This is more of a vent than anything...
I wouldn't call myself rich, I struggle financially, but I struggle less than other people. I see this, and in the past have tried to be somewhat charitable towards people who don't have or can afford what I have. Part of my reasons for this is that I like to share what I have with others, and part of it is that I like to try and build up "karma".
What I have seen as a result is disappointing. People could care less about things that don't belong to them, and most people have no regard for someone else's time.
Also, let me preface this by saying that I never, ever borrow material items or money from people unless it is an absolute, dire emergency, and at 44 years of age I have yet to encounter any situation where I have had to borrow something from someone.
Last year I let someone borrow some items from me, the items in question came back totally trashed. The person who did the borrowing was someone that appeared to have integrity and seemed to be fairly honest. Not only did I have to REPEATEDLY ask for my items back over a six month period of time, when I got them back they were basically destroyed. No explanation, no apologies, no offer of reimbursement, etc.
Last month another person wanted to use an item of mine, it was something that was very expensive, and that I doubt the person would be able to use without assistance from me. It was also something that if it broke, I would not be able to afford to replace it. Now, I work a full time job, and I work alot. 50-60 hours a week usually, and that is on top of having to maintain a residence. I told this guy he could come over to my house and use this item, but he would have to pay me back by helping me perform some chores around my house, nothing major, just doing some raking and yard pickup...End result ? I spent an entire afternoon helping this dude only to see him split as soon as he got what he wanted done.
Than two weeks ago I loaned a friend a portable hard drive that had a backup copy of my iTunes library (one of three total backup copies I had)..I am talking 300-400 gigs of music here. I specifcally told him to import the tunes using iTunes from the hard drive, and not to load anything else onto the hard drive at all. During this time I lost power, and when we got power back I found that the drive that held my primary iTunes library and the drive that had my second backup iTunes library somehow became corrupted, maybe due to an electrical spike.
I get the HD back containing what I thought was my last backup copy of my iTunes library, only to find that this idiot had basically used it for other things during the time he had it and essentially erased my last copy. Now I am looking at spending the next year reimporting all of my cd's I have, and trying to find some of the other stuff I had on there (videos, concert bootlegs, etc).
So to all you borrowers out there, you have just lost a rather generous "lender" due to your irresponsibility and stupidity. Going forward, I hope that those that read this and like to borrow things from people learn the lesson to treat things that do not belong to you better.
Signed,
The Miser.
I wouldn't call myself rich, I struggle financially, but I struggle less than other people. I see this, and in the past have tried to be somewhat charitable towards people who don't have or can afford what I have. Part of my reasons for this is that I like to share what I have with others, and part of it is that I like to try and build up "karma".
What I have seen as a result is disappointing. People could care less about things that don't belong to them, and most people have no regard for someone else's time.
Also, let me preface this by saying that I never, ever borrow material items or money from people unless it is an absolute, dire emergency, and at 44 years of age I have yet to encounter any situation where I have had to borrow something from someone.
Last year I let someone borrow some items from me, the items in question came back totally trashed. The person who did the borrowing was someone that appeared to have integrity and seemed to be fairly honest. Not only did I have to REPEATEDLY ask for my items back over a six month period of time, when I got them back they were basically destroyed. No explanation, no apologies, no offer of reimbursement, etc.
Last month another person wanted to use an item of mine, it was something that was very expensive, and that I doubt the person would be able to use without assistance from me. It was also something that if it broke, I would not be able to afford to replace it. Now, I work a full time job, and I work alot. 50-60 hours a week usually, and that is on top of having to maintain a residence. I told this guy he could come over to my house and use this item, but he would have to pay me back by helping me perform some chores around my house, nothing major, just doing some raking and yard pickup...End result ? I spent an entire afternoon helping this dude only to see him split as soon as he got what he wanted done.
Than two weeks ago I loaned a friend a portable hard drive that had a backup copy of my iTunes library (one of three total backup copies I had)..I am talking 300-400 gigs of music here. I specifcally told him to import the tunes using iTunes from the hard drive, and not to load anything else onto the hard drive at all. During this time I lost power, and when we got power back I found that the drive that held my primary iTunes library and the drive that had my second backup iTunes library somehow became corrupted, maybe due to an electrical spike.
I get the HD back containing what I thought was my last backup copy of my iTunes library, only to find that this idiot had basically used it for other things during the time he had it and essentially erased my last copy. Now I am looking at spending the next year reimporting all of my cd's I have, and trying to find some of the other stuff I had on there (videos, concert bootlegs, etc).
So to all you borrowers out there, you have just lost a rather generous "lender" due to your irresponsibility and stupidity. Going forward, I hope that those that read this and like to borrow things from people learn the lesson to treat things that do not belong to you better.
Signed,
The Miser.
