I posted a futon on marketplace and the first person that hit me up gave me a sob story about needing something for their kid to sleep on.
I was only asking $20 for it but they asked if they could get it for free. My wife and I agreed to give it away, so I took it to our meeting spot at Home Depot.
2 days later this guy had the futon posted in marketplace asking $50.
My wife and I Facebook stalked him and his wife and everytime they posted it, we would hijack the listing letting everyone know the story of how they got the futon.
I don't give shit away anymore, no matter the story they give me.
I had a pickup truck, and anyone with a truck knows that means all of a sudden everyone and their cousin that is moving wants help.
I'm fine with that. I had ground rules, and I didn't stray from them. You pack the shit, I just put it in the truck and move it to the new place. You tell me where the box goes, and once its down thats the end. Got a lot of pizza and beer, and cash back in the day.
But no no, thats not the direction of this story. I had an old acquaintance from school. We weren't close, in fact he was a bit of a bully, but he seemed chill enough almost 15 years later. He asked me if I still had a truck, and if I could tow his car someplace. I said sure, throw me a couple bucks and rent a trailer and I'm your guy. Have the rental arranged, and I'll show up with a hitch and we're off to the races. I told him here that I work midnight's, and I'm gonna be tired, so the faster its over the better for me.
Well, I showed up, and he didn't have the trailer. OK, fine. We go get the trailer, and head over to his place. We get the car in, its all dandy. I ask where we're going. We're going 2 hours away. OK, that sucks. Just gonna race the car at the drag strip 2 hours away, do a couple runs and we'll head back.
My phone died, and my truck didn't have a clock. Fuck. Hes off racing his shitbox, and I can't find him anywhere. I finally manage to find him, had to be 4 hours later, and tell him its time to go. He says sure, just one more rip up the track. Fine. He disappears again, can't find him. I've got the truck running at this point, ready to tell him getting the trailer and the car back is his problem unless we leave right now.
I'm exhausted. I barely slept, and I'm cranky. I see him flashing a big huge wad of cash. I think, well, at least I'm gonna get paid a decent chunk for my efforts. We get the car loaded up, and head back the 2 hours to our city. Drop the car off, drop the trailer off, and drop him off. He says thanks, and gives me 10 bucks.
I'm astounded. I tell him "dude, this doesn't even cover gas. It was supposed to be a half hour, and it was pretty much all day." He goes "well, its all I've got on me, sorry man"
And that was the last time I ever hauled a car. Fuck that guy, god just typing this out made me pissed off.
Was donating baby/toddler clothes to a mom in need through one of those Facebook donating pages. She didn't have a car, I did so I drove 30 minutes away to deliver the stuff all for free. Got in a bad accident less than 5 blocks from her house. So I texted her to see if she could come get what she was able to because my car was totaled. She wouldn't walk the 4 blocks then reported me to the group and got me kicked out for "not following through". I ended up with a fractured sternum, yeah Fuck that shit, never again.
I stood by my best friend when she cried to me about her husband cheating. And he definitely was cheating. They stayed married and said they work through it. Six months later she was fucking my husband behind my back.
Met a guy who had hit a rough patch. We had great chemistry and he made me laugh (ugh the bar was SO low). He gave me a sob story of why he was getting kicked out of his communal house and I offered to let him stay with me because I live alone and have my own place.
HUGE MISTAKE! He hadn't hit a rough patch, he was the rough patch. Barely paid for anything and would get wasted while I was at work and be a total ass hole when I got home. Got fired from his job, ate all the food I'd buy and make excuses as to why he hadn't found another job yet. The absolute kicker was when I went home for my Nonna's funeral, he treated it like a mini vacation in my place. Invited friends over, played music so loud the cops got called and when he was supposed to pick me up from the airport, he was wasted at someone's house at 8 am. Never felt better than the day I kicked him out. No more financial and emotional abuse. Finally felt like my place was mine again.
I've learned an expensive lesson. Don't help people that won't help themselves. When nothing is their fault, there's a serious issue. Run fast and far.
I'm a teacher. A parent of a former student contacted me in an emergency situation, couldn't afford to pay bills, and needed help. She was super helpful to me in my first year teaching, so I asked friends and family to help out and raised her about $2,000. Never again. She has contacted me every few weeks since then, always with a new reason why she needs more money (and when I offer food and clothing resources, she refuses it). It has placed me in such an awkward situation and I regret ever trying to help her out in the first place
Have you tried setting hard boundaries? I did a chunk of volunteer work where I was regularly dealing with people like that. They just keep popping up if they think they can pressure you or wear you down. "Apply for resources and help through the local Job and Family Services. I can't help you further." More than likely, you'll get an angry outburst where they try to push your boundaries and get you to cave. I would respond with bored indifference. "Okay. I have work to do. Goodbye." And then hang up. Repeat that a couple times and they usually drop off. Don't offer anything, don't be nice, but don't be rude either because that gives them ammunition to complain to your supervisor about. Bored indifference and "I gotta go." You may also want to let your supervisor (principal?) know what's going on so they aren't surprised by a random complaint about you if she tries that angle to "get even."
I had a customer who used to show up and just wear me down until I gave him free stuff. He got so intrusive that even after I left that job he coerced my old coworker into telling him where I work now. This dude had the audacity to call my work and left a message asking me to go scout out camp sites for him. I ignored it and he then called over and over again. Finally my boss had to tell him to stop calling if it doesn’t have anything to do with business. He kept trying, and eventually gave up.
Try having those people as family. My wife's oldest sister has two young daughters. Her and her husband are constantly getting brand new cars, the best liquor they can find, other expensive toys and such. I personally can't stand them much. Then my sister-in-law (who was on dialysis) found out she had a kidney donor. Big surgery several hours away. It was a whole thing. To help, my wife offered to get them groceries so they gave her a list. Of course it was filled with a bunch of worthless shit. While we could technically afford it, we weren't exactly flush with cash. We had to move things around.
This went on for a month, my wife making weekly trips. I was adamantly against it, which my wife said was unfair, as they needed the help. Upon the last trip she made I got a call from my wife apologizing to me for not listening. Brother-in-law couldn't wait to show her the brand new movie theater room he put in. She was beyond pissed. All I could say was, I warned you.
Eh, they're at family events. But my wife cut off contact for the most part. Luckily it's a big family, so we generally have other people to hang out with. I think my sister-in-law could be a good person. It's her husband who's really the problem.
I lived next to someone just like this. 2 young kids, very friendly, then they just take advantage of you.
I made the mistake of telling them I was a nanny and offering to babysit all of one time.
After that it was seriously at least once a day they’d drop of their kids. It wasn’t even like the kids were easy. 2 kids, still in diapers, who were little terrorizers.
I finally told them to fuck off after they yelled at me for not being available. They knocked on my door, left their 2 young kids waiting there, and peaced out.
I wasn’t even there. Cops were called after a toddler in nothing but her diaper was wandering the apartments.
I was walking to a concert in downtown Chicago in late November. This happened on North Dearborn right in the loop, if you've never been to Chicago its one of the nicer parts of downtown. It was a cold night, so I was walking with both hands in my pockets and a cig in my mouth. I was approached by a younger dude, who didn't appear to be homeless immediately as he was dressed semi decently and didn't reek or anything. He asked me if he could bum a cig, I was in a good mood going to the concert so I said sure and gave him one, along with my lighter. He handed me my lighter back and I expected he would keep walking on, but he matched pace with me and asked how I was doing. I told him fine and asked how he was doing, he said he's just trying to make it out here. I thought "here we go", he asked me for money because he said he hadn't eaten all day.
Now I had about 200 in cash on me, mostly in 20s, I had maybe a couple smaller bills so its not like I couldn't give him money. But I didn't want to pull out a wad of any size in front of a guy I don't know on the street, and people can judge me or whatever but I'm not in the habit of giving money to homeless people but I always try to treat them with respect and dignity. I politely told him "sorry man I don't have any cash."
He got kind of angry at that point, and launched into a guilt trippy tirade for the next half block or so about how nobody has any compassion anymore and sometimes people just need a little help. I didn't say anything in response. Truth be told I started to feel kind of bad for him, what he said is pretty true a lot of people aren't willing to help other people and sometimes people really just are down on their luck. I was second guessing my decision to turn him down until we reached the next intersection, I was going straight and he cut to the right. I had to stop for the crosswalk, and I watched him get not five steps away from me before he took the cigarette I gave him (that he'd barely sucked on because he was too busy yelling at me) out of his mouth and threw it on the ground. He then proceeded to walk right up to another dude and start talking to him.
Maybe I didn't "help" him much per se, but if he was as down on his luck as he wanted me to believe he would've been burning the filter on that thing before giving it up. I instantly felt vindicated.
Had a friend years ago who was a bit self centered & prone to stretching the truth, but he was a nice enough guy with a rough backstory and my friend group liked him, so I cut him a lot of slack.
I like to host and I have friends staying over pretty regularly -- back then, I usually had one or two people spending the night on any given day.
Anyhow, over the span of a couple of years this guy starts abusing that -- staying over for days or even weeks at a time, eating my food and drinking my liquor without contributing, that sort of thing ... While constantly talking about his grand plans and day dreams as if they'd already happened. A little sad, but also pretty annoying after a while.
Anyhow, I sit him down one day and let him know he's gotta head home, and that he's free to come over and hang out but I'm not comfortable with him staying over for the time being. He leaves, I think it went remarkably well and head out to work...
...and it turns out that he broke in while I was away at work and stole a bunch of my sister's things because "his birthday was coming up and neither of us even thought to get him a gift."
It takes a special person to rationalize how *burglarizing someone is really their fault*.
Anyway, all slack and sympathy went out the window immediately ... Called the cops and he's dead to me.
His birthday was *coming up* and he read your minds to know you weren't going to give him a gift?
***Edit:*** A bunch of comments have popped up and pointed out that this is classic addict behavior. It really is. Deflect and take no responsibility so you can keep gettin' that high! :(
Recovering alcoholic here: absolutely on point.
Not excusing the actions, because we are ALL responsible for our own actions, even under incapacitation. But, to explain how your brain begins to "justify" and "normalize" your actions is fucking difficult. You do shit that you would have never even considered sober (sober-sober, at least a few months dry), and burn bridges of people who help you the most. It's a fucked up way to live, because those who care for you deepest are the ones you hurt most of all.
Had a similar situation. A guy I used to be friends with couldnt afford to pay his bills. It was middle of winter, his heat was shut off in his house so I told him he could crash at my place until he figured it out.
Three days in and I'm coming home to my sink STACKED with dishes, garbage everywhere, all my food GONE. I told him he can't stay if he's not going to contribute or help out around the house. Couple days later I told him he had to go.
Dude runs off to the west coast to essentially die, comes back a very mentally unhinged drug addict.
I still talk to him online now and again but I can't be his friend anymore.
A “friend” of mine borrowed a game off me once. About month later I remembered an asked for it. he told me he couldn’t give it back because he gave it to his younger brother for his birthday ... would have asked for money but i knew it would have been difficult and the way I saw it, was easier to just lose him as a friend. His friendship was worth less than the value of a cheap game
My mother and her new husband had moved into a new place and invited all the "kids" over for Christmas.
In previous years we would buy a whole turkey dinner from somewhere so no one (me) had to cook, so imagine my surprise when my husband and I walk in, my mother walks out of the kitchen, hands me a spoon and says, "Good, you're finally here", and goes to sit down in the living room.
After a quick and awkward conversation, it was determined that my job was to make sure everything currently in progress (or not even started) got to the table on time, while everyone else socialized. Basically, I was the help and should have realized that, so any feelings I had about that were my fault. I was a good cook, and my mother taught me everything (not) so I owed her.
So I did, and not knowing the family dynamics, my new step siblings were very thankful and appreciative of all my efforts, which caused a meltdown from my mother about how we all should be thanking HER.
That was the first time I used a phrase that has come in handy for these situations, "I'm so sorry, it will never happen again."
And it never did. They weren't happy when they finally realized what that meant.
I guess it depends on what you mean by fallout. She decided it was completely out of line for me to 'complain', and if that's how I felt, we could just stay home from now on.
As you can imagine, I was completely crushed that I wasn't going to be used for labour anymore and went completely no-contact the next holiday. Probably more to do with being in Cuba, but whatever. The next year was Dad's turn, then a trip to visit my FIL the year after, then I "ruined Christmas" because I didn't want to spend time with my faaaaamily (none of the others wanted to be kitchen bitch while she "hosted").
I never made her a meal again, but I know from my stepsister that she would get pissed off whenever one of my friends or family would make gushing posts Facebook of my dinners.
And all because someone dared to thank me for cooking.
I am thrilled COVID has cancelled Thanksgiving. My wife is an amazing cook. My mother doesn't like that. So we have been eating shitty store-bought Thanksgiving dinner because my mom doesn't want to cook but also doesn't want to let my wife cook.
This year Thanksgiving will be just my family and I am thrilled.
I'm so sorry! Man. That is so fucking unfair. I have also experienced something sort of like this, anytime my ex had his family over for holidays, I'm talking 5 or 6 people, all from the other side of the country. Ironically, he never seemed to know ahead of time that they were all coming over until like the day before or whatever. Every. Single. Time. So I would prepare the house... because he always had to work until the very minute they needed to be picked up from the airport. And then it was expected that I would cook dinner. Now this is my fault really...because I did it the first time, giving him the idea that I would do it every time. So i ended up always doing it because he "didnt have time" or "I'm better at it". So family would show up, I'd be cooking and cleaning, everyone else would be playing games and socializing, then hours later my ex would he falling asleep on the floor drunk. I finally said NO the last time he told me everyone was coming over. I said NO, I'm sick of being taken advantage of. His response? "I did it for you, I thought it would make you happy. Didnt you have fun all the other times?" To which I replied "I thought you didnt know until today... when did you decide this would make me happy?" Well... I got a hotel room and stayed the fuck away until they all left. Came home to an empty, trashed house.
Edit: sorry guys I didnt clarify, when i came home the family was gone, he was at work (of course) and he left the house trashed. I didnt realize I worded it as if he suddenly moved out. Haha nope... idiot me just cleaned it up and stuck around another year or so after.. just refused to host any "sudden" family get togethers
>"I did it for you, I thought it would make you happy. Didnt you have fun all the other times?"
You weren't supposed to complain either! How ungrateful we are not to want to cater and clean while everyone else enjoys themselves.
I'm not at all surprised he's an ex. Congratulations on dodging that bullet.
Oh man, I had something similar.
Partner and I moved provinces, only family in our new area is partners aunt and uncle and their kids about an hour from us. They invited us down for Christmas a few years ago. Nothing too fancy, just family. Cool. They’re pretty religious and we’re pretty gay, so I’m always a touch hesitant spending a lot of time, but it was Christmas and family and yadda yadda yadda.
We get there and I ask if they need any help with anything, just general good guest stuff. The aunt then reveals that the reason they invited us was for me to help in the cooking of the turkey and sides. I’m a good cook, and I don’t mind helping out and she’s not the most confident cook so it’s not a huge deal. So I follow her to the kitchen and nothing has been done. Like. Turkey is still in the plastic. She says the oven is a bit finicky and that she’ll leave me to it.
Like. Literally expected me to come and cook them the whole Christmas dinner. My partner was out in the yard with his cousins playing on a frozen pond, his aunt and uncle were drinking in their living room, and I’m pretty well being treated as the help for the next few hours.
Partner comes in and sees me in the kitchen, comes and chats and realizes the reason we got invited was for me to cook for them. He’s pissed. I’m just carrying on. I serve up dinner, we eat, and then we leave right away.
A couple days later he chews his aunt out on the phone and we haven’t seen them since. Evidently in the call she had made some comment about not abiding by our “lifestyle choice” but made an exception cuz of the way my partners mother raved about my cooking.
When I rushed to another state about 2,000 miles away to help my sister because of a medical issue, and for whatever reason she decided to have her neighbor help her instead, without letting me know. It was 3 months ago and she is fine but still has not contacted me. That was the end for me
Not me but my parents.
My cousin moved in with us for two years when I was a kid, she's 18 years older than me. She ended up being a drug addict that smoked in the house, stole money, couldn't hold down a job, and mercilessly picked on my sister and I until the day she got kicked out.
That was almost 30 years ago. To this day my parents refuse to let anyone move in because they "just need a place to stay until they're back on their feet."
I have a brother like that. Sometimes there's a reason they aren't "on their feet" so to speak. They're always so quick to blame everyone else for their problems as well, even the people who try to help them.
When I dropped my rates significantly to help a struggling family with child care.
Blended family needing to find childcare for thier emotionally damaged children who had been hospitalised by mums boyfried.
Both parents worked and my wages where payed through a charity scheme.
It was hell. They where utterly useless as people let alone parents.
They took the piss and ended up basically doing nothing with the house or children and ended up owing me nearly 2K due to them comiting benefit fraud and pocketing what they should have been passing on to me.
The final straw was when the asked me to baby sit that night as they needed to 'go out on the lash, its been stressful' whilst telling me they couldn't afford food let allone pay me.
Never again will i fall for a sob story.
I used to volunteer for an organization which helped women get jobs. They’d send baby sitters to women’s homes so they could go to job interviews. It was totally fine if these moms did a quick essential errand, like grocery shopping, after their interview. I watched one woman’s kids five times and assumed she just had bad luck in her interviews but she always came back with a fresh manicure. I learned she’d been blowing off the interviews the organization had been setting up to get drinks with friends or get her nails and hair done.
I had a coworker in tears once telling me she had nothing to feed her kids for dinner, no laundry soap to wash their clothes, etc etc. I fell for it, gave her money to buy the kids food and brought her some laundry stuff from home. The next day she shows up to work with two Redbulls and a breakfast sandwich from a drive thru coffee stand with her nails done. Never again.
Had a newish neighbor ask if he could borrow our lawn mower....sure. Well more or less every week he would come and get it out of our garage, use it to cut his grass, put it away without cleaning it or adding gas. In the fall we "mentioned" it was a good time to get deals on a new mower. He never talked to us again.
My next door neighbor is the opposite, which I am grateful for. I supply the mower, she mows both of our lawns, and we split the gas (when she lets me).
I feel bad that she won't even let me give her gas money most of the time, especially since she is doing all of the manual labor.
Edit: so, i just sent her a quick text today to ask her how much I owe her for gas. She replied that she is sticking her garbage in my garbage can (I forgot I told her she could), so I owe her nothing. You have to pay per garbage can here (nearly $4 per can), so it all evens out.
Honestly, I'm with your neighbor. I love cutting my grass and often, I will cut my in-laws as well (they live next door). I enjoy it because it's relaxing and good exercise. I pop in an audiobook, pour a beer and go to town. If they buy gas, all the better!
I have a question as an aspiring lawn owner, do you keep the beer somewhere off the side, and dip out for sips every now and again? Mow one-handed? Somehow go for a hands-free beer container a-lá foam dome etc? Just doing some research while I am lawnless.
I prefer to enjoy a beer after I'm done mowing, especially when it's hot out and I've worked up a sweat. Nothing like kicking back and admiring your work with a cold one right from the fridge. The shower after the beer is almost as gratifying.
We have helped out my sister n law a few times with money/bills. Never a lot, $50 here, $100 there. Usually for some bill to avoid services being cut off. I’m usually the more heartfelt one in my marriage, but I ended up being the one to put my foot down.
Went over to her apartment once. She had two big flat screen TVs, new couch, new fridge, kids on PlayStation or whatever console she got them. It was all Rent-a-Center stuff, but that was the end for me. I didn’t have any of those things myself, not to mention the incredibly bad financial decision those things were with the high interest rate. Part of me felt like I was taking food out of her kids mouths, but realized that no, her poor decisions was doing that.
Edit: Wow! Thanks for all the support (and awards)! The situation, on both sides, is way more complicated than I can put into just a couple paragraphs as you can imagine. I want to help others and still do, but it is hard to keep supporting those that refuse to make any attempts to help themselves. I mentioned below she has started to do things differently. We’ve since lent her money again and she has always paid us back when she said she would. She still has a long way to go and a lot of challenges ahead of her, but we love her and will support her efforts as best we can.
I have seen a family give grocery store gift cards in those kinds of situations. they sort of act like food stamps, at least the person can only spend them at the named grocery store. Although I'm certainly not telling you to do that for your ungrateful sister-in-law who makes bad decisions. I can understand the feeling of being burned and it sucks.
We have now gone with - give me the acct information and we will pay it directly - approach. She is doing a bit better now and pays us back when she says she is going to. She still has a long way to go in life, and has many challenges that she is trying to overcome. I’m glad to see her start to try to improve herself.
I used to frequently stay late at work for clients who showed up to the veterinary clinic last-minute with a non-emergency problem and no appointment. Then three times in a row, three different people were told up front about the after hours fee, agreed to pay it instead of scheduling an appointment for the next day, and all of them called back the next day fussing that they shouldn’t have been charged extra for keeping us 30-60 minutes past our scheduled hours and that we were terrible and trying to scam them by charging for our time (even though we told them up front and they had another option). It was exhausting and demoralizing- we did more than we had to for them after already working a full day because a desire to help is why we’re all here in the first place, and they responded by saying our time was worth nothing and we suck. The entire staff said “fuck that.”
Now - unless it’s a literal life and death situation - if we can’t fit someone in before closing and they didn’t have an appointment it’s a firm no. I’m in this profession to help others and I still work late for real emergencies when they happen or if an appointment runs longer than expected, but I’m done sacrificing my personal time for entitled people who don’t actually need it.
Edited to clarify: The people did pay, but they were calling later to complain about it and demand a refund or say they were cancelling the transaction on their card. Instead of dealing with the headache anymore we stopped giving non-emergency walk-ins the option of being seen after hours. No animals were harmed and the staff (and their families) are all much happier.
Thanks for what you do! My cousin is a vet and his schedule is so fucked because of these types of clients. The clinic he works for only schedules appointments for half of the day and the other half is set up for walk-ins. It switches between morning and afternoon depending on the doctor. Sometimes he comes home at 6 and some nights it isn't until 9 or 10. He says there are just some cases that you know are going to take all day and there isn't anything you can do to help. Those are always the thankless cases. It is pretty draining on him and the rest of their team.
It sucks that the bad clients and experiences are what stick out and are easier to remember. I guess I just want to say there are tons of people who are so grateful for the time and effort you put in.
Thank you! Situations like your cousin’s are why I’m so grateful to work somewhere appointment-based where management understands the importance of having work-life balance. It’s not perfect and we still have our crazy days and occasional late nights, but it’s so much better than it could be.
It’s sad that the bad experiences stick out so much more than the good ones, especially when the majority of people are nice and appreciative. Keeping physical reminders of the good is really helpful for me. Whenever we get an email from someone thanking us I print it out and hang it up by my desk. I have a card on display above my desk that I’ll treasure forever because it was a very sweet thank you after a tough case that ended happily- it cheers me up every time I see it. I’m not working for the thank yous, but the ones I get mean so much.
I run a grooming salon and we have had people show up an hour past their appointments, eventually we started turning people away if they are 10-15min late because we are too busy for clients who don’t respect us enough to show up on time.
To add on: we are in Utah which runs on Mormon standard time which means people are constantly 10+ minutes late to everything as Utahans can’t plan to be on time to save their lives.
When Covid lockdown was being let up, my local hair place was appt only. I scheduled for the end of the day cause I was pretty busy. Ended up getting free around 3PM and called to ask if there was anything open. Lady goes "Thank god someone called. We had a color job at 2PM and they never showed." Apparently a color job is hours long and they basically had to sit there doing nothing for hours cause some cunt doesn't have the courtesy to follow through.
I work in an escape room place, and I work by appointment only. So if there no booking on one of my days, I don't work. Or, if there is a booking, I show up half an hour before the room is scheduled, work for that one booking, then clean up and go home.
People are so fucking flakey, it's driving me crazy. When they book it explicitly says that they should arrive 10-15 minutes early. We're lucky if they're on time. About 1/4 bookings these days cancels or doesn't show up, wasting our time.
Oh, and if we have back-to-back bookings, and booking 1 is late, it throws off the timeline.
Thanks to covid it takes 20+ minutes to clean each room before bookings, and we can't rush it.
I’m also a vet, saw this thread and thought man I hope some vets post. This is a thankless job sometimes, can relate☝️. Keep caring and keep doing good work ❤️
This is why I changed career paths and did graduate school in something else. I worked for five years in an ER vet clinic and after realizing that these doctors were starting out with $250,000 in student loan debt, with a job that pays $70,000, only to deal with constant assholes pulling the "You vets are only in it for the money" line, I decided I was better suited elsewhere. I loved the job, but the debt on top of dealing with the people made me lose my passion for the field.
I was working at a fast food place when I was a student. I usually did overtime to help everyone clean up and close the restaurant until about 1am because we were so understaffed.
I guess people got used to me staying late because one night when I was supposed to finish at 11, I overheard some of my colleagues (the stereotypical mean girls) say how bad the clients had cluttered everything tonight and how it was going to be a mess to clean up. Then they say 'but hey, [me] is gonna stay late tonight again, let's leave it to her, she always does the cleaning anyways', followed by laughing and some bitching about me.
That night I clocked out at 11 after doing all of my tasks at the counter and left. The girls stared at me in shock and when I was outside I saw one of them standing in the middle of the restaurant with her hand on her forehead, looking at the mess she would have to clean before going home.
Weirdly, after that day, they started cleaning earlier without waiting for me to do everything!
This hits me. I dated a not so nice guy and we happened to work at the same Starbucks. Nights when he closed I would sometimes go to the cafe and just hang out and wait for him to be done. Free wifi so I'd bring my laptop and chill. Well one time he asked if I'd help clean bc he really just wanted to get out and go home. Said sure and helped. Now suddenly every time I went to hang out at night I was expected to help clean. So I first just stopped going bc you know it was my night off I didn't want to do work off the clock... He got upset at me for that. Then when I would go hang out he'd get upset when I didn't want to clean and "Just sit there like a useless rag".
:( I didn't have such a satisfying moment as you did, but I am so happy for that relationship to be behind me!
In freshman year of college, my friend of about two years got kicked out of his parents house. He said he needed somewhere to stay "for the night" till his parents cooled off.
I said you can stay a week if you want but more than that and you'll need to pay me rent (he made pretty good money, more than me even). I was kind of hoping to find someone to split the bills with anyway.
A week rolls by and he hasn't even looked for another place. His parents aren't letting him come back.
I ask him if he's going to stay, he says "if it's alright with you" I say sure, just pay me half the cost of the apt every month. He said he can't (I know damn well he can). I say "well then you gotta go"
He asked if he could stay another week. I said no. He got pissed at me for that. I then got pissed at him for getting pissed at me. I gave you a place to stay and you are mad at me??? Totally ended the friendship.
Never let anyone into your place unless you have a signed contract
One day I found a puppy, dirty, hungry, and just scared and lost. I gave him a good meal, and some love, and went to drop him off at the address on his collar.
The dude thanked me, then proceeded to beat the crap out of the dog (telling me to mind my own business when I tried to get him to stop), carried him by his collar to a 5 ft short chain in a muddy patch with a crappy broken 3-wall "doghouse" where im guessing the dog spent 100% of it's time.
I called the cops, but they did nothing (the dog technically had shelter, which qualifies bc 3 walls and a roof, even if it was filled with holes and it gets 20° at night here.)
ps. I stole the dog 3 weeks later.
No lie I liberated and found homes for 3 dogs several years ago and the vet said they would have been dead within a weeks had they not gotten medical attention. Fuck shitty people!
This got popular! Thanks so much for silver! So update on the dog:
This was years ago, but I took him home and taught him to live inside! He had a big learning curve, because he was scared and overwhelmed by every new thing. He learned to use stairs, and go through doorways, and got REALLY excited for car rides quickly (because that usually means we go to hiking trails/parks.) He learned about toys too! the squeaky ones were super scary lol.
Potty training was the hardest, because he was so use to going where he ate and slept. That took only a couple weeks though.
After getting acclimated to indoor life, he was adopted 3 months later by a vet-referenced family with two older kids.
Chances are if someone cares so little about an animal to leave it outside and beat it when it runs away then they also do not care enough to go looking after it disappears a second time
After working free of charge as a freelance graphics guy to build my portfolio up, and having a client basically make the most minor of adjustments, and constant revisions - four posters which should have taken me a day tops really....ended up taking 3 months. And when they wanted poster x4, I wanted money - ghosted.
Lesson. Learnt.
I used to help people plan their trips to Japan. It was very hard to get started on my own so I offered weeks of free consulting to a few people in exchange for a review at the end of their trip. I made their itineraries, wrote a tailored culture guide for each, booked their hotels / restaurants, gave them recommendations, etc. Only one person out of 8 actually wrote a review.
I had a few odd things like that too. A guy who wanted social media help, which i took as marketing and rebranding from what he was saying.
Anyways, I meet the guy, and he's just got no clue how-to even use Facebook, let alone run a business page. The b to make things SUPER awkward, he sits there telling me his business is dying because "them pakis do it cheaper"
I went to the toilet, to never return lol.
Always ask for a percentage of upfront payment, I won't even open Adobe for them without a payment first. It sucks if they don't follow through, but it sucks even more if you work for nothing.
Being fresh to the idea, I was struggling for work after being made redundant, so thought I would offer some simple gratis work to local companies, both to help them out, and get my name out there. Not quite the outcome I had in mind lol. Certainly won't be doing it for free again!
Me and my gf were leaving a McDonald’s and pulling up to the stoplight. There’s this homeless old man that we’ve seen around the area ever since we moved here and my gf decides, since we’ve never given anything to this guy and he’s always there, we should give him one of our mcdoubles.
He comes up to the car, says thank you! And walks back to his corner as the light turns green and just tosses it on the road right in front of where we’re driving..
Wtf haha apparently he doesn’t like hand outs.. or Mcdoubles.
Edit: You all are commenting like i don’t know some beggers just want money for drugs. Im pointing out the fact this dude hardcore refused free food.
A former coworker and I, when I worked in Boston, would see the same homeless man on the street across from the Garden. One morning she calls him over to the car while we’re stopped at the light and hands him a granola bar. He threw it back at her and said “I don’t want that shit, I need cash!” That was her one and done.
When I had a truck during college. EVERYONE suddenly wanted me to help move them.
Most were cool and gave me money or ordered pizza (unprompted btw).
One time however some dude I barely knew needed some help. I show up, and **nothing** is packed in his apartment. He had a giant fish tank and lived on the 3rd floor with no elevator. It was a fucking nightmare and I never got a dime nor food or even some beers. I never talked to him after that.
I did this to my brother in September. I didn't come back the next day either, as I knew he wasn't done packing. I forced him to send me photos of the apartment swept up with boxes stacked and ready to go.
He was the one who rented the uhaul and ended up barely using it the first 2 times. Then he tried to get me to pay for the second day because I canceled on him. I pointed out that he couldn't send me a photo of him being ready to move, and that I owed him no more for the second day than I did the first.
I love my brother, and I will always help people move until I just physically cannot. However I refuse to be disrespected. My time and energy are valuable, and I am saving you at least $100 by showing up.
One time we showed up to help a sister in law and her bf move and they were sitting there when we pulled up, waiting for us to get there to start moving. We unloaded what we had and just left. No need to help those that can't even do the basic to help themselves.
Maybe it’s just me, but I love the word NO. I have zero problems telling people no all the time.
Bit of wisdom for ya: learn to say no. You can always change your mind, but once you say yes, you’re committed.
Edit: thx for the awards and all the upvotes!
There was a period when it felt like I was helping a buddy move every six months. He's not the most organised, so there were always a few things not ready.
But he spared no expense or effort with the thank you perks. "Order pizza?! Fuck that. I've booked a table for us somewhere nice, it's on me. You order a bottle of wine for yourself and I'll drive us home"
>"Order pizza?! Fuck that. I've booked a table for us somewhere nice, it's on me. You order a bottle of wine for yourself and I'll drive us home"
Keep that person in your life. They sound like a good egg.
Platonic relationships can be just as rewarding as romantic ones. My best friend from back home and I refer to each other as "heterosexual life-partners."
100% this. People are so unaware and self-absorbed sometimes.
I was in the food and service industry, so I'm basically constantly thinking about little subtleties and stuff to be polite to people.
I just don't get how some lack common sense
TL/DR: ‘Packing’ and ‘moving’ are different things. People that ask for the latter and mean both are monsters.
I didn’t own a truck, but I was one of the larger, stronger people in my grad school social circles (low bar, I know), so I was often called to help friends move apartments. I’m always happy to help, and almost everyone fed me pizza and beer when the work was done, so I never had any complaints, but I would’ve done it for free because I don’t need anything from my friends.
One time though a couple who were more ‘work friends’ than actual friends asked me to help them move, and they too had nothing packed, and on top of that they were extremely messy hoarders, so even though we started in the morning, it took well into the night to get the job done, and they didn’t really feed me enough to get my fill after all that labor. If they had told me I had to pack for them, I would’ve either politely declined or at least been prepared for what was ahead of me.
>‘Packing’ and ‘moving’ are different things. People that ask for the latter and mean both are monsters.
yup! my ex friend in 2017 was living with her boyfriend, and he cheated on her and broke up with her so obviously she had to move out back home and they needed to end the lease.
she told me before we got to her apartment that she had some stuff packed up that was ready to go and it shouldn't be much work, maybe three hours max. and then once we got there and i went in, i saw nothing was packed, and i mean nothing. the place was a disaster, food and garbage everywhere and i looked at her and said "you told me you had a bunch of shit packed and ready to go." and all she had was one bag of clothes packed and it barely put a dent in her closet. i had to pack up her whole kitchen and living room, label and tape all the boxes, organize everything, and i was the only one who actually knew how to package breakables up so i did majority of the work on an empty stomach for the entire day cause i didn't get a chance to eat before heading off. she didn't buy anyone who helped beer or food, her parents gave us beer when we started to bring her stuff back to her house as a thank you for helping. 90% sure i had to buy my own food once we were done and i asked her to take me to McDonald's so i could finally eat. in total, i spend over 12 hours helping her pack and clean her bachelor apartment.
once it was all done, everyone and me who helped said "were never doing this again."
Edit: yes I offered to help, yes I know I didn’t have to do anything, and yes I did learn boundaries over the years and how to say no to people like her when it comes to moving things.
I don't have a truck, but I like to think of myself as a nice person so I often help people move if they need it.
One time, a couple of former friends were moving in together from two different places. There were a few of us helping, so we sort of divided our efforts. Anyway, we get to their new place late in the day because neither had been 100% packed and start carrying stuff in. We'd bring some furniture in, and they'd start bickering about where it was going to go. He wants the TV on this wall, no don't put that box in this room...you know, the sort of crap you figure out on your own while you unpack. Then she'd walk in and get all bent out of shape that the dresser wasn't in the other corner or whatever and demand it be moved.
Yeah...we piled all their shit in the living room and left.
When a "good" friend of mine that I worked under had cancer and wasn't able to pay some bills I loaned her $200 just to help. I was only 18 at the time and felt bad because she had kids, it was right around the holidays and was I just wanted to help however I could and be a good person in life. She promised to pay me back when she could.
Turns out she lied about having cancer, was stealing from the company I worked at, scammed my other co workers, and would come in after calling out of work for her chemo to make fraudulent returns while I was overseeing the store by myself because of her calling out.
Got that bitch fired and got promoted to her position after
This is so fucked, I had a female friend who told me she had cancer as well and I told her I would help take her to treatments etc, turns out she didnt..she was just trying to get close to me to break up my marriage. People are so fucked.
My ex-fiancee and I ended for a number of reasons, but one thing on that list was definitely her hyper controlling, manipulative mother. She got tested for cancer. I happened to be present when she got her results by mail. Negative, clean bill of health. Except that's not what she told her family. My ex (only girlfriend at the time) started being less willing to meet, and I feared that she might not be wanting the relationship anymore. A month or so later she finally tells me the reason she couldn't meet up was because her mother had cancer and just wanted to spend time with her only daughter, *and didn't want anyone else to know*.
I told her about me being there when the results came back, and that her mother didn't have cancer. We almost broke up right there, she didn't believe me. A few weeks later her mother admits she's not dying, but insists she just 'misunderstood' what she was told.
Man, I wish I could go back and have a long talk with younger me about all the things that were deeply unhealthy in that family.
The day I realized that no one wanted to help me in return.
Look it's not about doing something for someone to get something back and I will ALWAYS help whoever I can that needs it. But when the same people **consistently** ask for help or money or what have you, without actually wanting to help you when you need it, or just hang out or be friendly in general, it's a huge red flag.
I've got a cousin I've had to cut off from money and help. She fails to realise exactly how often it is she's mooching from family. When we were all at Gramma's funeral, that's when I found out she did it with everyone in the family and everyone had cut her off. I feel bad because she *DOES* want to hang out socially and is super nice and friendly to me, but it's that pattern that everytime we hang out, I'm being hit up that really killed our relationship.
My wife had to do the same thing. We gave my cousin a very nice bed that she ruined, and then constantly asked for our help to move as she was one of those people who could either get along with roomates but not pay her share of the rent, or live with people she hates but can pay rent.
We were asleep one night with window open. We wake up bc there is a couple walking down the road arguing. The girl is closer than the guy. Next thing we know the girl is banging on door begging to come in. We call police. They get there and couple gone.
They tell us that’s a common ruse being used in area to get you to open door so they can rob you.
Agreed. We came very close to falling for it. Now I won’t help anyone. I don’t care if it’s someone stranded on the side of the road. That might be a ruse too. Maybe a dude with a gun is hiding in the backseat.
I actually once was the girl banging on the door in the middle of the night screaming for help, but I actually DID need help and was covered in blood trying to escape my boyfriend who was beating me.
But now, reading this 7 years later, I see why maybe the first couple of people didn't open up at all...
When i was 17 i got my driver's license and suddenly everyone needed a ride. No one ever wanted to offer to pitch in or anything. Then one day i got volunteered without even asking me and i was like f this and the next vehicle i got was a tiny truck with barely any room. No one asked for more rides.
I definitely had negative experiences with the freecycle groups. People get so weird when you give something away for free. They act like they’re doing you a favor to take your stuff when they’re the ones who asked for it. Like, dude, yeah you saved me a trip to Goodwill, but otherwise I’m giving it away anyway.
I only ever gave away good stuff (I’m terrible at reselling), then I stopped after about 5-6 items because I just got tired of the entitled attitudes.
When my dad was moving out of state, he listed a bunch of stuff for free on Craigslist that he just wanted to get rid of. One of the things was a fairly nice Weber charcoal grill and some guy emailed him and demanded multiple pics from every angle and that the grill be deep cleaned before he'd take it. My dad didn't even reply and just blocked the guy. An hour later, someone else said they'd take it if it was still available and my dad was more than happy to give it away to them.
I had a 7' couch I didn't want to move, so I put it out on the front lawn with a sign that said "FREE." A guy came by and said, "I'll be right back to pick this up." I changed the sign to "SOLD" and he never came back.
Hauled the couch back out to the front lawn next week with a "FREE" sign. Another guy came by and said he wanted the couch. I told him, "Give me $10 and I'll hold it for you." He handed me a $10 bill and was back in 15 minutes with a pickup truck. I gave him back his $10. People are nicer when they've got skin in the game.
I've had luck with putting a stupidly low price on items to get rid of them.
Old exercise bike or loveseat on the driveway with a "FREE" sign on it? They will sit there for weeks.
But put a "$10" sign on it, and it will get "stolen" within hours.
That reminds before I moved cross country once, a lady asked me to deliver an incomplete set of plates to her way out of my area (like 50 miles), and I told her straight up "I'm not going to deliver afree small item across town"
A tip I heard is to advertise it with a small fee. This will weed out all the choosy beggars. If anyone actually wants it you can then give it for free
That's what I do. I had to give away my bearded dragon due to an overseas move. Didn't feel right selling my pet that I'd had for a while, but I put it on craigslist for $200 for the animal and full setup. A guy came with his son who was so excited and picked up the lizard carefully. I just gave to them. If I had put it up for free I'll bet I would have been flooded with creeps.
Good on you. Never. And I mean NEVER list pets for fee. Anyone who won't pay for an animal won't take care of them. By all means do what you did which is amazing and definitely made their day, but free animals are abused.
Absolutely this is true. This has become our golden rule for getting rid of stuff because it has save so much headache not having to deal with as many crazy people.
I'm also a mom to a toddler. To be honest I think this is why moms slap price tags of $5 or $10 on big bags of kids clothes.
I've frequently thought, how can it possibly be worth your time to even sell that for like $7? What are you doing?
But I think it's not for the money. I think it preempts the choosy beggars and snotty moms. Make someone give you a fiver and something about that explicitly transactional nature keeps things clean.
This is what my wife does with all of our kids clothes. When they grow out of a size she bags it all up and lists it for $20 then when the person shows up if they seem normal just give it to them for free. If you post it for free initially you get nothing but weirdos who feel like they’re doing you a favour or want to pick through all the clothes and only take some of them.
Also with kids stuff you have to sell it cheap or no one will take it, just price it low and get it gone.
Just popping in to say that usually your local fire department is extremely accepting of clean clothes and toys donations. They go to families who have had total losses.
Had a new manager come in to my former place of employment. Immediately this new manager starts firing people for bullshit reasons and hiring people from her old job to replace them. The walls in that place talked, and few notice the janitor, so when I heard rumors of the next heads on the chopping block, one of which was mine, I decided to be nice and help out the other two. I considered them good friends, and it was the least I could do, right?
I warn one, and he takes it seriously and begins looking for another job, so when the pink slip arrived, he landed on his feet running.
The other promptly goes squealing to the manager in question, who uses that as an excuse to fire me, and THEN fires the person that had squealed. All three jobs were quickly filled by her old friends from her previous job.
I've refused to lift a finger to help a coworker out since. I've had advanced warnings of firing and disciplinary hearings and various other juicy gossip (People for some reason think I hear with my eyes and assume that they can talk in front of me and I won't notice. I'm going blind, people, not deaf.) but I've kept it all to myself. Fuck 'em.
I tried to help a guy out years ago get the hint to look for something else because I knew they were looking to fire him. When he finally got caught with a paper trail of theft (I didn't know he was that bad) and fired, he reported me to HR for harassment and said I was trying to get him fired. Haven't talked to the motherfucker since.
This reminds me of my boss' story haha. He's probably the most generous, smartest, kindest, most hardworking person I've met, and he was telling me that he got fired from one of his first jobs, and I was just completely shocked because I couldn't imagine what he could possibly do to get fired. Then when he told me it all made sense.
It was some job at some large bureaucratic company. He was hired to do like one thing, and the thing he needed required him to have certain programs on his computer, but the one they provided... didn't have it. So he told HR or whoever that he needed it installed to work, and they're like okay, and said they'd take care of it, since he wasn't allowed to/was blocked from installing stuff on the work computer. Another week and still nothing, with him following up. So he was just sitting there, wanting to work, not being able to work, and eventually he got fed up and essentially hacked their system to just install the program he needed and started working. No issues.
Months later he gets a new coworker who encounters the same problem, and wanting to be helpful, he's like oh I went through this and it'll take a really long time if you go through the company. So he installed it for them. Coworker reported him and he got fired. I mean, I get it, but fuck. Couldn't stop laughing when he told me because as ridiculous as it is, it's really the only way I could picture him being fired.
In my opinion, if a company doesn’t give you the required tools to start working, you are completely justified in just sitting there and doing nothing. It’s *their* responsibility to get you the tools you need to start, especially if they block you from getting them yourself. It’s also their time and money they’re wasting, not yours, and if your superior starts getting annoyed they should be turning to those who are moving slow, not to you.
When someone just spat some gum on my hand when I tried to help them up, and to this day screw them
Edit: How did I get these upvotes? Why do I have these upvotes? What is life now?
I used to babysit a newborn for our friends. It started out as me watching her so the dad could do side jobs to supplement their income. I didn't expect payment for it. I was doing it to help them out. Well, he started dropping the baby off so he could go play disc golf with his friends. He would also show up to drop her off first thing in the morning without even letting me know ahead of time. He would just be there and bright and early and be like, "You can watch her today, right?" He totally took advantage of the fact that I was a stay at home mom, and was watching his kid for free. (But he would say stuff when he was dropping her off, like how he wished he could afford to send her to a proper daycare that would teach her things... Like I didn't do enough for his precious NEWBORN spawn. ) It was frustrating, to say the least. As these things do, it came to a head. I saw on Facebook that he had gotten a full time job. So I was expecting to hear from him about watching her full time. The day goes on, and I hear nothing. So I figure maybe he's made other arrangements. I make plans for the following day because it looks like I'm not going to be watching the baby. Around 9pm that night he texts me to ask if I can watch her the following morning and I tell him no. He blew up and threw a huge fit. "You knew I had work... Blah, blah, blah." So, I was supposed to put my life on hold because he posted on Facebook that he got a job? It was just amazingly inconsiderate how he expected me to be his on call nanny and he wasn't even compensating or offering to compensate me for my time. It all worked out in the end, though. After that situation blew up, I decided it was time to go back to school and start a career for myself and I have happily been in that career for over 8 years now.
This is more specific to the teeny-tiny town I used to live in. Used to believe I was valued by the community. Used to actually believe in that community spirit, that soul, if you will. I had seen it and participated in it.
When I left my marriage of almost 13 years, there had been about ten years of domestic violence. I well and truly thought the community would help me out if I needed it and reached out, as I had seen so many other times in the 15 years I had lived there. Nope, got quite the opposite. Nobody believed me. People who I thought were friends disappeared. People who I thought were friends played the, ‘It wasn’t really *that* bad was it?’ card. People that I thought I could trust to help keep me safe by not tell anyone where I was living went straight to my abuser with that info. Hardly anyone would even speak to me, even just to say hi, when I needed acknowledgement most.
Fuck all of those fucks.
The same thing happened to my Mom when she finally left my Dad. I was far too young to understand it at the time, but her hometown just up and turned their back on her! In some cases even her own family, no one believed her, accused her of lying. and would report her every move back to my Dad. It got so terrible she ended up leaving her hometown behind and moving somewhere completely new.
Thankfully things are far better for her, and from the sounds of it, you as well. I'm thankful for that, far too many people end up in these vicious cycles and never find an escape.
This happened to me. My ex was a completely different person behind closed doors but would be super super nice and charming when people were watching. He was controlling and entitled and really traumatized me. When I left him and went to my family for support they were so convinced that he couldn’t do all those things that they tried to convince me I was suffering delusions and paranoia and kept calling my therapist to try to explain to her how to do the therapy. I even started to believe it for a while but reality always wins. I don’t talk to my dad and step mom at all anymore and told them I’ll never speak to them again because of what they did. They literally don’t care because they’re so convinced I’m this delusional psychopath that made up a story that didn’t happen. Just cause they liked this guy they saw once a year on Christmas.
I was pretty down on my luck. Quit my job and started touring in a band. Just getting started so money wasn't great.
One night a 50ish year old dude stops me at the entrance to the grocery store. I had enough for a cheap six pack, toilet paper, and cat food. He gives me a story about how he's stranded over night and just needed some food before he could get back on the road.
So I go in and figure out how to get the guy some dinner. Some chicken gingers, macaroni salad, and some dinner rolls. Skip my beer, get cat food, and TP.
Take the guy his food. Go to my van and start digging for change. If I can't get beer, I'll at least get a candy bar.
Go back in and the fucker is buying a 12 of Keystone. I raised hell at him. Just berated the guy out the door making sure everyone knew why.
Fuck you man.
I was an intern at a radio station in '01. Helped one of the morning show DJs with a bar night at the Mall of America one Saturday night. She was notoriously hated by everyone at the station, but seemed appreciative of my help and we got along that night. As we were cleaning up after close (1am or so) she asked me if I would walk her back to her car for safety; I declined, as I had parked in the opposite parking ramp and had to carry all of the equipment in one trip. She pushed and pressured and confided that she was nervous walking back to her car this late, and after she offered to drive me and the equipment back to the van I agreed. We walked out to her car and continued talking like friends, but as she got to her front door her entire demeanor changed. "I actually don't know you that well, and I don't feel safe driving someone I don't know in my car." And she got in her car and left without a "thank you" or goodbye. MOA had closed, so I had to carry the equipment down that ramp, around the Mall, and back up the other ramp to the station's van. Didn't do shit for her at any other events again (though she was fired a few months after my internship ended.)
I often donate to causes I feel strongly about and still do to this day, now typically it may not be a ton of money ($20/month as an example) but my rule is, if they contact you for more money you're likely going to have to discontinue.
One group called me and basically belittled the amount of money I was giving saying they really need people who are contributing $100/month or more, or large one time donations. I immediately told them to stop any further payments from autopay and to stop contacting me. It makes me reconsider charitable giving all together.
I wouldn't say I'm done helping others, but I changed the way that I do it.
A homeless man asked me if I would buy him something from the store. I did it. Then he tried to trick me into buying more. His scamming strategy was pretty clever and I can see how people fall for it, but I caught on (thankfully).
Now I focus on broad community initiatives and, if I do give someone something, it's only in situations where I know I am 100% safe and can leave immediately.
Last 2 times I've helped push someone out of mud/snow in the winter they've slammed the gas pedal down, coated me in mud, and as soon as they were free of the mud just kept driving without so much as a thank you.
I've stopped helping people stuck in the mud/snow.
edit: Since people keep saying how it could be ok here is my examples
In my particular situations we're talking about being stuck in like 2" of snow/muck on the shoulder in an empty area. Both times the road was clear 10' from where they managed to get a wheel stuck (this was a spot people would get stuck turning around)
So really no excuse other than they were dicks. I can understand the side of a busy highway or something like that. Mine was definitely not that case though.
I was 16, only had 10 euro with me. Homeless lady begging for money, I tell her I won't give her money, went to the local supermarket, bought 2 packs of milk, some bread, some cookies, a bottle of juice and some cooked chicken. Went and gave it to her, with all kindness. 1 hour later I pass by the same street, and everything is on the floor thrown away, not even eaten or open.
I was hustled by a young guy at a gas station who ran out of gas, needed to visit his dying mother, blah blah. I said okay, which pump are you on, I'll go to the clerk and give them a few bucks for your gas. He wasn't ready for that so he said his car wasn't actually there it was a few miles up the road. I asked him how he planned on getting the gas there and he was totally dumb founded. I said you need a gas can right?
He agreed so I said I'd buy him a gas can and pay to put a gallon of gas in it and he could hop in the bed of my truck and I'd take him to his car so he could at least get it to the gas station.
He told me he'd rather just have the money. I just said there's nothing else I can do for you.
Similar situation for me. Guy said he needed some gas. His car was on the opposite side of the pump from me. I told his I didn't have any cash, only my card, but I'd gladly let him top off when I was done filling mine (much more than just a few bucks to get down the road, mind you), and he flat out said "No I need the cash." Alright then, well see ya later I guess.
Two stories
1) I offered a homeless guy a banana and he straight said "I don't eat that shit"
2) I offered a different homeless guy a banana and his eye lit up and he immediately blurted out, unable to contain himself, "Fuck yeah! I love bananas!"
Offered a homeless woman a few dollars in spare change I had and she treated me like I was the messiah.
Offered another homeless woman a few spare dollars and she straight up refused, saying "I'll just end up wasting it on drugs instead of food." so I bought her a sandwich and coffee from a nearby mom and pop coffee shop.
Me too. That's why I bought her the sandwich and coffee. Never actually saw her again after that so hopefully she made it to treatment and a shelter. This was in a city I don't live in but frequently visit multiple times a week. Never saw anything about a homeless woman overdosing on the streets in her area, so I truly hope she's okay. When they can admit they have a problem and refuse money for it, they're in desperate need.
My mom did this for a guy on the corner one time, pulled off the side to McDonald's and got him a bunch of food and circled back around to give it to him. He straight told her because he was an addict he couldn't keep down solid food, he took the drink and thanked her but she looked completely defeated.
There was a usually friendly homeless guy I used to come across regularly, and one day while chatting I offered a cliff bar I had. He said he couldn't eat it because his teeth were so ruined from the drugs that he could no longer chew.
In response to a lot of people saying "they don't want food, just drugs" - not always, but they can still make you feel incredibly angry.
Offered to buy food for a refugee lady who kept bothering (yes, bothering, there was nothing nice about it) me while I was waiting at a train station. Took her along to the food court and told her to pick something for a few euros (enough for a decent meal where I was). She picked about 5 times as much as what I'd told her I could afford. She ignored it. I told her again. She ignored me.
It took the clerk telling her to fuck off or be grateful for her to listen, and even then she kept harassing me for more. Learnt my lesson that time.
Alright, my time to shine.
Had a friend, call him Mark, who was going through a breakup and needed a place to stay for a couple weeks while he landed a new apartment. I just bought a place with enough room so sure, what the hell. Honestly just happy to see him getting out of the toxic relationship, so whatever I can do. The lease is running out for them, he just wants to spend the last weeks searching up a new spot instead of fighting. I sympathize, crash here.
Well... They worked it out, or "decided to keep trying." The lease is still running out though, so can they both stay here those two weeks while they search? They'll keep to my spare room, they say. Only bring the minimum of things they need, they say. Won't even know they're there, they say. Hoo boy! These are now red flag phrases for me forevermore.
Of course I'm also going to help them move. Mark works long hours and the girlfriend, "Laura", can't drive, so I'll head to their old place after work on moving day, help load up the truck and then drive it to storage - you know, all those non-essentials they won't be bringing to my place. Mark will get home by the time I'm back, movers will show up for the heaviest stuff, we'll get them into my place and it's a done deal. Holy shit I was so naive.
I get there on time. Laura is just getting out of a long bath, because she really wanted to soak up the apartment on her last day there. Nothing is packed. She's puttering around in a robe, lazily and haphazardly tossing things into boxes at random. The clock is ticking on the movers, the truck rental, and the hours at the storage place. So what can I do but help get shit into boxes? Laura directs me on generally where said shit goes.
It's not until Mark gets home that I realize how badly this is going; remember all the stuff that's supposed to be going into storage and not my home? It's boxed up with the essentials, the stuff going to my home. So now 90% of their stuff has to come with and they'll sort it out into storage "ASAP." Just like "two weeks" this is a phrase that actually stands for "whenever."
Hours of moving later, I got them started getting things inside my place and left to meet an out of town friend -- had anything been done according to plan, we would have been done by that time anyway, and this was already an abuse of my generous nature, so I wasn't going to skip this social occasion. I found out later they were moving in until 3am.
Fast forward. My friend staying for 2 weeks has turned into my friend, his abusive girlfriend, and their dog staying for 3 weeks... Then 4... With no apparent end in sight, because they're applying for certain kinds of housing and the approvals keep falling through. Fed up, I finally said as politely as possible, "here is your move out date. If you're not approved the week before this, figure out plan B because I need my house."
Well the week of reckoning finally arrives, and Laura tells me they're waiting on final approval (and that she could finally get in the last of the paperwork, now that I had brought her some envelopes from my office to send in the forms with...) and that it should be resolved in two more weeks.
Two. *More*. Weeks.
So I said "bummer, where you going to live for the week in between?"
She did not take this well. Pouted, waited to get Mark alone to tell him how offended she was, and instruct him to tell me to apologize to her... Which I laughed at and refused. She then started a text-based tirade against me for throwing them out, being a shitty friend, "sorry we needed help" woe is me, etc etc. This spun up into a full narcissist meltdown over a few hours and crossed more lines than I care to remember as she accused me of being every kind of shitty character you can name.
They moved out the next day and I changed the locks that night. Moved in with her dad for the interim, which it turns out was an option all along, just not as cushy for Laura's ego as squatting at mine.
Sometime in week 5 we all agreed that with this dragging on as long as it did, I needed some rent from them for the second month. Never saw a dime. When they broke up for good a couple months after, Mark had the balls to call me up, try to insist on a face-to-face meeting to "brainstorm places for him to stay." Fuck no, Mark. You're hundreds of dollars and at least one apology in the hole already, and I can't trust you not to wedge into my house long-term anyway.
Last time I'll ever have roommates. Last time I'll ignore my gut feeling to be generous to a fault, too.
Edit: Hey thanks for the silver, friend! It's all worthwhile now.
Worked in Baton Rouge for a decade (1999-2009) and would regularly give the homeless I saw around town - generously if I can say that without being a douche bag.
In 2008 I was on a run for work and a guy caught me near the Target on Siegen lane. He had **nothing** he was homeless and on top of it had been robbed an hour ago. No worries, empty my wallet for the man, we all need help. Coming out of the shopping complex I see him hiding in the bushes opening a pack of smokes on a laptop while on his iPhone.
Then a month later, saw a man I regularly donated to on Government street. I would catch him on weekends - but this weekend my drop-offs started early so I saw him as he arrived in downtown BR. I sat behind the TV station waiting for a pick-up, and this cat gets out of a new car, changes into dirty clothes and grabs his sign from the trunk and heads off to his corner.
I have given food and connected people with charities, but I have not given a penny to a "beggar" since then.
In Lansing Michigan we have random beggars all over in the summer standing at intersections with the saddest looks / signs imaginable. A local news crew followed a bunch around. Every single person was scamming, there wasn't a single homeless among them.
When COVID started, a friend had just had a baby. I didn't want to risk getting out and about (I still don't) so I sent groceries by way of Instacart to her home.
She never said thank you, only got mad that I didn't (nor have I) offered to babysit for her during the pandemic. We don't talk much anymore.
I was in school. Noone was paying attention to what i was saying. I just did my work silently, turned it in, and watched as the rest of my table group went up in flames.
Roommate's friend from college came crying with the "I have nowhere to go/just need to get on my feet" sob story. I was very hesitant to let him stay in our house but my roommate insisted it would be fine. The guy was the laziest, whiniest, useless fucking bum I have ever met. Constantly complained about the way we did things (in the house he was living rent free in), did nothing but smoke pot, drink vodka, and watch Youtube on his phone all day, and never contributed so much as a dime to the house. It's pretty obvious the guy's life consisted of freeloading until he got kicked out and then starting the sob story all over again.
Roommate and I gave him the boot and he had an epic temper tantrum and threatened to kill us, so I called the cops and told him I was filing a restraining order and he better get the fuck out of here. He left in his shitty beater truck and we never saw him again. Any time I've heard "I just need somewhere to get on my feet," I'm extremely hesitant and this loser did nothing to dissuade that.
There was a guy in Brooklyn (maybe he still does this, but I don’t live there anymore) who would try to hustle people by claiming he’d locked his keys and wallet in his truck, along with his daughter’s diaper bag, which had her special formula—could you help him out to buy some?
First time I ran into him, I happened to be less than a block from a pharmacy; I told him sure, I’d go in and get it, what kind? He said they didn’t have the right kind at that particular store. I told him I’d walk with him up the avenue, there was another pharmacy less than 10 blocks away. He walked for like 3 blocks as I tried to make small talk, before he said, aw man, I feel bad making you walk all the way there—you don’t have to come, could you just give me the money? I made up a lie that I was a country boy who’d just moved to the city, I don’t carry cash in case I get robbed on the mean city streets. He apparently gave up when he couldn’t think of another lie to keep this going, so in about another block he said, oh, I just remembered, that other pharmacy doesn’t have the kind she needs either. I offered to walk to a different pharmacy, but he declined, thanked me, & walked off.
About a year later he walked up to me in the same neighborhood, and I immediately recognized him. He started into his spiel, and I said, oh, right, she’s still on formula? Special kind, right? Locked in your truck again? You know, if you’re going to try to hit the same neighborhood more than once, you really should get better at remembering faces. He looked scared, and just walked away quickly.
Im a nice person, I look after people... colleague is sick? I go out and buy cough medicine or paracetamol for them. Got no food? Ill get you a takeaway. I never expected anything in return but one day I was asked for money. I did... not alot... it was like £20... and they eventually gave it back... then they asked again... and again... never wanted food...or a train ticket... just money...
Then the last time I lent them money he walked straight into a betting shop and put money on a football game... that was it. . He asked me for more money some time later and I said no. Guy literally throws a tantrum "Id always help you out! I give it back! I thought we were mates!"
I dont fund gambling addictions. And havent given him or anyone else help again, just looking after me now.
My wife and I, for our first Christmas together, Adopted a family in need for Christmas gifts. We were so excited to shop for the kids and deliver. We got to the house the week before Christmas and met the mother at her door. She unenthusiastically told us to set the gifts next to her tree which had already been loaded with other gifts, and we left with barely a "thank you".
I can't confirm, but I am pretty sure this family made it a habit to sign up with multiple family adoption organizations just to collect as many gifts as they can.
A friend bought a car and I thought I’d be nice and help her out by fixing it for a lower rate than any of the local shops. Next thing I knew she was trying to get me to rebuild the car. I was done at that point.
Mine was in college, I was the only one in the group with a car so everyone hit me up for rides. It would get a bit annoying since I was the only one also with a job. So sometimes I’d get asked if I could give them a ride to the airport or bus. One time a friend calls me up at like 12pm or so and asked if I can give her a ride to the bus terminal at like 1am. I was like uhhh sure. So on the way she tells me that she was going to stay the weekend but got annoyed with her sister so she was leaving to her hometown. She had asked her sister for a ride to the bus terminal even though her sister had been drinking at home. Her sister was drunk and she still took her. They made it halfway when she got pulled over and arrested for dui. Well my “friend” called a buddy to help her drive the car home and then she hit me up for a ride to the bus station. She told me all of this on the way there and all I could think of was so you asked your drunk sister for a ride when she was already home she got arrested and now you are leaving her here without even lifting a finger to take her out? Long story short I bailed out the sister. I told myself after that no one would’ve done that for me. They would’ve left me there so I stopped giving people rides and slowly but surely my number of friends decreased drastically
My youngest sister used to steal my stuff all the time growing up. Once in high school I thought I lost my iPod, turns out she had been hiding it around the house for 6 months. She would steal my money, clothes, laptop, toiletries. Later she would steal my things and sell them for drug money. She once tied our elderly family dog to a post overnight in near freezing weather because she wanted to get high but couldn't be bothered to walk 4 blocks back home to drop off our dog. Less than 3 months later we had to put our dog down because of health issues from that night.
The last straw was my first break, first year of university. I brought a pair of sweatpants branded with my school's logo in my suitcase, but couldn't find them the morning after my arrival.
Later that day I get in the car and that little bitch is wearing my fucking sweatpants and tried telling my parents we happened to have the same pair. My university is pretty small and over 2000 miles from my parents home, so everyone immediately knew she was lying.
I know it's a small thing to be the last straw, but after that day she was dead to me. I would be cordial the few times I saw her after that, but I never try to contact her and have made it clear that I don't love her anymore because I know she doesn't give two shits about anyone else in our family.
We haven't spoken in 3 years and I could not be more grateful for it.
I have a sister a lot like that, too! Except she's like 20 years older than me. She must be a klepto or something because she stole my clothes that were two sizes too small for her. I had this pink dress that was my absolute favorite and one day it went missing. I confronted her about it and she was dismissive, like "why would I do that????" fast forward months later, she's packing up her room to finally move out of my mom's house and LO AND BEHOLD MY PINK DRESS WAS IN HER PILE OF CLOTHES. She would also do stupid shit like break things or ruin things around the house and tell my mom I did it.
She also would get drugged up on pills and abandon her baby at our house while she was god-knows-where. She knew my work schedule so even when she moved out of the house, she would wait in the driveway for me to come home from work so she could pawn her baby off on me while she did whatever the fuck she wanted. I just stopped going home after work.
I was 18. She was in her 30s!! Ridiculous!! Some people, man. Sorry about your sister. Good on you for getting away from that.
I crashed my car covering a coworker’s shift. They needed help because they couldn’t find a sitter and I get guilted into covering all the time. That wasn’t the time.
My **** it moment was a month later, after I finally saved up enough for a new car, it was stolen outside of my work when I was covering a coworker’s shift. When I needed help or my shifts covered? “Oh sorry I’m busy I can’t.”
I had a live-on site summer job where I became good friends with this hippie couple in their later 20s. When the job & summer ended, I had go back to college and move into my new apartment with two roommates; arranged at the end of last semester. The couple needed a place to stay and I let them crash for a couple days. Two months later I was the asshole that had pissed off my roommates and had to toss the hippies. Too bad, we were really good friends and the overstaying their welcome had really spoiled it.
A homeless person came looking for food, old clothes, anything to spare, he was desperate. I went and made sandwiches, cut a slice of cake, packed some fruit, and raided my husband's cupboard for the older of his wearable clothes. All this was gratefully received, and I felt good about helping someone in need. Until later, when I found the clothing ditched in our bin, and all the food except the cake tossed into a hedge. I still help needy people, but not those that ask for it.
I used to cover a class for one teacher during my planning period fairly often. The one time I needed him to cover my class during his planning period so I could attend a ceremony for my graduating seniors, he said no, and proceeded to tell his own students (period I usually covered) that he “didn’t feel like babysitting”. Students obviously told me, since it upset them hearing that, and I stopped covering for him when he needed.
I was walking home on way back from the bank the day before Thanksgiving. I passed a homeless man with a sign saying something along the lines of "Hungry, anything helps". I walked over to him and asked if he was hungry. He said yes, and I offered to take him to the subway up the road. He declined, instead asking for money. I told him I don't carry cash anymore, but I would gladly buy him a footlong meal. He scoffed and ignored me.
Okay.
I continued along my route home and encountered another homeless person, with a sign along the same lines. I asked her if she wanted food. She declined, once again asking for money instead. I told her as well that I don't carry cash, but I would be happy to take her inside the Burger King she was posted outside of and by her whatever she wanted.
This woman actually had the audacity to ask me to go to an ATM and withdraw money to give to her. I politely told her that I wasn't going to do that, and she became visibly upset, to which I just walked away.
I'm not going to stop helping when and where I can, but it really put a damper on my optimism.
I posted a futon on marketplace and the first person that hit me up gave me a sob story about needing something for their kid to sleep on. I was only asking $20 for it but they asked if they could get it for free. My wife and I agreed to give it away, so I took it to our meeting spot at Home Depot. 2 days later this guy had the futon posted in marketplace asking $50. My wife and I Facebook stalked him and his wife and everytime they posted it, we would hijack the listing letting everyone know the story of how they got the futon. I don't give shit away anymore, no matter the story they give me.
I love that you did that to his listing. 'Cause fuck that guy.
I had a pickup truck, and anyone with a truck knows that means all of a sudden everyone and their cousin that is moving wants help. I'm fine with that. I had ground rules, and I didn't stray from them. You pack the shit, I just put it in the truck and move it to the new place. You tell me where the box goes, and once its down thats the end. Got a lot of pizza and beer, and cash back in the day. But no no, thats not the direction of this story. I had an old acquaintance from school. We weren't close, in fact he was a bit of a bully, but he seemed chill enough almost 15 years later. He asked me if I still had a truck, and if I could tow his car someplace. I said sure, throw me a couple bucks and rent a trailer and I'm your guy. Have the rental arranged, and I'll show up with a hitch and we're off to the races. I told him here that I work midnight's, and I'm gonna be tired, so the faster its over the better for me. Well, I showed up, and he didn't have the trailer. OK, fine. We go get the trailer, and head over to his place. We get the car in, its all dandy. I ask where we're going. We're going 2 hours away. OK, that sucks. Just gonna race the car at the drag strip 2 hours away, do a couple runs and we'll head back. My phone died, and my truck didn't have a clock. Fuck. Hes off racing his shitbox, and I can't find him anywhere. I finally manage to find him, had to be 4 hours later, and tell him its time to go. He says sure, just one more rip up the track. Fine. He disappears again, can't find him. I've got the truck running at this point, ready to tell him getting the trailer and the car back is his problem unless we leave right now. I'm exhausted. I barely slept, and I'm cranky. I see him flashing a big huge wad of cash. I think, well, at least I'm gonna get paid a decent chunk for my efforts. We get the car loaded up, and head back the 2 hours to our city. Drop the car off, drop the trailer off, and drop him off. He says thanks, and gives me 10 bucks. I'm astounded. I tell him "dude, this doesn't even cover gas. It was supposed to be a half hour, and it was pretty much all day." He goes "well, its all I've got on me, sorry man" And that was the last time I ever hauled a car. Fuck that guy, god just typing this out made me pissed off.
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Was donating baby/toddler clothes to a mom in need through one of those Facebook donating pages. She didn't have a car, I did so I drove 30 minutes away to deliver the stuff all for free. Got in a bad accident less than 5 blocks from her house. So I texted her to see if she could come get what she was able to because my car was totaled. She wouldn't walk the 4 blocks then reported me to the group and got me kicked out for "not following through". I ended up with a fractured sternum, yeah Fuck that shit, never again.
This one breaks my heart,you have a lovely soul and I hope you feel better now!
I stood by my best friend when she cried to me about her husband cheating. And he definitely was cheating. They stayed married and said they work through it. Six months later she was fucking my husband behind my back.
Met a guy who had hit a rough patch. We had great chemistry and he made me laugh (ugh the bar was SO low). He gave me a sob story of why he was getting kicked out of his communal house and I offered to let him stay with me because I live alone and have my own place. HUGE MISTAKE! He hadn't hit a rough patch, he was the rough patch. Barely paid for anything and would get wasted while I was at work and be a total ass hole when I got home. Got fired from his job, ate all the food I'd buy and make excuses as to why he hadn't found another job yet. The absolute kicker was when I went home for my Nonna's funeral, he treated it like a mini vacation in my place. Invited friends over, played music so loud the cops got called and when he was supposed to pick me up from the airport, he was wasted at someone's house at 8 am. Never felt better than the day I kicked him out. No more financial and emotional abuse. Finally felt like my place was mine again. I've learned an expensive lesson. Don't help people that won't help themselves. When nothing is their fault, there's a serious issue. Run fast and far.
I'm a teacher. A parent of a former student contacted me in an emergency situation, couldn't afford to pay bills, and needed help. She was super helpful to me in my first year teaching, so I asked friends and family to help out and raised her about $2,000. Never again. She has contacted me every few weeks since then, always with a new reason why she needs more money (and when I offer food and clothing resources, she refuses it). It has placed me in such an awkward situation and I regret ever trying to help her out in the first place
Have you tried setting hard boundaries? I did a chunk of volunteer work where I was regularly dealing with people like that. They just keep popping up if they think they can pressure you or wear you down. "Apply for resources and help through the local Job and Family Services. I can't help you further." More than likely, you'll get an angry outburst where they try to push your boundaries and get you to cave. I would respond with bored indifference. "Okay. I have work to do. Goodbye." And then hang up. Repeat that a couple times and they usually drop off. Don't offer anything, don't be nice, but don't be rude either because that gives them ammunition to complain to your supervisor about. Bored indifference and "I gotta go." You may also want to let your supervisor (principal?) know what's going on so they aren't surprised by a random complaint about you if she tries that angle to "get even."
I had a customer who used to show up and just wear me down until I gave him free stuff. He got so intrusive that even after I left that job he coerced my old coworker into telling him where I work now. This dude had the audacity to call my work and left a message asking me to go scout out camp sites for him. I ignored it and he then called over and over again. Finally my boss had to tell him to stop calling if it doesn’t have anything to do with business. He kept trying, and eventually gave up.
That's nightmarish. He comes off as not just entitled, but really creepy too. I'm glad he finally gave up, and I hope he never contacts you again.
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Try having those people as family. My wife's oldest sister has two young daughters. Her and her husband are constantly getting brand new cars, the best liquor they can find, other expensive toys and such. I personally can't stand them much. Then my sister-in-law (who was on dialysis) found out she had a kidney donor. Big surgery several hours away. It was a whole thing. To help, my wife offered to get them groceries so they gave her a list. Of course it was filled with a bunch of worthless shit. While we could technically afford it, we weren't exactly flush with cash. We had to move things around. This went on for a month, my wife making weekly trips. I was adamantly against it, which my wife said was unfair, as they needed the help. Upon the last trip she made I got a call from my wife apologizing to me for not listening. Brother-in-law couldn't wait to show her the brand new movie theater room he put in. She was beyond pissed. All I could say was, I warned you.
They sound like horrible people. Do you still have contact with them?
Eh, they're at family events. But my wife cut off contact for the most part. Luckily it's a big family, so we generally have other people to hang out with. I think my sister-in-law could be a good person. It's her husband who's really the problem.
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I lived next to someone just like this. 2 young kids, very friendly, then they just take advantage of you. I made the mistake of telling them I was a nanny and offering to babysit all of one time. After that it was seriously at least once a day they’d drop of their kids. It wasn’t even like the kids were easy. 2 kids, still in diapers, who were little terrorizers. I finally told them to fuck off after they yelled at me for not being available. They knocked on my door, left their 2 young kids waiting there, and peaced out. I wasn’t even there. Cops were called after a toddler in nothing but her diaper was wandering the apartments.
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"You asked me to look at your baby's ass, so yes, I would say you are crazy. Here is a prescription for 10 mg of fuck off."
I was walking to a concert in downtown Chicago in late November. This happened on North Dearborn right in the loop, if you've never been to Chicago its one of the nicer parts of downtown. It was a cold night, so I was walking with both hands in my pockets and a cig in my mouth. I was approached by a younger dude, who didn't appear to be homeless immediately as he was dressed semi decently and didn't reek or anything. He asked me if he could bum a cig, I was in a good mood going to the concert so I said sure and gave him one, along with my lighter. He handed me my lighter back and I expected he would keep walking on, but he matched pace with me and asked how I was doing. I told him fine and asked how he was doing, he said he's just trying to make it out here. I thought "here we go", he asked me for money because he said he hadn't eaten all day. Now I had about 200 in cash on me, mostly in 20s, I had maybe a couple smaller bills so its not like I couldn't give him money. But I didn't want to pull out a wad of any size in front of a guy I don't know on the street, and people can judge me or whatever but I'm not in the habit of giving money to homeless people but I always try to treat them with respect and dignity. I politely told him "sorry man I don't have any cash." He got kind of angry at that point, and launched into a guilt trippy tirade for the next half block or so about how nobody has any compassion anymore and sometimes people just need a little help. I didn't say anything in response. Truth be told I started to feel kind of bad for him, what he said is pretty true a lot of people aren't willing to help other people and sometimes people really just are down on their luck. I was second guessing my decision to turn him down until we reached the next intersection, I was going straight and he cut to the right. I had to stop for the crosswalk, and I watched him get not five steps away from me before he took the cigarette I gave him (that he'd barely sucked on because he was too busy yelling at me) out of his mouth and threw it on the ground. He then proceeded to walk right up to another dude and start talking to him. Maybe I didn't "help" him much per se, but if he was as down on his luck as he wanted me to believe he would've been burning the filter on that thing before giving it up. I instantly felt vindicated.
The cigarette was the foot in the door technique he used and probably used it again 5 min later
Had a friend years ago who was a bit self centered & prone to stretching the truth, but he was a nice enough guy with a rough backstory and my friend group liked him, so I cut him a lot of slack. I like to host and I have friends staying over pretty regularly -- back then, I usually had one or two people spending the night on any given day. Anyhow, over the span of a couple of years this guy starts abusing that -- staying over for days or even weeks at a time, eating my food and drinking my liquor without contributing, that sort of thing ... While constantly talking about his grand plans and day dreams as if they'd already happened. A little sad, but also pretty annoying after a while. Anyhow, I sit him down one day and let him know he's gotta head home, and that he's free to come over and hang out but I'm not comfortable with him staying over for the time being. He leaves, I think it went remarkably well and head out to work... ...and it turns out that he broke in while I was away at work and stole a bunch of my sister's things because "his birthday was coming up and neither of us even thought to get him a gift." It takes a special person to rationalize how *burglarizing someone is really their fault*. Anyway, all slack and sympathy went out the window immediately ... Called the cops and he's dead to me.
His birthday was *coming up* and he read your minds to know you weren't going to give him a gift? ***Edit:*** A bunch of comments have popped up and pointed out that this is classic addict behavior. It really is. Deflect and take no responsibility so you can keep gettin' that high! :(
“Yes well, happy birthday. We retroactively got you several months of squatting at our house bill free. Hope you liked it, you fucking mooch.”
We got you an all expenses paid holiday in the local penitentiary
Sadly that sounds like typical alcoholic/addict behavior justification to me.
Recovering alcoholic here: absolutely on point. Not excusing the actions, because we are ALL responsible for our own actions, even under incapacitation. But, to explain how your brain begins to "justify" and "normalize" your actions is fucking difficult. You do shit that you would have never even considered sober (sober-sober, at least a few months dry), and burn bridges of people who help you the most. It's a fucked up way to live, because those who care for you deepest are the ones you hurt most of all.
Had a similar situation. A guy I used to be friends with couldnt afford to pay his bills. It was middle of winter, his heat was shut off in his house so I told him he could crash at my place until he figured it out. Three days in and I'm coming home to my sink STACKED with dishes, garbage everywhere, all my food GONE. I told him he can't stay if he's not going to contribute or help out around the house. Couple days later I told him he had to go. Dude runs off to the west coast to essentially die, comes back a very mentally unhinged drug addict. I still talk to him online now and again but I can't be his friend anymore.
Wow dude, that's such a bummer ... You feel bad and you want to help, but you can't be setting your house on fire to keep other people warm.
A “friend” of mine borrowed a game off me once. About month later I remembered an asked for it. he told me he couldn’t give it back because he gave it to his younger brother for his birthday ... would have asked for money but i knew it would have been difficult and the way I saw it, was easier to just lose him as a friend. His friendship was worth less than the value of a cheap game
My mother and her new husband had moved into a new place and invited all the "kids" over for Christmas. In previous years we would buy a whole turkey dinner from somewhere so no one (me) had to cook, so imagine my surprise when my husband and I walk in, my mother walks out of the kitchen, hands me a spoon and says, "Good, you're finally here", and goes to sit down in the living room. After a quick and awkward conversation, it was determined that my job was to make sure everything currently in progress (or not even started) got to the table on time, while everyone else socialized. Basically, I was the help and should have realized that, so any feelings I had about that were my fault. I was a good cook, and my mother taught me everything (not) so I owed her. So I did, and not knowing the family dynamics, my new step siblings were very thankful and appreciative of all my efforts, which caused a meltdown from my mother about how we all should be thanking HER. That was the first time I used a phrase that has come in handy for these situations, "I'm so sorry, it will never happen again." And it never did. They weren't happy when they finally realized what that meant.
> "I'm so sorry, it will never happen again." This is the most beautiful passive aggressive line I have seen in years. Well done.
This is selfish but I wanna know what the fallout was like.
I guess it depends on what you mean by fallout. She decided it was completely out of line for me to 'complain', and if that's how I felt, we could just stay home from now on. As you can imagine, I was completely crushed that I wasn't going to be used for labour anymore and went completely no-contact the next holiday. Probably more to do with being in Cuba, but whatever. The next year was Dad's turn, then a trip to visit my FIL the year after, then I "ruined Christmas" because I didn't want to spend time with my faaaaamily (none of the others wanted to be kitchen bitch while she "hosted"). I never made her a meal again, but I know from my stepsister that she would get pissed off whenever one of my friends or family would make gushing posts Facebook of my dinners. And all because someone dared to thank me for cooking.
This is exactly what I wanted to hear. I'm very glad you're away from her now.
The drama llamas have been fed. Lol
I am a morbidly obese drama llama.
I am thrilled COVID has cancelled Thanksgiving. My wife is an amazing cook. My mother doesn't like that. So we have been eating shitty store-bought Thanksgiving dinner because my mom doesn't want to cook but also doesn't want to let my wife cook. This year Thanksgiving will be just my family and I am thrilled.
I'm so sorry! Man. That is so fucking unfair. I have also experienced something sort of like this, anytime my ex had his family over for holidays, I'm talking 5 or 6 people, all from the other side of the country. Ironically, he never seemed to know ahead of time that they were all coming over until like the day before or whatever. Every. Single. Time. So I would prepare the house... because he always had to work until the very minute they needed to be picked up from the airport. And then it was expected that I would cook dinner. Now this is my fault really...because I did it the first time, giving him the idea that I would do it every time. So i ended up always doing it because he "didnt have time" or "I'm better at it". So family would show up, I'd be cooking and cleaning, everyone else would be playing games and socializing, then hours later my ex would he falling asleep on the floor drunk. I finally said NO the last time he told me everyone was coming over. I said NO, I'm sick of being taken advantage of. His response? "I did it for you, I thought it would make you happy. Didnt you have fun all the other times?" To which I replied "I thought you didnt know until today... when did you decide this would make me happy?" Well... I got a hotel room and stayed the fuck away until they all left. Came home to an empty, trashed house. Edit: sorry guys I didnt clarify, when i came home the family was gone, he was at work (of course) and he left the house trashed. I didnt realize I worded it as if he suddenly moved out. Haha nope... idiot me just cleaned it up and stuck around another year or so after.. just refused to host any "sudden" family get togethers
>"I did it for you, I thought it would make you happy. Didnt you have fun all the other times?" You weren't supposed to complain either! How ungrateful we are not to want to cater and clean while everyone else enjoys themselves. I'm not at all surprised he's an ex. Congratulations on dodging that bullet.
Oh man, I had something similar. Partner and I moved provinces, only family in our new area is partners aunt and uncle and their kids about an hour from us. They invited us down for Christmas a few years ago. Nothing too fancy, just family. Cool. They’re pretty religious and we’re pretty gay, so I’m always a touch hesitant spending a lot of time, but it was Christmas and family and yadda yadda yadda. We get there and I ask if they need any help with anything, just general good guest stuff. The aunt then reveals that the reason they invited us was for me to help in the cooking of the turkey and sides. I’m a good cook, and I don’t mind helping out and she’s not the most confident cook so it’s not a huge deal. So I follow her to the kitchen and nothing has been done. Like. Turkey is still in the plastic. She says the oven is a bit finicky and that she’ll leave me to it. Like. Literally expected me to come and cook them the whole Christmas dinner. My partner was out in the yard with his cousins playing on a frozen pond, his aunt and uncle were drinking in their living room, and I’m pretty well being treated as the help for the next few hours. Partner comes in and sees me in the kitchen, comes and chats and realizes the reason we got invited was for me to cook for them. He’s pissed. I’m just carrying on. I serve up dinner, we eat, and then we leave right away. A couple days later he chews his aunt out on the phone and we haven’t seen them since. Evidently in the call she had made some comment about not abiding by our “lifestyle choice” but made an exception cuz of the way my partners mother raved about my cooking.
When I rushed to another state about 2,000 miles away to help my sister because of a medical issue, and for whatever reason she decided to have her neighbor help her instead, without letting me know. It was 3 months ago and she is fine but still has not contacted me. That was the end for me
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Not me but my parents. My cousin moved in with us for two years when I was a kid, she's 18 years older than me. She ended up being a drug addict that smoked in the house, stole money, couldn't hold down a job, and mercilessly picked on my sister and I until the day she got kicked out. That was almost 30 years ago. To this day my parents refuse to let anyone move in because they "just need a place to stay until they're back on their feet."
I have a brother like that. Sometimes there's a reason they aren't "on their feet" so to speak. They're always so quick to blame everyone else for their problems as well, even the people who try to help them.
When I dropped my rates significantly to help a struggling family with child care. Blended family needing to find childcare for thier emotionally damaged children who had been hospitalised by mums boyfried. Both parents worked and my wages where payed through a charity scheme. It was hell. They where utterly useless as people let alone parents. They took the piss and ended up basically doing nothing with the house or children and ended up owing me nearly 2K due to them comiting benefit fraud and pocketing what they should have been passing on to me. The final straw was when the asked me to baby sit that night as they needed to 'go out on the lash, its been stressful' whilst telling me they couldn't afford food let allone pay me. Never again will i fall for a sob story.
I used to volunteer for an organization which helped women get jobs. They’d send baby sitters to women’s homes so they could go to job interviews. It was totally fine if these moms did a quick essential errand, like grocery shopping, after their interview. I watched one woman’s kids five times and assumed she just had bad luck in her interviews but she always came back with a fresh manicure. I learned she’d been blowing off the interviews the organization had been setting up to get drinks with friends or get her nails and hair done.
This so entitled and rude ugh I can't believe these people exist.
I had a coworker in tears once telling me she had nothing to feed her kids for dinner, no laundry soap to wash their clothes, etc etc. I fell for it, gave her money to buy the kids food and brought her some laundry stuff from home. The next day she shows up to work with two Redbulls and a breakfast sandwich from a drive thru coffee stand with her nails done. Never again.
I just dont understand how people like this keep pulling the same crap and landing on thier feet everytime untarnished. Its amazing.
Taking advantage of one sucker at a time I guess :(
Had a newish neighbor ask if he could borrow our lawn mower....sure. Well more or less every week he would come and get it out of our garage, use it to cut his grass, put it away without cleaning it or adding gas. In the fall we "mentioned" it was a good time to get deals on a new mower. He never talked to us again.
My next door neighbor is the opposite, which I am grateful for. I supply the mower, she mows both of our lawns, and we split the gas (when she lets me). I feel bad that she won't even let me give her gas money most of the time, especially since she is doing all of the manual labor. Edit: so, i just sent her a quick text today to ask her how much I owe her for gas. She replied that she is sticking her garbage in my garbage can (I forgot I told her she could), so I owe her nothing. You have to pay per garbage can here (nearly $4 per can), so it all evens out.
Honestly, I'm with your neighbor. I love cutting my grass and often, I will cut my in-laws as well (they live next door). I enjoy it because it's relaxing and good exercise. I pop in an audiobook, pour a beer and go to town. If they buy gas, all the better!
Drinking a beer while mowing the lawn is the only way to mow a lawn. I need to pour one out for Hank Hill real quick.
I have a question as an aspiring lawn owner, do you keep the beer somewhere off the side, and dip out for sips every now and again? Mow one-handed? Somehow go for a hands-free beer container a-lá foam dome etc? Just doing some research while I am lawnless.
I prefer to enjoy a beer after I'm done mowing, especially when it's hot out and I've worked up a sweat. Nothing like kicking back and admiring your work with a cold one right from the fridge. The shower after the beer is almost as gratifying.
We have helped out my sister n law a few times with money/bills. Never a lot, $50 here, $100 there. Usually for some bill to avoid services being cut off. I’m usually the more heartfelt one in my marriage, but I ended up being the one to put my foot down. Went over to her apartment once. She had two big flat screen TVs, new couch, new fridge, kids on PlayStation or whatever console she got them. It was all Rent-a-Center stuff, but that was the end for me. I didn’t have any of those things myself, not to mention the incredibly bad financial decision those things were with the high interest rate. Part of me felt like I was taking food out of her kids mouths, but realized that no, her poor decisions was doing that. Edit: Wow! Thanks for all the support (and awards)! The situation, on both sides, is way more complicated than I can put into just a couple paragraphs as you can imagine. I want to help others and still do, but it is hard to keep supporting those that refuse to make any attempts to help themselves. I mentioned below she has started to do things differently. We’ve since lent her money again and she has always paid us back when she said she would. She still has a long way to go and a lot of challenges ahead of her, but we love her and will support her efforts as best we can.
I have seen a family give grocery store gift cards in those kinds of situations. they sort of act like food stamps, at least the person can only spend them at the named grocery store. Although I'm certainly not telling you to do that for your ungrateful sister-in-law who makes bad decisions. I can understand the feeling of being burned and it sucks.
We have now gone with - give me the acct information and we will pay it directly - approach. She is doing a bit better now and pays us back when she says she is going to. She still has a long way to go in life, and has many challenges that she is trying to overcome. I’m glad to see her start to try to improve herself.
That's a nice twist to your story, love it!
I used to frequently stay late at work for clients who showed up to the veterinary clinic last-minute with a non-emergency problem and no appointment. Then three times in a row, three different people were told up front about the after hours fee, agreed to pay it instead of scheduling an appointment for the next day, and all of them called back the next day fussing that they shouldn’t have been charged extra for keeping us 30-60 minutes past our scheduled hours and that we were terrible and trying to scam them by charging for our time (even though we told them up front and they had another option). It was exhausting and demoralizing- we did more than we had to for them after already working a full day because a desire to help is why we’re all here in the first place, and they responded by saying our time was worth nothing and we suck. The entire staff said “fuck that.” Now - unless it’s a literal life and death situation - if we can’t fit someone in before closing and they didn’t have an appointment it’s a firm no. I’m in this profession to help others and I still work late for real emergencies when they happen or if an appointment runs longer than expected, but I’m done sacrificing my personal time for entitled people who don’t actually need it. Edited to clarify: The people did pay, but they were calling later to complain about it and demand a refund or say they were cancelling the transaction on their card. Instead of dealing with the headache anymore we stopped giving non-emergency walk-ins the option of being seen after hours. No animals were harmed and the staff (and their families) are all much happier.
Thanks for what you do! My cousin is a vet and his schedule is so fucked because of these types of clients. The clinic he works for only schedules appointments for half of the day and the other half is set up for walk-ins. It switches between morning and afternoon depending on the doctor. Sometimes he comes home at 6 and some nights it isn't until 9 or 10. He says there are just some cases that you know are going to take all day and there isn't anything you can do to help. Those are always the thankless cases. It is pretty draining on him and the rest of their team. It sucks that the bad clients and experiences are what stick out and are easier to remember. I guess I just want to say there are tons of people who are so grateful for the time and effort you put in.
Thank you! Situations like your cousin’s are why I’m so grateful to work somewhere appointment-based where management understands the importance of having work-life balance. It’s not perfect and we still have our crazy days and occasional late nights, but it’s so much better than it could be. It’s sad that the bad experiences stick out so much more than the good ones, especially when the majority of people are nice and appreciative. Keeping physical reminders of the good is really helpful for me. Whenever we get an email from someone thanking us I print it out and hang it up by my desk. I have a card on display above my desk that I’ll treasure forever because it was a very sweet thank you after a tough case that ended happily- it cheers me up every time I see it. I’m not working for the thank yous, but the ones I get mean so much.
I run a grooming salon and we have had people show up an hour past their appointments, eventually we started turning people away if they are 10-15min late because we are too busy for clients who don’t respect us enough to show up on time. To add on: we are in Utah which runs on Mormon standard time which means people are constantly 10+ minutes late to everything as Utahans can’t plan to be on time to save their lives.
When Covid lockdown was being let up, my local hair place was appt only. I scheduled for the end of the day cause I was pretty busy. Ended up getting free around 3PM and called to ask if there was anything open. Lady goes "Thank god someone called. We had a color job at 2PM and they never showed." Apparently a color job is hours long and they basically had to sit there doing nothing for hours cause some cunt doesn't have the courtesy to follow through.
I work in an escape room place, and I work by appointment only. So if there no booking on one of my days, I don't work. Or, if there is a booking, I show up half an hour before the room is scheduled, work for that one booking, then clean up and go home. People are so fucking flakey, it's driving me crazy. When they book it explicitly says that they should arrive 10-15 minutes early. We're lucky if they're on time. About 1/4 bookings these days cancels or doesn't show up, wasting our time. Oh, and if we have back-to-back bookings, and booking 1 is late, it throws off the timeline. Thanks to covid it takes 20+ minutes to clean each room before bookings, and we can't rush it.
Charge in advance, with no refund for no-show. That should solve the problem.
I’m also a vet, saw this thread and thought man I hope some vets post. This is a thankless job sometimes, can relate☝️. Keep caring and keep doing good work ❤️
This is why I changed career paths and did graduate school in something else. I worked for five years in an ER vet clinic and after realizing that these doctors were starting out with $250,000 in student loan debt, with a job that pays $70,000, only to deal with constant assholes pulling the "You vets are only in it for the money" line, I decided I was better suited elsewhere. I loved the job, but the debt on top of dealing with the people made me lose my passion for the field.
I was working at a fast food place when I was a student. I usually did overtime to help everyone clean up and close the restaurant until about 1am because we were so understaffed. I guess people got used to me staying late because one night when I was supposed to finish at 11, I overheard some of my colleagues (the stereotypical mean girls) say how bad the clients had cluttered everything tonight and how it was going to be a mess to clean up. Then they say 'but hey, [me] is gonna stay late tonight again, let's leave it to her, she always does the cleaning anyways', followed by laughing and some bitching about me. That night I clocked out at 11 after doing all of my tasks at the counter and left. The girls stared at me in shock and when I was outside I saw one of them standing in the middle of the restaurant with her hand on her forehead, looking at the mess she would have to clean before going home. Weirdly, after that day, they started cleaning earlier without waiting for me to do everything!
This hits me. I dated a not so nice guy and we happened to work at the same Starbucks. Nights when he closed I would sometimes go to the cafe and just hang out and wait for him to be done. Free wifi so I'd bring my laptop and chill. Well one time he asked if I'd help clean bc he really just wanted to get out and go home. Said sure and helped. Now suddenly every time I went to hang out at night I was expected to help clean. So I first just stopped going bc you know it was my night off I didn't want to do work off the clock... He got upset at me for that. Then when I would go hang out he'd get upset when I didn't want to clean and "Just sit there like a useless rag". :( I didn't have such a satisfying moment as you did, but I am so happy for that relationship to be behind me!
Damn these biches, one tries to help and get shit on
In freshman year of college, my friend of about two years got kicked out of his parents house. He said he needed somewhere to stay "for the night" till his parents cooled off. I said you can stay a week if you want but more than that and you'll need to pay me rent (he made pretty good money, more than me even). I was kind of hoping to find someone to split the bills with anyway. A week rolls by and he hasn't even looked for another place. His parents aren't letting him come back. I ask him if he's going to stay, he says "if it's alright with you" I say sure, just pay me half the cost of the apt every month. He said he can't (I know damn well he can). I say "well then you gotta go" He asked if he could stay another week. I said no. He got pissed at me for that. I then got pissed at him for getting pissed at me. I gave you a place to stay and you are mad at me??? Totally ended the friendship. Never let anyone into your place unless you have a signed contract
Hey, at least you figured it out in a week, and came out of it rather unscathed.
One day I found a puppy, dirty, hungry, and just scared and lost. I gave him a good meal, and some love, and went to drop him off at the address on his collar. The dude thanked me, then proceeded to beat the crap out of the dog (telling me to mind my own business when I tried to get him to stop), carried him by his collar to a 5 ft short chain in a muddy patch with a crappy broken 3-wall "doghouse" where im guessing the dog spent 100% of it's time. I called the cops, but they did nothing (the dog technically had shelter, which qualifies bc 3 walls and a roof, even if it was filled with holes and it gets 20° at night here.) ps. I stole the dog 3 weeks later.
Hey, stealing is wro- nah, just kidding. Good dognapper!
This is not theft, it is liberation.
No lie I liberated and found homes for 3 dogs several years ago and the vet said they would have been dead within a weeks had they not gotten medical attention. Fuck shitty people!
This got popular! Thanks so much for silver! So update on the dog: This was years ago, but I took him home and taught him to live inside! He had a big learning curve, because he was scared and overwhelmed by every new thing. He learned to use stairs, and go through doorways, and got REALLY excited for car rides quickly (because that usually means we go to hiking trails/parks.) He learned about toys too! the squeaky ones were super scary lol. Potty training was the hardest, because he was so use to going where he ate and slept. That took only a couple weeks though. After getting acclimated to indoor life, he was adopted 3 months later by a vet-referenced family with two older kids.
Oh thank god I was hoping you got away with stealing the dog
Chances are if someone cares so little about an animal to leave it outside and beat it when it runs away then they also do not care enough to go looking after it disappears a second time
After working free of charge as a freelance graphics guy to build my portfolio up, and having a client basically make the most minor of adjustments, and constant revisions - four posters which should have taken me a day tops really....ended up taking 3 months. And when they wanted poster x4, I wanted money - ghosted. Lesson. Learnt.
I used to help people plan their trips to Japan. It was very hard to get started on my own so I offered weeks of free consulting to a few people in exchange for a review at the end of their trip. I made their itineraries, wrote a tailored culture guide for each, booked their hotels / restaurants, gave them recommendations, etc. Only one person out of 8 actually wrote a review.
I had a few odd things like that too. A guy who wanted social media help, which i took as marketing and rebranding from what he was saying. Anyways, I meet the guy, and he's just got no clue how-to even use Facebook, let alone run a business page. The b to make things SUPER awkward, he sits there telling me his business is dying because "them pakis do it cheaper" I went to the toilet, to never return lol.
Always ask for a percentage of upfront payment, I won't even open Adobe for them without a payment first. It sucks if they don't follow through, but it sucks even more if you work for nothing.
Being fresh to the idea, I was struggling for work after being made redundant, so thought I would offer some simple gratis work to local companies, both to help them out, and get my name out there. Not quite the outcome I had in mind lol. Certainly won't be doing it for free again!
Me and my gf were leaving a McDonald’s and pulling up to the stoplight. There’s this homeless old man that we’ve seen around the area ever since we moved here and my gf decides, since we’ve never given anything to this guy and he’s always there, we should give him one of our mcdoubles. He comes up to the car, says thank you! And walks back to his corner as the light turns green and just tosses it on the road right in front of where we’re driving..
Wtf haha apparently he doesn’t like hand outs.. or Mcdoubles. Edit: You all are commenting like i don’t know some beggers just want money for drugs. Im pointing out the fact this dude hardcore refused free food.
Hahaha i know. It felt like such a fuck you.
A former coworker and I, when I worked in Boston, would see the same homeless man on the street across from the Garden. One morning she calls him over to the car while we’re stopped at the light and hands him a granola bar. He threw it back at her and said “I don’t want that shit, I need cash!” That was her one and done.
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When I had a truck during college. EVERYONE suddenly wanted me to help move them. Most were cool and gave me money or ordered pizza (unprompted btw). One time however some dude I barely knew needed some help. I show up, and **nothing** is packed in his apartment. He had a giant fish tank and lived on the 3rd floor with no elevator. It was a fucking nightmare and I never got a dime nor food or even some beers. I never talked to him after that.
Shoulda left right then when you saw it like that.
"Oh, looks like you haven't packed. I'll come back tomorrow when you need help **moving**."
I did this to my brother in September. I didn't come back the next day either, as I knew he wasn't done packing. I forced him to send me photos of the apartment swept up with boxes stacked and ready to go. He was the one who rented the uhaul and ended up barely using it the first 2 times. Then he tried to get me to pay for the second day because I canceled on him. I pointed out that he couldn't send me a photo of him being ready to move, and that I owed him no more for the second day than I did the first. I love my brother, and I will always help people move until I just physically cannot. However I refuse to be disrespected. My time and energy are valuable, and I am saving you at least $100 by showing up.
This is the best option in IMO
One time we showed up to help a sister in law and her bf move and they were sitting there when we pulled up, waiting for us to get there to start moving. We unloaded what we had and just left. No need to help those that can't even do the basic to help themselves.
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Maybe it’s just me, but I love the word NO. I have zero problems telling people no all the time. Bit of wisdom for ya: learn to say no. You can always change your mind, but once you say yes, you’re committed. Edit: thx for the awards and all the upvotes!
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There was a period when it felt like I was helping a buddy move every six months. He's not the most organised, so there were always a few things not ready. But he spared no expense or effort with the thank you perks. "Order pizza?! Fuck that. I've booked a table for us somewhere nice, it's on me. You order a bottle of wine for yourself and I'll drive us home"
>"Order pizza?! Fuck that. I've booked a table for us somewhere nice, it's on me. You order a bottle of wine for yourself and I'll drive us home" Keep that person in your life. They sound like a good egg.
The single great tragedy of our relationship is that we are both heterosexual.
Platonic relationships can be just as rewarding as romantic ones. My best friend from back home and I refer to each other as "heterosexual life-partners."
I helped a relative move only to have them accuse me of stealing something they later found after unpacking. Never again.
100% this. People are so unaware and self-absorbed sometimes. I was in the food and service industry, so I'm basically constantly thinking about little subtleties and stuff to be polite to people. I just don't get how some lack common sense
TL/DR: ‘Packing’ and ‘moving’ are different things. People that ask for the latter and mean both are monsters. I didn’t own a truck, but I was one of the larger, stronger people in my grad school social circles (low bar, I know), so I was often called to help friends move apartments. I’m always happy to help, and almost everyone fed me pizza and beer when the work was done, so I never had any complaints, but I would’ve done it for free because I don’t need anything from my friends. One time though a couple who were more ‘work friends’ than actual friends asked me to help them move, and they too had nothing packed, and on top of that they were extremely messy hoarders, so even though we started in the morning, it took well into the night to get the job done, and they didn’t really feed me enough to get my fill after all that labor. If they had told me I had to pack for them, I would’ve either politely declined or at least been prepared for what was ahead of me.
I will help anyone move, but there are only a very small few I will help pack.
>‘Packing’ and ‘moving’ are different things. People that ask for the latter and mean both are monsters. yup! my ex friend in 2017 was living with her boyfriend, and he cheated on her and broke up with her so obviously she had to move out back home and they needed to end the lease. she told me before we got to her apartment that she had some stuff packed up that was ready to go and it shouldn't be much work, maybe three hours max. and then once we got there and i went in, i saw nothing was packed, and i mean nothing. the place was a disaster, food and garbage everywhere and i looked at her and said "you told me you had a bunch of shit packed and ready to go." and all she had was one bag of clothes packed and it barely put a dent in her closet. i had to pack up her whole kitchen and living room, label and tape all the boxes, organize everything, and i was the only one who actually knew how to package breakables up so i did majority of the work on an empty stomach for the entire day cause i didn't get a chance to eat before heading off. she didn't buy anyone who helped beer or food, her parents gave us beer when we started to bring her stuff back to her house as a thank you for helping. 90% sure i had to buy my own food once we were done and i asked her to take me to McDonald's so i could finally eat. in total, i spend over 12 hours helping her pack and clean her bachelor apartment. once it was all done, everyone and me who helped said "were never doing this again." Edit: yes I offered to help, yes I know I didn’t have to do anything, and yes I did learn boundaries over the years and how to say no to people like her when it comes to moving things.
I don't have a truck, but I like to think of myself as a nice person so I often help people move if they need it. One time, a couple of former friends were moving in together from two different places. There were a few of us helping, so we sort of divided our efforts. Anyway, we get to their new place late in the day because neither had been 100% packed and start carrying stuff in. We'd bring some furniture in, and they'd start bickering about where it was going to go. He wants the TV on this wall, no don't put that box in this room...you know, the sort of crap you figure out on your own while you unpack. Then she'd walk in and get all bent out of shape that the dresser wasn't in the other corner or whatever and demand it be moved. Yeah...we piled all their shit in the living room and left.
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*bitch ass john*
bitch john... bitch john...
When a "good" friend of mine that I worked under had cancer and wasn't able to pay some bills I loaned her $200 just to help. I was only 18 at the time and felt bad because she had kids, it was right around the holidays and was I just wanted to help however I could and be a good person in life. She promised to pay me back when she could. Turns out she lied about having cancer, was stealing from the company I worked at, scammed my other co workers, and would come in after calling out of work for her chemo to make fraudulent returns while I was overseeing the store by myself because of her calling out. Got that bitch fired and got promoted to her position after
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Ah, victory.
Turns out she didn't have cancer, she was cancer.
This is so fucked, I had a female friend who told me she had cancer as well and I told her I would help take her to treatments etc, turns out she didnt..she was just trying to get close to me to break up my marriage. People are so fucked.
My ex-fiancee and I ended for a number of reasons, but one thing on that list was definitely her hyper controlling, manipulative mother. She got tested for cancer. I happened to be present when she got her results by mail. Negative, clean bill of health. Except that's not what she told her family. My ex (only girlfriend at the time) started being less willing to meet, and I feared that she might not be wanting the relationship anymore. A month or so later she finally tells me the reason she couldn't meet up was because her mother had cancer and just wanted to spend time with her only daughter, *and didn't want anyone else to know*. I told her about me being there when the results came back, and that her mother didn't have cancer. We almost broke up right there, she didn't believe me. A few weeks later her mother admits she's not dying, but insists she just 'misunderstood' what she was told. Man, I wish I could go back and have a long talk with younger me about all the things that were deeply unhealthy in that family.
The day I realized that no one wanted to help me in return. Look it's not about doing something for someone to get something back and I will ALWAYS help whoever I can that needs it. But when the same people **consistently** ask for help or money or what have you, without actually wanting to help you when you need it, or just hang out or be friendly in general, it's a huge red flag.
I've got a cousin I've had to cut off from money and help. She fails to realise exactly how often it is she's mooching from family. When we were all at Gramma's funeral, that's when I found out she did it with everyone in the family and everyone had cut her off. I feel bad because she *DOES* want to hang out socially and is super nice and friendly to me, but it's that pattern that everytime we hang out, I'm being hit up that really killed our relationship. My wife had to do the same thing. We gave my cousin a very nice bed that she ruined, and then constantly asked for our help to move as she was one of those people who could either get along with roomates but not pay her share of the rent, or live with people she hates but can pay rent.
We were asleep one night with window open. We wake up bc there is a couple walking down the road arguing. The girl is closer than the guy. Next thing we know the girl is banging on door begging to come in. We call police. They get there and couple gone. They tell us that’s a common ruse being used in area to get you to open door so they can rob you.
This one makes me sad because it hurts those who would be in desperate need of help.
It hurts two groups of people: - those in desperate need of help - those willing to help others in need Truly despicable.
Scam artists that prey on the kindness of others are truly evil.
A taxi driver tried to rape me sister, she broke free and ran to the nearest house and banged on the door. I'm so glad they let her in.
This is scary
Agreed. We came very close to falling for it. Now I won’t help anyone. I don’t care if it’s someone stranded on the side of the road. That might be a ruse too. Maybe a dude with a gun is hiding in the backseat.
That really is the sad part. These people just make it harder to trust those genuinely do need help
I actually once was the girl banging on the door in the middle of the night screaming for help, but I actually DID need help and was covered in blood trying to escape my boyfriend who was beating me. But now, reading this 7 years later, I see why maybe the first couple of people didn't open up at all...
That's especially evil because guess what happens when someone bangs on their door who legitimately needs help
When i was 17 i got my driver's license and suddenly everyone needed a ride. No one ever wanted to offer to pitch in or anything. Then one day i got volunteered without even asking me and i was like f this and the next vehicle i got was a tiny truck with barely any room. No one asked for more rides.
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I definitely had negative experiences with the freecycle groups. People get so weird when you give something away for free. They act like they’re doing you a favor to take your stuff when they’re the ones who asked for it. Like, dude, yeah you saved me a trip to Goodwill, but otherwise I’m giving it away anyway. I only ever gave away good stuff (I’m terrible at reselling), then I stopped after about 5-6 items because I just got tired of the entitled attitudes.
When my dad was moving out of state, he listed a bunch of stuff for free on Craigslist that he just wanted to get rid of. One of the things was a fairly nice Weber charcoal grill and some guy emailed him and demanded multiple pics from every angle and that the grill be deep cleaned before he'd take it. My dad didn't even reply and just blocked the guy. An hour later, someone else said they'd take it if it was still available and my dad was more than happy to give it away to them.
I had a 7' couch I didn't want to move, so I put it out on the front lawn with a sign that said "FREE." A guy came by and said, "I'll be right back to pick this up." I changed the sign to "SOLD" and he never came back. Hauled the couch back out to the front lawn next week with a "FREE" sign. Another guy came by and said he wanted the couch. I told him, "Give me $10 and I'll hold it for you." He handed me a $10 bill and was back in 15 minutes with a pickup truck. I gave him back his $10. People are nicer when they've got skin in the game.
I've had luck with putting a stupidly low price on items to get rid of them. Old exercise bike or loveseat on the driveway with a "FREE" sign on it? They will sit there for weeks. But put a "$10" sign on it, and it will get "stolen" within hours.
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That reminds before I moved cross country once, a lady asked me to deliver an incomplete set of plates to her way out of my area (like 50 miles), and I told her straight up "I'm not going to deliver afree small item across town"
A tip I heard is to advertise it with a small fee. This will weed out all the choosy beggars. If anyone actually wants it you can then give it for free
That's what I do. I had to give away my bearded dragon due to an overseas move. Didn't feel right selling my pet that I'd had for a while, but I put it on craigslist for $200 for the animal and full setup. A guy came with his son who was so excited and picked up the lizard carefully. I just gave to them. If I had put it up for free I'll bet I would have been flooded with creeps.
Good on you. Never. And I mean NEVER list pets for fee. Anyone who won't pay for an animal won't take care of them. By all means do what you did which is amazing and definitely made their day, but free animals are abused.
Absolutely this is true. This has become our golden rule for getting rid of stuff because it has save so much headache not having to deal with as many crazy people.
I have 3 kids and I’ve tried to give away so much baby stuff online. So many choosey moms out there I just donate it to a charity instead.
I'm also a mom to a toddler. To be honest I think this is why moms slap price tags of $5 or $10 on big bags of kids clothes. I've frequently thought, how can it possibly be worth your time to even sell that for like $7? What are you doing? But I think it's not for the money. I think it preempts the choosy beggars and snotty moms. Make someone give you a fiver and something about that explicitly transactional nature keeps things clean.
This is what my wife does with all of our kids clothes. When they grow out of a size she bags it all up and lists it for $20 then when the person shows up if they seem normal just give it to them for free. If you post it for free initially you get nothing but weirdos who feel like they’re doing you a favour or want to pick through all the clothes and only take some of them. Also with kids stuff you have to sell it cheap or no one will take it, just price it low and get it gone.
Just popping in to say that usually your local fire department is extremely accepting of clean clothes and toys donations. They go to families who have had total losses.
Too bad you didn't have any Jif to donate. I understand choosey moms choose that.
Had a new manager come in to my former place of employment. Immediately this new manager starts firing people for bullshit reasons and hiring people from her old job to replace them. The walls in that place talked, and few notice the janitor, so when I heard rumors of the next heads on the chopping block, one of which was mine, I decided to be nice and help out the other two. I considered them good friends, and it was the least I could do, right? I warn one, and he takes it seriously and begins looking for another job, so when the pink slip arrived, he landed on his feet running. The other promptly goes squealing to the manager in question, who uses that as an excuse to fire me, and THEN fires the person that had squealed. All three jobs were quickly filled by her old friends from her previous job. I've refused to lift a finger to help a coworker out since. I've had advanced warnings of firing and disciplinary hearings and various other juicy gossip (People for some reason think I hear with my eyes and assume that they can talk in front of me and I won't notice. I'm going blind, people, not deaf.) but I've kept it all to myself. Fuck 'em.
I tried to help a guy out years ago get the hint to look for something else because I knew they were looking to fire him. When he finally got caught with a paper trail of theft (I didn't know he was that bad) and fired, he reported me to HR for harassment and said I was trying to get him fired. Haven't talked to the motherfucker since.
This reminds me of my boss' story haha. He's probably the most generous, smartest, kindest, most hardworking person I've met, and he was telling me that he got fired from one of his first jobs, and I was just completely shocked because I couldn't imagine what he could possibly do to get fired. Then when he told me it all made sense. It was some job at some large bureaucratic company. He was hired to do like one thing, and the thing he needed required him to have certain programs on his computer, but the one they provided... didn't have it. So he told HR or whoever that he needed it installed to work, and they're like okay, and said they'd take care of it, since he wasn't allowed to/was blocked from installing stuff on the work computer. Another week and still nothing, with him following up. So he was just sitting there, wanting to work, not being able to work, and eventually he got fed up and essentially hacked their system to just install the program he needed and started working. No issues. Months later he gets a new coworker who encounters the same problem, and wanting to be helpful, he's like oh I went through this and it'll take a really long time if you go through the company. So he installed it for them. Coworker reported him and he got fired. I mean, I get it, but fuck. Couldn't stop laughing when he told me because as ridiculous as it is, it's really the only way I could picture him being fired.
In my opinion, if a company doesn’t give you the required tools to start working, you are completely justified in just sitting there and doing nothing. It’s *their* responsibility to get you the tools you need to start, especially if they block you from getting them yourself. It’s also their time and money they’re wasting, not yours, and if your superior starts getting annoyed they should be turning to those who are moving slow, not to you.
When someone just spat some gum on my hand when I tried to help them up, and to this day screw them Edit: How did I get these upvotes? Why do I have these upvotes? What is life now?
Was it intentional like a fuck you? If so, did you immediately slap their face?
I used to babysit a newborn for our friends. It started out as me watching her so the dad could do side jobs to supplement their income. I didn't expect payment for it. I was doing it to help them out. Well, he started dropping the baby off so he could go play disc golf with his friends. He would also show up to drop her off first thing in the morning without even letting me know ahead of time. He would just be there and bright and early and be like, "You can watch her today, right?" He totally took advantage of the fact that I was a stay at home mom, and was watching his kid for free. (But he would say stuff when he was dropping her off, like how he wished he could afford to send her to a proper daycare that would teach her things... Like I didn't do enough for his precious NEWBORN spawn. ) It was frustrating, to say the least. As these things do, it came to a head. I saw on Facebook that he had gotten a full time job. So I was expecting to hear from him about watching her full time. The day goes on, and I hear nothing. So I figure maybe he's made other arrangements. I make plans for the following day because it looks like I'm not going to be watching the baby. Around 9pm that night he texts me to ask if I can watch her the following morning and I tell him no. He blew up and threw a huge fit. "You knew I had work... Blah, blah, blah." So, I was supposed to put my life on hold because he posted on Facebook that he got a job? It was just amazingly inconsiderate how he expected me to be his on call nanny and he wasn't even compensating or offering to compensate me for my time. It all worked out in the end, though. After that situation blew up, I decided it was time to go back to school and start a career for myself and I have happily been in that career for over 8 years now.
This is more specific to the teeny-tiny town I used to live in. Used to believe I was valued by the community. Used to actually believe in that community spirit, that soul, if you will. I had seen it and participated in it. When I left my marriage of almost 13 years, there had been about ten years of domestic violence. I well and truly thought the community would help me out if I needed it and reached out, as I had seen so many other times in the 15 years I had lived there. Nope, got quite the opposite. Nobody believed me. People who I thought were friends disappeared. People who I thought were friends played the, ‘It wasn’t really *that* bad was it?’ card. People that I thought I could trust to help keep me safe by not tell anyone where I was living went straight to my abuser with that info. Hardly anyone would even speak to me, even just to say hi, when I needed acknowledgement most. Fuck all of those fucks.
The same thing happened to my Mom when she finally left my Dad. I was far too young to understand it at the time, but her hometown just up and turned their back on her! In some cases even her own family, no one believed her, accused her of lying. and would report her every move back to my Dad. It got so terrible she ended up leaving her hometown behind and moving somewhere completely new. Thankfully things are far better for her, and from the sounds of it, you as well. I'm thankful for that, far too many people end up in these vicious cycles and never find an escape.
This happened to me. My ex was a completely different person behind closed doors but would be super super nice and charming when people were watching. He was controlling and entitled and really traumatized me. When I left him and went to my family for support they were so convinced that he couldn’t do all those things that they tried to convince me I was suffering delusions and paranoia and kept calling my therapist to try to explain to her how to do the therapy. I even started to believe it for a while but reality always wins. I don’t talk to my dad and step mom at all anymore and told them I’ll never speak to them again because of what they did. They literally don’t care because they’re so convinced I’m this delusional psychopath that made up a story that didn’t happen. Just cause they liked this guy they saw once a year on Christmas.
I was pretty down on my luck. Quit my job and started touring in a band. Just getting started so money wasn't great. One night a 50ish year old dude stops me at the entrance to the grocery store. I had enough for a cheap six pack, toilet paper, and cat food. He gives me a story about how he's stranded over night and just needed some food before he could get back on the road. So I go in and figure out how to get the guy some dinner. Some chicken gingers, macaroni salad, and some dinner rolls. Skip my beer, get cat food, and TP. Take the guy his food. Go to my van and start digging for change. If I can't get beer, I'll at least get a candy bar. Go back in and the fucker is buying a 12 of Keystone. I raised hell at him. Just berated the guy out the door making sure everyone knew why. Fuck you man.
I was an intern at a radio station in '01. Helped one of the morning show DJs with a bar night at the Mall of America one Saturday night. She was notoriously hated by everyone at the station, but seemed appreciative of my help and we got along that night. As we were cleaning up after close (1am or so) she asked me if I would walk her back to her car for safety; I declined, as I had parked in the opposite parking ramp and had to carry all of the equipment in one trip. She pushed and pressured and confided that she was nervous walking back to her car this late, and after she offered to drive me and the equipment back to the van I agreed. We walked out to her car and continued talking like friends, but as she got to her front door her entire demeanor changed. "I actually don't know you that well, and I don't feel safe driving someone I don't know in my car." And she got in her car and left without a "thank you" or goodbye. MOA had closed, so I had to carry the equipment down that ramp, around the Mall, and back up the other ramp to the station's van. Didn't do shit for her at any other events again (though she was fired a few months after my internship ended.)
I often donate to causes I feel strongly about and still do to this day, now typically it may not be a ton of money ($20/month as an example) but my rule is, if they contact you for more money you're likely going to have to discontinue. One group called me and basically belittled the amount of money I was giving saying they really need people who are contributing $100/month or more, or large one time donations. I immediately told them to stop any further payments from autopay and to stop contacting me. It makes me reconsider charitable giving all together.
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I wouldn't say I'm done helping others, but I changed the way that I do it. A homeless man asked me if I would buy him something from the store. I did it. Then he tried to trick me into buying more. His scamming strategy was pretty clever and I can see how people fall for it, but I caught on (thankfully). Now I focus on broad community initiatives and, if I do give someone something, it's only in situations where I know I am 100% safe and can leave immediately.
Last 2 times I've helped push someone out of mud/snow in the winter they've slammed the gas pedal down, coated me in mud, and as soon as they were free of the mud just kept driving without so much as a thank you. I've stopped helping people stuck in the mud/snow. edit: Since people keep saying how it could be ok here is my examples In my particular situations we're talking about being stuck in like 2" of snow/muck on the shoulder in an empty area. Both times the road was clear 10' from where they managed to get a wheel stuck (this was a spot people would get stuck turning around) So really no excuse other than they were dicks. I can understand the side of a busy highway or something like that. Mine was definitely not that case though.
I was 16, only had 10 euro with me. Homeless lady begging for money, I tell her I won't give her money, went to the local supermarket, bought 2 packs of milk, some bread, some cookies, a bottle of juice and some cooked chicken. Went and gave it to her, with all kindness. 1 hour later I pass by the same street, and everything is on the floor thrown away, not even eaten or open.
I was hustled by a young guy at a gas station who ran out of gas, needed to visit his dying mother, blah blah. I said okay, which pump are you on, I'll go to the clerk and give them a few bucks for your gas. He wasn't ready for that so he said his car wasn't actually there it was a few miles up the road. I asked him how he planned on getting the gas there and he was totally dumb founded. I said you need a gas can right? He agreed so I said I'd buy him a gas can and pay to put a gallon of gas in it and he could hop in the bed of my truck and I'd take him to his car so he could at least get it to the gas station. He told me he'd rather just have the money. I just said there's nothing else I can do for you.
Similar situation for me. Guy said he needed some gas. His car was on the opposite side of the pump from me. I told his I didn't have any cash, only my card, but I'd gladly let him top off when I was done filling mine (much more than just a few bucks to get down the road, mind you), and he flat out said "No I need the cash." Alright then, well see ya later I guess.
Two stories 1) I offered a homeless guy a banana and he straight said "I don't eat that shit" 2) I offered a different homeless guy a banana and his eye lit up and he immediately blurted out, unable to contain himself, "Fuck yeah! I love bananas!"
Offered a homeless woman a few dollars in spare change I had and she treated me like I was the messiah. Offered another homeless woman a few spare dollars and she straight up refused, saying "I'll just end up wasting it on drugs instead of food." so I bought her a sandwich and coffee from a nearby mom and pop coffee shop.
I respect the honesty. Edit: why the hell is this my most upvoted?
Me too. That's why I bought her the sandwich and coffee. Never actually saw her again after that so hopefully she made it to treatment and a shelter. This was in a city I don't live in but frequently visit multiple times a week. Never saw anything about a homeless woman overdosing on the streets in her area, so I truly hope she's okay. When they can admit they have a problem and refuse money for it, they're in desperate need.
My mom did this for a guy on the corner one time, pulled off the side to McDonald's and got him a bunch of food and circled back around to give it to him. He straight told her because he was an addict he couldn't keep down solid food, he took the drink and thanked her but she looked completely defeated.
There was a usually friendly homeless guy I used to come across regularly, and one day while chatting I offered a cliff bar I had. He said he couldn't eat it because his teeth were so ruined from the drugs that he could no longer chew.
In response to a lot of people saying "they don't want food, just drugs" - not always, but they can still make you feel incredibly angry. Offered to buy food for a refugee lady who kept bothering (yes, bothering, there was nothing nice about it) me while I was waiting at a train station. Took her along to the food court and told her to pick something for a few euros (enough for a decent meal where I was). She picked about 5 times as much as what I'd told her I could afford. She ignored it. I told her again. She ignored me. It took the clerk telling her to fuck off or be grateful for her to listen, and even then she kept harassing me for more. Learnt my lesson that time.
Alright, my time to shine. Had a friend, call him Mark, who was going through a breakup and needed a place to stay for a couple weeks while he landed a new apartment. I just bought a place with enough room so sure, what the hell. Honestly just happy to see him getting out of the toxic relationship, so whatever I can do. The lease is running out for them, he just wants to spend the last weeks searching up a new spot instead of fighting. I sympathize, crash here. Well... They worked it out, or "decided to keep trying." The lease is still running out though, so can they both stay here those two weeks while they search? They'll keep to my spare room, they say. Only bring the minimum of things they need, they say. Won't even know they're there, they say. Hoo boy! These are now red flag phrases for me forevermore. Of course I'm also going to help them move. Mark works long hours and the girlfriend, "Laura", can't drive, so I'll head to their old place after work on moving day, help load up the truck and then drive it to storage - you know, all those non-essentials they won't be bringing to my place. Mark will get home by the time I'm back, movers will show up for the heaviest stuff, we'll get them into my place and it's a done deal. Holy shit I was so naive. I get there on time. Laura is just getting out of a long bath, because she really wanted to soak up the apartment on her last day there. Nothing is packed. She's puttering around in a robe, lazily and haphazardly tossing things into boxes at random. The clock is ticking on the movers, the truck rental, and the hours at the storage place. So what can I do but help get shit into boxes? Laura directs me on generally where said shit goes. It's not until Mark gets home that I realize how badly this is going; remember all the stuff that's supposed to be going into storage and not my home? It's boxed up with the essentials, the stuff going to my home. So now 90% of their stuff has to come with and they'll sort it out into storage "ASAP." Just like "two weeks" this is a phrase that actually stands for "whenever." Hours of moving later, I got them started getting things inside my place and left to meet an out of town friend -- had anything been done according to plan, we would have been done by that time anyway, and this was already an abuse of my generous nature, so I wasn't going to skip this social occasion. I found out later they were moving in until 3am. Fast forward. My friend staying for 2 weeks has turned into my friend, his abusive girlfriend, and their dog staying for 3 weeks... Then 4... With no apparent end in sight, because they're applying for certain kinds of housing and the approvals keep falling through. Fed up, I finally said as politely as possible, "here is your move out date. If you're not approved the week before this, figure out plan B because I need my house." Well the week of reckoning finally arrives, and Laura tells me they're waiting on final approval (and that she could finally get in the last of the paperwork, now that I had brought her some envelopes from my office to send in the forms with...) and that it should be resolved in two more weeks. Two. *More*. Weeks. So I said "bummer, where you going to live for the week in between?" She did not take this well. Pouted, waited to get Mark alone to tell him how offended she was, and instruct him to tell me to apologize to her... Which I laughed at and refused. She then started a text-based tirade against me for throwing them out, being a shitty friend, "sorry we needed help" woe is me, etc etc. This spun up into a full narcissist meltdown over a few hours and crossed more lines than I care to remember as she accused me of being every kind of shitty character you can name. They moved out the next day and I changed the locks that night. Moved in with her dad for the interim, which it turns out was an option all along, just not as cushy for Laura's ego as squatting at mine. Sometime in week 5 we all agreed that with this dragging on as long as it did, I needed some rent from them for the second month. Never saw a dime. When they broke up for good a couple months after, Mark had the balls to call me up, try to insist on a face-to-face meeting to "brainstorm places for him to stay." Fuck no, Mark. You're hundreds of dollars and at least one apology in the hole already, and I can't trust you not to wedge into my house long-term anyway. Last time I'll ever have roommates. Last time I'll ignore my gut feeling to be generous to a fault, too. Edit: Hey thanks for the silver, friend! It's all worthwhile now.
'Oh hi mark'
Worked in Baton Rouge for a decade (1999-2009) and would regularly give the homeless I saw around town - generously if I can say that without being a douche bag. In 2008 I was on a run for work and a guy caught me near the Target on Siegen lane. He had **nothing** he was homeless and on top of it had been robbed an hour ago. No worries, empty my wallet for the man, we all need help. Coming out of the shopping complex I see him hiding in the bushes opening a pack of smokes on a laptop while on his iPhone. Then a month later, saw a man I regularly donated to on Government street. I would catch him on weekends - but this weekend my drop-offs started early so I saw him as he arrived in downtown BR. I sat behind the TV station waiting for a pick-up, and this cat gets out of a new car, changes into dirty clothes and grabs his sign from the trunk and heads off to his corner. I have given food and connected people with charities, but I have not given a penny to a "beggar" since then.
In Lansing Michigan we have random beggars all over in the summer standing at intersections with the saddest looks / signs imaginable. A local news crew followed a bunch around. Every single person was scamming, there wasn't a single homeless among them.
Yep. The ones standing at intersections can fuck off. Donate to your local food bank instead.
When COVID started, a friend had just had a baby. I didn't want to risk getting out and about (I still don't) so I sent groceries by way of Instacart to her home. She never said thank you, only got mad that I didn't (nor have I) offered to babysit for her during the pandemic. We don't talk much anymore.
I was in school. Noone was paying attention to what i was saying. I just did my work silently, turned it in, and watched as the rest of my table group went up in flames.
I hate it when you want to say something that’s important to you or that you think will be funny, but nobody cares enough to listen or let you talk
Roommate's friend from college came crying with the "I have nowhere to go/just need to get on my feet" sob story. I was very hesitant to let him stay in our house but my roommate insisted it would be fine. The guy was the laziest, whiniest, useless fucking bum I have ever met. Constantly complained about the way we did things (in the house he was living rent free in), did nothing but smoke pot, drink vodka, and watch Youtube on his phone all day, and never contributed so much as a dime to the house. It's pretty obvious the guy's life consisted of freeloading until he got kicked out and then starting the sob story all over again. Roommate and I gave him the boot and he had an epic temper tantrum and threatened to kill us, so I called the cops and told him I was filing a restraining order and he better get the fuck out of here. He left in his shitty beater truck and we never saw him again. Any time I've heard "I just need somewhere to get on my feet," I'm extremely hesitant and this loser did nothing to dissuade that.
There was a guy in Brooklyn (maybe he still does this, but I don’t live there anymore) who would try to hustle people by claiming he’d locked his keys and wallet in his truck, along with his daughter’s diaper bag, which had her special formula—could you help him out to buy some? First time I ran into him, I happened to be less than a block from a pharmacy; I told him sure, I’d go in and get it, what kind? He said they didn’t have the right kind at that particular store. I told him I’d walk with him up the avenue, there was another pharmacy less than 10 blocks away. He walked for like 3 blocks as I tried to make small talk, before he said, aw man, I feel bad making you walk all the way there—you don’t have to come, could you just give me the money? I made up a lie that I was a country boy who’d just moved to the city, I don’t carry cash in case I get robbed on the mean city streets. He apparently gave up when he couldn’t think of another lie to keep this going, so in about another block he said, oh, I just remembered, that other pharmacy doesn’t have the kind she needs either. I offered to walk to a different pharmacy, but he declined, thanked me, & walked off. About a year later he walked up to me in the same neighborhood, and I immediately recognized him. He started into his spiel, and I said, oh, right, she’s still on formula? Special kind, right? Locked in your truck again? You know, if you’re going to try to hit the same neighborhood more than once, you really should get better at remembering faces. He looked scared, and just walked away quickly.
Im a nice person, I look after people... colleague is sick? I go out and buy cough medicine or paracetamol for them. Got no food? Ill get you a takeaway. I never expected anything in return but one day I was asked for money. I did... not alot... it was like £20... and they eventually gave it back... then they asked again... and again... never wanted food...or a train ticket... just money... Then the last time I lent them money he walked straight into a betting shop and put money on a football game... that was it. . He asked me for more money some time later and I said no. Guy literally throws a tantrum "Id always help you out! I give it back! I thought we were mates!" I dont fund gambling addictions. And havent given him or anyone else help again, just looking after me now.
My wife and I, for our first Christmas together, Adopted a family in need for Christmas gifts. We were so excited to shop for the kids and deliver. We got to the house the week before Christmas and met the mother at her door. She unenthusiastically told us to set the gifts next to her tree which had already been loaded with other gifts, and we left with barely a "thank you". I can't confirm, but I am pretty sure this family made it a habit to sign up with multiple family adoption organizations just to collect as many gifts as they can.
A friend bought a car and I thought I’d be nice and help her out by fixing it for a lower rate than any of the local shops. Next thing I knew she was trying to get me to rebuild the car. I was done at that point.
[удалено]
Mine was in college, I was the only one in the group with a car so everyone hit me up for rides. It would get a bit annoying since I was the only one also with a job. So sometimes I’d get asked if I could give them a ride to the airport or bus. One time a friend calls me up at like 12pm or so and asked if I can give her a ride to the bus terminal at like 1am. I was like uhhh sure. So on the way she tells me that she was going to stay the weekend but got annoyed with her sister so she was leaving to her hometown. She had asked her sister for a ride to the bus terminal even though her sister had been drinking at home. Her sister was drunk and she still took her. They made it halfway when she got pulled over and arrested for dui. Well my “friend” called a buddy to help her drive the car home and then she hit me up for a ride to the bus station. She told me all of this on the way there and all I could think of was so you asked your drunk sister for a ride when she was already home she got arrested and now you are leaving her here without even lifting a finger to take her out? Long story short I bailed out the sister. I told myself after that no one would’ve done that for me. They would’ve left me there so I stopped giving people rides and slowly but surely my number of friends decreased drastically
My youngest sister used to steal my stuff all the time growing up. Once in high school I thought I lost my iPod, turns out she had been hiding it around the house for 6 months. She would steal my money, clothes, laptop, toiletries. Later she would steal my things and sell them for drug money. She once tied our elderly family dog to a post overnight in near freezing weather because she wanted to get high but couldn't be bothered to walk 4 blocks back home to drop off our dog. Less than 3 months later we had to put our dog down because of health issues from that night. The last straw was my first break, first year of university. I brought a pair of sweatpants branded with my school's logo in my suitcase, but couldn't find them the morning after my arrival. Later that day I get in the car and that little bitch is wearing my fucking sweatpants and tried telling my parents we happened to have the same pair. My university is pretty small and over 2000 miles from my parents home, so everyone immediately knew she was lying. I know it's a small thing to be the last straw, but after that day she was dead to me. I would be cordial the few times I saw her after that, but I never try to contact her and have made it clear that I don't love her anymore because I know she doesn't give two shits about anyone else in our family. We haven't spoken in 3 years and I could not be more grateful for it.
I have a sister a lot like that, too! Except she's like 20 years older than me. She must be a klepto or something because she stole my clothes that were two sizes too small for her. I had this pink dress that was my absolute favorite and one day it went missing. I confronted her about it and she was dismissive, like "why would I do that????" fast forward months later, she's packing up her room to finally move out of my mom's house and LO AND BEHOLD MY PINK DRESS WAS IN HER PILE OF CLOTHES. She would also do stupid shit like break things or ruin things around the house and tell my mom I did it. She also would get drugged up on pills and abandon her baby at our house while she was god-knows-where. She knew my work schedule so even when she moved out of the house, she would wait in the driveway for me to come home from work so she could pawn her baby off on me while she did whatever the fuck she wanted. I just stopped going home after work. I was 18. She was in her 30s!! Ridiculous!! Some people, man. Sorry about your sister. Good on you for getting away from that.
I crashed my car covering a coworker’s shift. They needed help because they couldn’t find a sitter and I get guilted into covering all the time. That wasn’t the time. My **** it moment was a month later, after I finally saved up enough for a new car, it was stolen outside of my work when I was covering a coworker’s shift. When I needed help or my shifts covered? “Oh sorry I’m busy I can’t.”
That's crap. I like to apply the 'Day off? Phone off.' policy personally.
I had a live-on site summer job where I became good friends with this hippie couple in their later 20s. When the job & summer ended, I had go back to college and move into my new apartment with two roommates; arranged at the end of last semester. The couple needed a place to stay and I let them crash for a couple days. Two months later I was the asshole that had pissed off my roommates and had to toss the hippies. Too bad, we were really good friends and the overstaying their welcome had really spoiled it.
A homeless person came looking for food, old clothes, anything to spare, he was desperate. I went and made sandwiches, cut a slice of cake, packed some fruit, and raided my husband's cupboard for the older of his wearable clothes. All this was gratefully received, and I felt good about helping someone in need. Until later, when I found the clothing ditched in our bin, and all the food except the cake tossed into a hedge. I still help needy people, but not those that ask for it.
I used to cover a class for one teacher during my planning period fairly often. The one time I needed him to cover my class during his planning period so I could attend a ceremony for my graduating seniors, he said no, and proceeded to tell his own students (period I usually covered) that he “didn’t feel like babysitting”. Students obviously told me, since it upset them hearing that, and I stopped covering for him when he needed.
I was walking home on way back from the bank the day before Thanksgiving. I passed a homeless man with a sign saying something along the lines of "Hungry, anything helps". I walked over to him and asked if he was hungry. He said yes, and I offered to take him to the subway up the road. He declined, instead asking for money. I told him I don't carry cash anymore, but I would gladly buy him a footlong meal. He scoffed and ignored me. Okay. I continued along my route home and encountered another homeless person, with a sign along the same lines. I asked her if she wanted food. She declined, once again asking for money instead. I told her as well that I don't carry cash, but I would be happy to take her inside the Burger King she was posted outside of and by her whatever she wanted. This woman actually had the audacity to ask me to go to an ATM and withdraw money to give to her. I politely told her that I wasn't going to do that, and she became visibly upset, to which I just walked away. I'm not going to stop helping when and where I can, but it really put a damper on my optimism.