I use the people helping people line a fair amount so just get used to it. My mood tends to shift from time to time on how generous I want to be with people. My good moods tend to lead to me being nice and pleasant and bad moves to flipping people off and telling them to go jump in a lake. Here are a few examples of situations I come across.

We received an email from one of my dad’s friends saying that he can save us money by switching us to a different energy provider and not paying Peco direct. Basically you maintain providers, he makes money by signing you up for a new company’s billing plan and everything else stays the same. Now this would be helping someone out by putting money into their pocket by just switching to a 3rd party energy provider. You know what I said? Absolutely not. I’d rather pay Peco the extra money than give the salesman a commission. Why? Because 9 times out of 10, if the situation were reversed, I ask myself would this person do this for me? The majority of people in life are acquaintances and not your friends. People who actually care about you are different then people who only like you because you are giving them money. I tend to relate this to why all the bartenders seem to like me.

So I just gave an example of why I don’t like helping weasels, do I like to help people who may legitimately need help like beggars and homeless? My sympathy tends to run light for people on the street. Why am I so cold hearted? The people who you give money to don’t appreciate you, they just appreciate the money. They probably wouldn’t remember you the next day. JC gave me a good story of him giving a guy who sells newpapers on the street a 10 dollar bill. His reasoning was that the guy is trying the best he can to EARN a living and JC is fortunate enough to help him out. This stuck with me because I too tend to side with a guy who is really giving it his all and just can’t seem to get ahead, compared to a bum looking to score some drugs. Now maybe the newpaper guy uses all his money on drugs but at least I see some effort and work ethic. There is no such thing as a free lunch and I believe you should have to work for things to appreciate them.

So I don’t like helping weasels or the homeless, what about charity’s? You know that the money is being used for a good cause (at least you hope) and you should feel good knowing that you are positively affecting other people’s lives. On celebrity apprentice last night they had wealthy people donating $100,000 to these charity’s per item auctioned. I think that’s fantastic. If I had 10 million dollars in the bank I’d be inclined to give away large chunks of money too. Newsflash, most of the people on Earth are barely scraping by, how can you expect people to donate money when they can’t afford their next meal? And this is supposed to be one of the wealthiest countries on Earth, I can’t imagine other places quality of life. To be honest, I’ve given small sums of money to charity but until I become independently wealthy, I have a hard time giving others my money over #1.

I’ve made posts on tipping before but I have noticed it has become a part of my life to overtip. I’m talking insane amounts of tipping. Scenario 1, you open a bar tab and have 10 beers at 2 dollars each. It’s 20 dollars and you leave a generous tip of 5 dollars. Scenario 2, You get 10 beers and tip 1 dollar each time the bartender gives you a beer. Both standard scenarios. If you forget to tip the bartender ONE time in scenario 2, they’ll remember it forever. I tip poker dealers, delivery men, taxi drivers, you name it I tip them. Worst thing is I over tip everyone because I think they’ll like me more. It’s in my blood to appease people and not have people think of me as a nit. It’s fucking insane to think a big tip to a taxi driver is smart. You’ll never see them again in your life! I swear if you added up all the money I tipped and gave it to a charity, I’d need my own fund raising software to keep track of it. Do I get any credit though for my generosity? No, it’s probably the reverse because I used my blog to tell people how generous I am that now they probably think I’m even more of a douchebag.

Am I wrong to think that most people don’t share my views? Are there way more caring people out there than I give credit to? My underlying feeling is that I probably even overestimate the amount of good hearted people. I just get the feeling that everyone has their own agenda and it usually involves benefiting themselves instead of benefiting you. The world will run you over if you let it.

A final story to finish off this long winded post. After I uploaded all this basketball video and sent it to my email address, I over shot my 150mb of data by 100 mb. CK4 says to call up and not pay the 20 dollars in surcharge use. I’ve given it some thought and would rather just pay the 20 dollars. I signed a contract, I went over my limit according to the terms of service and now I’m going to pay the penalty because it’s the right thing to do. To quote CK4 after telling a car salesmen why he bought from another dealership: “By now you are probably staring at your computer monitor with a dumbfounded facial expression. To answer the question that you have had since doubling clicking on this email: the reason that I took my time to write this email is simply put:
Because it is the right thing to do.
Full letter here for those amused and missed it previously.

Could I bitch and moan and threaten to leave Verizon and get my 20 dollars? Most likely, but then I ask myself how I would like it if customers started calling me and demanding refunds because they dropped a tool off the roof and it broke. It’s not my fault you broke the tool and are demanding another one the same way it isn’t Verizon’s fault I went over my data plan. If the charge was 2,000 dollars I’d probably feel differently but I will pay the money because I’m not a swindler. Ck4 said I should have negotiated some Mad River tickets better, instead of paying 10 dollars I could have haggled it to 8 or something. In my opinion, what CK4 doesn’t get is that in an effort to save 10 dollars, I have a bartender who thinks that I worry over every single dollar and that’s just not my style. Call me a bad business men or poor negotiator but money is only money, your personality and peoples perception of you holds much more then a dollar value.