. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to take a few minutes of my time to express my disgust with these companies and folks who would do anything in the name of the good ol’ buck.

As for the fact that is nothing but plain marketing, I don’t know about you, but I’m the kind of person who believes that there’s a limit to everything. And if you see that your prospective customer is just not interested, it’s time to give up. Or if you just have to keep on trying, at least stop the harassment. As far as I’m concerned, that’s what it is: harassment. Don’t do it so often anymore. Give the guy (or girl) a break before you come knocking on the door again. It’s true they might have changed their mind in the mean time, but stop expecting this to happen within a few days. It won’t.

What I saw left me speechless. Apparently, to get through the back doors of the Chicago O’Hare International Airport, one would only need a card that you swipe and get access to (pretty much) everything. Quite standard procedure you might think. How about if I told you that there’s hundreds of former employees of the airport, law enforcement agencies and companies who have contracts with the airport for certain services (such as cleaning) who have never turned in their cards after leaving their jobs? Cards that are still working. Nobody bothered to cancel them or try to get them back.

What does all this mean? Well, any former employee still has access to the back stage of the airport. Any of them could get on any plane without a problem. From this moment on just use your imagination as to what could happen. Oh, and to help you sleep better on your next flight from O’Hare, one of these former employees is a guy with 3 aliases, a bunch of arrests and, if I’m not mistaken, a couple of convictions as well. How did this guy get such a job in the first place? Anyway, sweet dreams!

The whole thing started with the guy who reported the news finding, in a dumpster, a bunch of files of former employees of one of the companies that provides services for the airport. These files contained social security numbers, addresses, bank accounts (for direct deposits) and other personal information.

Now, I’m not for going crazy over security issues. But when I see that basic measures are not beeing taken by some (disabling a card belonging to a former employee or shredding documents that are being trashed – which I believe is not that hard to do), I kind of can’t help but think: “Why the heck do I need to take my shoes off when I go through an airport security check point, when others (with questionable backgrounds) have such easy access to an airplane?” and “Thank God I’m self employed and I don’t have to trust a stupid comapny with my personal information!”

God help us!

He replied to my comment asking me

What happened with your friends that made you so against babysitting?

Instead of posting another comment, I decided to use such an opportunity to write a post about it.

Where do I start?

First I want to make it clear from the very beginning that I have never had the chance to babysit myself. So, the truth of the matter is that I can only speak from other people’s experiences. Second of all it’s not really that bad. And it’s not necessarilly that I am against babysitting as a professional job. I’m not even against it as a part time job for students who can very well use a bit of extra cash in their pockets.

What actually bugs me is the attitude from the parents many babysitters must put up with.

As far as I understand the situation, we’re dealing with two large categories here.

The first one includes those parents who need someone to babysit only on certain occasions (they’re going to a concert, they have a date, they have a late business meeting etc.). These folks and their kids are easy to deal with. Mainly because they are part of their children’s lives (they know what it means to deal with a brat who just won’t go to sleep when told to). As a result they understand that, in many occasions, when the child complains about a babysitter is because they’re trying to get even with her (or him) as they could not get away with having and doing things their way.

The second category is represented by those folks who rely on a (professional) babysitter to raise their children. They don’t have the time to do it themselves. This category can be divided further on into two subcategories:
- busy professionals who lack time due to their jobs which require most of their time (they’re not really that bad either);
- “stay-at-home-anything-but-moms” (a.k.a. “Desperate Housewives“) Now the fun begins!

This last subcategory is the one that really got me to make the comment I made on Adnan’s post. It might be hard for you to believe, but you have no idea how many of them there are. All my firiends who used to work as babysitters had to deal with such type of “parents”.

But let’s start with the beginning. These ladies have nothing to do all day long, yet, for some reason, they need a baby sitter. Gimme a break!

Getting back to the actual baby sitter and what she or he has to deal with, probably the best way to start would be by saying that these women have no idea what the heck is going on in their children’s lives. They don’t know their children. They imagine they’re angels. They believe all the lies those kids tell them. And, not that I don’t like kids, but let’s face it: many times children are worse than grown ups when it comes to screwing you over. When you bring into the equation the feeling that they’re ignored by their parents you got yourself a mess. These kids, consciously or not, think that every babysitter is trying to replace the parents. In the same time they want their parents’ attention and time so badly that they do everything they can to get rid of everyone, hoping that will bring the parents back into their lives.

On the other hand, many of these moms feel so guilty about not spending time with the children that they put up with everything and expect the babysitters to do the same thing. This only encourages the child to become a brat, knowing he or she will get away with eveything. I know of multiple situations when the child will refuse to do something because “mommy doesn’t make me do that, so why should I listen to you?”

Another reason many parents let their kids do whatever they want is because they’ve got no idea what raising a child is all about. They don’t realize that many times it’s about saying no for the sake of the child. I know many cases of parents who gave the babysitter specific instructions as to let the children do whatever they want, whenever they want, to let them dress however they want, to let them eat whatever they want whenever they want. “We want to encourage them to have their own personality!” A two-year old? Are ya freakin’ kidding me?!?!?!?!

It’s even worse when such attitudes come from a mom who really stays at home to take care of the kids. Everything gets out of control and, before you know it, guess “Who’s The Boss?” You got it!

So there you have it Adnan. That’s why I am so against babysitting. My response was trigerred by all these facts and when I decided to comment I haven’t really thought of the fact that the question in your title was more for the heck of it rather than a serious matter.

As I said in my comment, it’s the parents that, through their influences over the children, sometimes make me go crazy only when I hear about babysitting.

It’s true that we also have the other face of the coin: babysitters who don’t know what the heck they’re doing. About that some other time. Maybe!

Now, before we go ay further, I must confess I’m on both sides here.

First of all, my sick little head can’t stand non stop crying kids. I don’t even want to think about the times I’ll have my own. This part of parenting will most likely be a living hell for me. I do wish similar things happened more often. I, probably, would have been the happiest customer of this airline at that time. Told you I’m sick…

On the other hand, I can’t even think what my reaction would have been if something like that happened to me. Are ya kidding me??? Especially since it seems the folks were not even given enough time to calm down the girl.

These being said, needless to say that the airline appologized and gave them back their money and offered them free tickets to their desired destination. Of course the offer was turned down. Although, it might have been a good financial decision to accept it. I bet they would have never had such problems from this airline again. They would have had their behinds kissed.

The whole story just drove me crazy. Not necessarily on its own, but rather because it reminded me of my own problems and frustration with certain companies I’ll never do business with again.

Here’s the thing: God forbid, we as customers, make a mistake. They treat us like dirt. Like scum bags. And the list of “appelatives” could go on forever. Am I exagerating? Maybe. But that’s how I feel like. On the other hand, when “they” make one, they beg and beg and beg for forgivness and understanding. “It was a mistake.” “We’re sorry, but our system was down.” “We appologize for the inconvenience, it was a mistake on our behalf.” And so on. I’m pretty sure you can come up with your own.

So what should one do? At first, since I’m a (very) understanding person (no, for real) I was inclined to forgive them. NOT ANYMORE. Especially when it happens again and again. And especially after realizing I would not be treated the same way.

How many times have you missed a payment on something, or have been late with it? Simply because you completely forgot about it or you didn’t get your bill in the mail and just overlooked it (while there’s solutions to such problems, it’s not the place here to talk about them, and, common, we’re all humans and make mistakes). Has any of them cut you any slack? I doubt it. If in your agreement it says that in such cases you lose the 0% introductory APR, you can bet your behind that it’s going to happen with the precision of a swiss watch. Just an example.

In the very few cases when they do cut you some slack is because the law makes them to. Such as not reporting you to the credit bureaus right away.

I’m in no case advocating not paying your bills or your credit card or your mortgage etc. I’m just furious about the one way preferential treatment these businesses expect from us.

I am also aware of the fact that there might be no practical solution to the problem.

I am also aware of the fact that whenever there’s some mistakes on their behalf, they happen (in most cases) because of the human factor which is prone to mistakes.

And most likely the people to be blamed for such mistakes will get their share of problems. That’s not what I’m expecting from them. No. I just want to be cut some slack myself every once in a while. I just want to be treated with respect even if I call 100 times for a problem, especially when it doesn’t get solved (you’ll see what I’m talking about).

Since that’s not gonna happen, all I can do is decide to not do business with these companies (when that is possible – you’ll see there’s some situations when it’s not the best thing for me) and talk about them here. Will I get any change of attitude from them? Yeah, right! But at least I can let it out. I can tell others how certain folks understand to do business. And you’re more than welcome to bring your own contributions (especially by commenting). Please be civilized though.

These being said I will pretty soon start listing here the posts in which I’ll be writing about such situations. So make sure to check back and read about them.

The other day I heard about this guy who has worked for the past couple of years with one goal in mind and one goal only: to buy a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution. He made a $10,000 down payment and is going to pay about $600 a month for the next 5 or 6 years.

He’s in his late twenties (just like myself). I’m struggling to get out of debt (that I got in when I was young and stupid – and not because this kind of extravaganzas) and come up with some sort of a plan for the future that would, at least, insure my children have a comfortable future. And here’s this guy, who, I strongly believe, should think about the same way, indulging himself in buying a brand new forty-something thousand dollars car on which he lost at least five grands once he drove it out of the dealership.

I wish him all the luck. And it seems he’s going to need a lot of it, as he’s quite upside down in this matter. He just bought the car and got himself in trouble.

Here’s the story. It seems as if these models are hot cakes for car thieves. The first night he bought it he went to a club, ironically, attended by some of those thieves. In the neighborhood was a police patrol. The cops were aware of the type of people who go to that club, and even more ironically, they were actually looking for a stolen Lancer just like my guy’s. When they saw “my friend” arriving, they did their job and gave him a hard time suspecting that was the Lancer they were looking for and him to be involved. Eventually they let him go.

Even though this story has nothing to do with what I’m trying to point out here I decided it was worth telling it.

So what am I trying to say?

I know it’s popular to “live your life” and stuff. I do it too. But within certain limits. Is it worth doing it at such a huge expense? At the expense of your financial future? At the expense of your children’s well being? I strongly believe the answer is no.

I know I may sound old fashioned, boring, that I don’t know how to live my life etc. I’m not really like that. But I believe in setting limits and understanding when something is off those limits and accept the situation. Believe me, I would love to drive a hundred-something thousand dollars car (there’s plenty of them out there I would love). And if I would stretch my finances really good, I probably could afford one. But at what expense? At the expense of endangering my financial future? Because, unless we’re millionaires, that’s the result.

Just think about it: In a couple of years, that car will most likely be worth about half its value. Nicer and more sophisticated ones will get on the market. For a middle class guy, it will be impossible to keep up the pace. And by the time you’re done paying it, it’ll probably be worth a few thousand bucks. It’ll be just a regular car. For the period of your installment, considering the payments, insurance and maintenance for such a car, you won’t be able to save much (if anything). You’ll wake up in your early thirties with no savings and (by now) an average 5-6 years old car.

But hey, you lived your life. I ask again: at what expense?

Am I jealous? Trust me I’m not. Not when I think of the price he’s going to pay. My 2004 Chevy Cavalier runs just fine. Takes me where I want to go. But I know I’ll be somwhere when this guy will probably just start realizing the situation he’s in.

Am I judgemental? Maybe. But how can I not be when I saw so many others do the same thing and afterwrds banged their heads against the wall for being stupid about it.

Is it none of my business? Most likely. But then again, I was actually just wondering if I’m out dated, old fashioned, boring, plain crazy or not, and if others see such issues the same way I do.

Honestly, I wish him good luck and I trully hope he’ll find some way of getting himself out of this. I know the guy. And believe me when I tell you the income he has right now won’t allow him to accomplish much as long as he’s paying for that car.

A few days back I had a post about a cat who got lost on New Year’s Eve. Not wanting to make the post too long and boring I decided not to talk about another thing that crossed my mind.

What if the cat ran away?

I know that most pet owners love their animals. Unfortunately, without realizing it, some of them put the poor creatures through some real sick ummm… things (couldn’t find a better word and didn’t want to use an ugly one).

I remember when I was a little kid (about 4 or 5 years old). I spent that summer at one of my grand parents (in the country side). They had a kitty cat. I loved it so much that I wanted to have it with me in bed during my afternoon naps. You should have seen the trouble I went through to make sure that she was comfortable and stuff. However, every day when I woke up she was not there. It was making me so mad. I almost hit her once or twice.

But I kept insisting. Until one day my grandma saw me. She almost killed me. “What are you doing? She’s an animal. She has her own places to sleep and the other cats to hang out with. She’s not a toy, boy. Leave the poor cat alone!”

Ever since I stopped desiring to have a pet. My grand parents did. And I used to play with them when I was visiting. But they live on a farm. The animals have their freedom. They can do whatever they want whenever they want to. My grand parents still feed them (you should see how the cats and dogs know exactly when it’s time for food; they never miss it) and they still are attached to them (if anything happens to any of them, they would take them to the doctor). But, they give them the liberty an animal needs.

I know! They’re cute and stuff (I love them too). But they’re not toys. They’re not robots. They need to run and walk and take a dump when they feel like it not when we have the time to take them out.

And if I can understand those who live in a house with a nice backyard where the animal (cat, dog) can go whenever feels like it, I absolutely oppose having them in an appartament/condo. It’s like a cage. It’s like you living in a larger than normal cell, with everything you wish, with the chance of seeing your family whenever they have time for you, but being able to get out of that cell only when someone has the time to take you out. How would you like that? I, for one, would hate it! I believe they have a name for something somewhat similar to that: house arrest.

And now I see this video on YouTube about training a cat to use the bathroom (and a few more with cats actually using it)?

ARE YA KIDDING ME?

Live the poor animals alone.