Dealing with wasteful, selfish people
I work in a cube farm and we each have 2-3 fluorescent desk lights under our shelving. Most of us don’t use the extra lighting, but a few others like the extra light, especially if they do quite a bit of paper work (instead of computer work).
However, I have a certain coworker near my cube who insists on leaving her desk lights on and gets mad if anyone turns them off overnight or over a long holiday. She tries to justify it by saying “my plants need the light”, but I’m sorry to say, the plants aren’t getting very much from this extra light compared to the amount of energy they’re using by being on so long, plus the damage to the environment when it’s time to trash the old bulbs when they die.
What else does this coworker do? She doesn’t give a crap about recycling. There’s a mixed recycling bin about 10 steps from her cube that accepts paper, plastic, and cans, but she tosses everything into her own can, which, of course, goes straight to the dump, not to the recycler.
Confrontation
So every so often, I turn off her lights, especially on Fridays and holidays, but I always hear her complain when she gets in, like it’s some horrendous event for her to turn on 3 switches. I hear her complaining about “someone keeps turning my lights off! Who would do such a thing???”.
$50 Visa Card Winner…
Sam H!
Congrats! Check your inbox for an email 
Thanks for participating everyone, we’ll try and do another giveaway soon. Hope everyone had a great weekend.
Rent-A-Center Sweepstakes & $50 Card Giveaway!
Time to do a giveaway! Been a while since our last one, and this one seemed to easy/fun to pass up You’ll have two chances to win something today:
Giveaway #1: Total Room Makeover from Rent-A-Center!
Making over a room or a space in your home can be tedious, costly and demanding. However, if you want a change there’s no way to get around those annoyances… until now. During the next week, Rent-A-Center (RAC) is hosting a Room Remake Sweepstakes, where one lucky winner will win a total makeover of a space in their home with new brand-name furniture, big screen TVs… the works, all completely free!
RAC makes life manageable for hardworking people that need an affordable alternative when credit isn’t available or doesn’t make sense. RAC offers an affordable way to get what you need when you need it, without the risks and long-term obligation of a credit transaction.
TO ENTER: All you have to do to enter is “like” Rent-A-Center’s Facebook Page, and then let them know WHY you need a room remade – that’s it. They will pick a winner via their Facebook Page by this Sunday, Nov 14th.
Giveaway #2: $50 Visa Gift Card
Rent-A-Center is also giving a Clever Dude reader their very own $50 Visa Gift Card! Which is great because you can spend it on anything you want (and I’ll be joining you as I got one for hosting this too) All you have to do to enter is answer the following question below:
Why my college degree was worth the price
While many of you think your college degree was a big waste of money, usually because you’re doing nothing related to your degree, I get to tell you how my degree more than paid for itself.
I started college as a declared Accounting major, but in my senior year, decided that Accounting wasn’t for me. Thanks goodness. So I switched to a new degree (that only lasted a few years at my college) called Operations and Information Systems Management. The degree mainly focused on project management, inventory management, logistics and some computer stuff like database design and unix system administration.
Since I went to a state school, and paid in-state tuition (and lived off-campus), I estimate my degree cost me about $24,000 in tuition, and probably another $15k-20k in housing, food, etc. While my parents took out loans for the housing, and helped me buy food until I got on my feet with my first college job (at a computer lab), I paid for my own tuition and most of my non-rent bills. I will admit my parents had to pay out of pocket for my final class since I didn’t meet requirements to get a loan.
I’ll also admit that I promised my mom that I would pay back as much of the loans they took out for me as I could, and I’ve knocked a small dent in that loan my parents are carrying for me, but I still have a ways to go.
A new way to give to those in need… Love Drop
A personal friend and professional colleague, J Money, has partnered with Nate from ItStartsWith.Us to start a new way to give to those in need: Love Drop (http://lovedrop.org/). I haven’t had a personal conversation with J about it, but from the site and video, it looks like it’s going to be a hit.
Here’s the deal: You subscribe via Paypal for any amount (you get billed for a yearly amount to make accounting easier on both sides). For example, give $1 a month, get billed $12, and so on. Depending on your donation level, you get different levels of access to the Love Drop community.
What happens with your donations?
Think of Love Drop as “planned random acts of kindness to strangers” (my own words). Basically, people will submit their needs, or members suggest those in need, and J and Nate do the leg work to determine both the truth in need and the best way to fulfill that need. Your donated money, of course, will be used for fulfilling those needs.
Now, the question about whether your funds are tax-deductible. No, they are not. This is not a registered non-profit, and Nate says as such in the video. The downside to not being a non-profit is that Love Drop has to pay taxes and Paypal fees on each transaction. So, after taxes and Paypal fees, Love Drop will donate 50% to immediate needs, while the other 50% helps the organization grow further. And no, that doesn’t mean the money goes into their pockets as profits. It will go to things like advertising, site maintenance and other business expenses.
25,000 bonus points from American Express!
It’s that time of year again when American Express rolls out its 25,000 bonus points offer on its American Express(R) Premier Rewards Gold Card. Here’s the details:
The offer ends November 8, 2010, so you have just over a week to take advantage of the deal:
- For a limited time – Get 25,000 Membership Rewards(R) bonus points when you spend $1,000 in your first 3 months of Card membership. Offer expires 11/8/10.
- 3-2-1 Points: Get Membership Rewards points up to three times as fast: You can get 3X points on airfare, 2X points on gas and groceries, and 1X points on everything else.
- No annual fee for your first year, a savings of $175.
Apply Now!
If you recall when I did this deal myself a few years ago, I cancelled the card before the year was up so I didn’t pay the $175 annual fee. But if you think you’ll use the card for the rewards and it beats out your other card(s), then feel free to keep it. Personally, I still love my PenFed Visa.
Wanna be a millionaire? Move to Vietnam!
One of my wife’s college friends moved from the DC area to Vietnam temporarily and has something to say about Vietnamese currency. If you’ve visited southeast Asia, you’ll know how much your American dollar can get you. In the case of Heather, it’s made her into a millionaire.
Heather’s site is more of a personal blog, but this article really highlights the luxuries we have here in America, but also makes you question why things aren’t cheaper here. Here’s an example from her site:
- Meal bought on the street (popular for Vietnamese) ~20,000 VND ($1)
- Meal in a restaurant ~60,000 VND ($3)
- Fruit from the market (the 2 pomegranates, 2 oranges, and 1 bunch of bananas I just bought were a total of 30,000 VND, or $1.50)
- Taxi (to go 3-4 miles) ~40,000-60,000 VND ($2-3)
- Taxi with a broken meter that completely ripped me off – 80,000 VND ($4)
- Cell phone (with service that should last the entire time I am here) – 700,000 VND ($35)
- Cotton tank top – 30,000 VND ($1.50)
- Rent – 3,000,000 VND/month ($150/month)
- Gym membership 1,200,000 VND/month ($62/month) – almost half the cost of my rent – you can see there is little demand/competition in this market!
- Cost to stay for 1 night in a hostel ~100,000 VND ($5)
Have any of you visited (or lived in) southeast Asia? Were you born there and found it difficult to move to America?
How do childless couples deal with parent friends?
My wife and I are now in our early thirties. It was over 3 years ago that we first started talking about adoption, and we asked your opinion. But as you probably guessed, we haven’t proceeded with adopting, fostering or having a child biologically. We’re still a “childless couple”.
What gives?
Well, we kind of got sucked into our careers. Stacie got a new job last year as an outpatient pediatric dietitian and she’s really into it. Not long after, I left federal contracting and began work in the IT department of an area university. We’ve both finally found jobs that we enjoy, and we’ve also decided to do a lot more with our church such as teaching kids and leading charity projects.
But any of you in your late 20′s/early 30′s know that there’s mainly 2 things happening in this time of our lives:
1. Having kids
2. Getting divorced
Unsurprisingly, we know many friends involved in either of these life events, and sometimes unfortunately in both. Of course, we also still have single friends and single-parent friends, but let’s focus on our “parent friends” for now.
How do we relate to our “parent friends”?
Well, this is an unanswered question for us as well that we’d like some help with. Assuming we’re not having kids anytime soon, how do we relate to our friends who are parents? These friends are from our childhood, college days and even in the last 10 or so years since moving to the D.C. area.
Clever Dude and his bride started with $500k in debt and in just 4 years, it's down to $300k!