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Some People Are Dumb – Reflecting on Comments to Student Loan Story

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Some of you may remember a few months ago when I noted that I was quoted and referenced in a recent USAToday.com article. This was the second time that I was featured in the newspaper, though the first time I was featured it was in an above-the-fold headline story with my face plastered all over the front page. Yeah, it was pretty cool.

But the latest article was an online-only publication and while the first article no longer has the bevy of ignorant comments listed underneath it, the second article certainly has some comments that make you go “Hmmm…” (my thanks to the C&C Music Factory for the reference!).

Huh? Wuh? Some people don't seem to be able to think...

Or, in pug terminology (as shown in the pictures above), some of the comments on the recent student loan article had me cocking my head to the side wondering what the hell I was reading. While I admit that the comments were in no way as ignorant or arrogant as the ones that were posted after my first student loan article was published, some of these comments were just mind-boggling. For example, the following comments were posted:

“The horror of having roommates and driving an 11 year old car. My god, what a huge sacrifice!! I had roommated til I was 30, went off on my own for a year, got engaged and then got married. I would probably still have roommates if I found some cool enough. Why not live a cheap as possible?”

Now this moron couldn’t spell roommates seemed to misinterpret an otherwise very easy, simply element of my story. You see, my story was about how I managed to pay off so much of my student loan debt in so short a period of time. As was cited earlier in the very same story that this guy was commenting on, I live with roommates and drive a well-worn 2000 Honda Civic. Those aren’t complaints – they are just methods by which I spend less money and thus put more money towards paying for student loans. Now, imagine how downright stupid this person must be to have read that portion of my story and interpreted it as me complaining rather than sharing a good strategy for saving some money to ultimately put towards repaying student loans. I’m tell you, some people are just dumb. Here’s another one.

“You graduate from college with $100k+ in loans and no special skills, what you expect. At least he is paying off, many are not.”

Okay, well the second part of this comment is dead on accurate – I’m paying off my student loans instead of bitching and moaning about how I can’t afford them or woe is me or whatever, blah, blah, blah. But how ignorant – how downright dumb – can someone be to think that I graduated from college with no special skills? Really? REALLY? You think that someone who is 30 years old could manage to pay off about $75,000 in student loan principal and about $30,000 in student loan interest over a 4 year period and NOT have any special skills that are clearly desirable in the job market?

Really? Are people honestly that stupid? Look, I could go on and on about how I’m one of the leading financiers of a very niche community-based industry in New Jersey, but something tells me that the dull-minded person who wrote that stupid comment would read about what I do for a living and go, “Wuh?” Idiot.

Those were the two comments that had me mimicking the pugs in the picture above. However, most of all I find myself appalled at the comments where people say shit like, “Well, I went to college and paid for it all by myself with no student loans – so why DON’T YOU!?!?” Ugh. I guess that everyone’s life situation has to be like that person’s life situation, huh? Talk about the epitome of ignorance and arrogance.

Anyway, just sharing some frustrations with the public display of ignorance and stupidity that was unfortunately posted on USAToday.com. Now, back to the reality of demolishing my student loans!

Entries That Never Made It: “Rules for Driving in New Jersey”

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Today’s entry is from the “Entries That Never Made It” file. A brief explanation, first. If you don’t know, JerseySmarts.com is operated off of the WordPress database. This database system allows me to save drafts of entries and revisit them at a later date and time to complete my thoughts and then, ultimately, upload the entry to the blog. Well, sometimes I start an entry, go back to it a few times to add new thoughts, and then wind up not finishing it. In the past, I would have just deleted the entry and moved on. However, I thought there might be some sense (and maybe even some humor) in keeping the half-finished entries available for reading on the blog.

Which brings us to today’s post. The entry below was originally prepared back in November 2009. My impetus for writing this one was the fact that the roads in New Jersey were packed with folks from other states who had no idea how to drive Garden State style! As you might imagine, dealing with horrible drivers got me pretty irate so I began writing this entry as a way of explaining how people should drive in New Jersey.

Before you read the entry below you should understand that there are half finished sentences and thoughts that just end without being completed (like the very first sentence). Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

Driving during the holidays made me extremely angry really brought out the

Stop At A Stop Sign
The picture to the left is a stop sign. When you see one of these signs on a road that you are traveling on – STOP! Stopping is bringing your car to a complete stop. This does NOT mean that you can roll through the stop sign into on-coming traffic, especially if you are at a four way stop intersection.

The Middle Finger
If you see the picture to the left while you’re driving around New Jersey, chances are that you’ve fucked up and made someone driving near you very mad. In fact, there is a strong chance that you broke one of the rules that I’m sharing with you on this page. The image to the left shows what we call the Middle Finger. When someone gives you the Middle Finger, you should refocus your attention on the road and your driving skills and, if necessary, pull into the slow lane (see below) to let the professional drivers get to their destination without being aggravated by you and your ridiculously amateurish driving style.

The Fast Lane and The Slow Lane
You’ll notice in the picture to the left that there are two lanes on this highway. In New Jersey, the lane on the left is what we call the “Fast Lane” and the lane on the right is what we call the “Slow Lane.” When you’re driving in New Jersey, you’ll often see speed limit signs telling you what the suggested speed limit is for the road that you’re on. Note my use of the word “suggested” here. It is common in New Jersey for drivers accelerate between 5 and 10 miles per hour faster than the suggested speed limit. On the highways, you’ll often find people accelerating to greater speeds (none of which is condoned by JerseySmarts.com). However, if you find yourself driving in the left lane and you’re driving either at or below the speed limit, get in the right lane immediately! You’re blocking the professional drivers from using the left lane to drive a little bit faster than the speed limit and will likely cause yourself to receive the Middle Finger (see above).

Do Not Tailgate
You see this picture to the left? That’s the rear end of a car. When you’re driving in your car and you come upon this picture to the left (or a variation of it), you slow down and keep a distance. You do NOT pull the front end of your car within inches of the rear end of the person in front of your car. That would be an asshole move and will likely cause you to receive the Middle Finger (see above).

You know it’s funny. The more I read that half finished entry, the more I think that there was a lot of potential there. Oh well, maybe one day I’ll revisit this entry and actually complete it!

Sometimes, the Deadbeats Complain the Loudest Out of Everyone

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Over the last nearly five years that I’ve owned and operated Usable Web Solutions, LLC, I’ve brought you a bunch of crazy stories from my life as a small business owner and and my interactions with some near-insane clients. And while I don’t plan on going into deep detail about the aggravations of the business in this blog entry at this point in time (check back in January 2011 for a more comprehensive review of my first five years as a small business owner), I thought I’d scrape up a little blog entry talking about some of my deadbeat clients.

Now, I’ve had deadbeat clients in the past that simply went away and stopped paying for their services. What’s worse, I’ve had deadbeat clients who were actually my close friends from college and members of the same fraternity as me – two populations that you’d never expect to be deadbeats. However, over the course of this week I’ve had to deal with two deadbeat clients much more than I could have imagined. And what’s more amazing to me is that my contractual obligations to both of these particular deadbeats expired over the summer and they were alerted (numerous times) that they needed to find a new website provider. Did they get off their asses and take care of the online portion of their businesses?

Of course not!

Actually, let me go into some greater detail on one of these idiots… This client’s contract expired over the summer so I sent a notice that I was not renewing services (bear in mind that I hadn’t been paid for any of my services in over a year anyway – the definition of deadbeat). When the contract expired, I took the website down. About a month goes by and the client comes back and is complaining that the website is down. Okay. I told them that the website could very easily be restored if I received the back payment that I was owed.

And, like any good deadbeat, this idiot paid me 70% of what I was owed and I agreed to put the website back up, but make no changes as she requested. Then the deadbeat said that there were no contracts or extension notices in her file so she weren’t even sure if I was their web provider.

What an idiot.

By the way, this is a common tactic of deadbeats and scumbag business people. I know – I used to work for one of the biggest ones in New Jersey. The scumbag business person will act like they are the victim 99 times out of 100 (read on to see how this particular client played the victim this week). Anyway, I went into my files and gave this client copies of the initial contract and the two year extension letter. I also printed another termination letter saying that our agreement was over and ended and that I would be very happy to transfer the entire website off of my servers once I was paid in full. The client responded by contacting me late last week saying to call her when I had a chance. I called her office last Friday and they tell me that she doesn’t work on Fridays. Nice. I e-mailed her that I just left her a message at her office and she said to call her on Tuesday. And, as you might imagine, Tuesday comes around and I called her office at 3pm only to learn that she was already gone for the day. Fine, whatever. I called back on Wednesday morning at 10:30am and guess who’s not in the office yet.

That’s right! You got it! This deadbeat wasn’t even in the office by 10:30am. What type of small business owner isn’t already in motion for a few hours by 10:30am on a Wednesday?!

However, on Wednesday afternoon I receive an e-mail from the deadbeat saying that now it’s Wednesday and I haven’t reached out to her and what’s the problem. Good grief. I sent a pleasant little note back saying that I’ve actually left two messages for her and that I’m waiting for her to respond to either of them. She, of course, did not respond so I gave her a call on Thursday afternoon around 4pm and she was actually in the office.

Now, like I said earlier, deadbeats have to play the role of the victim. When this one got on the phone she said, “Hi.” And I responded with, “Hello! How are you, Deadbeat?” Obviously, I used the deadbeat’s real name. She said, “Fine,” in about as dull and annoyed a voice as you could imagine. And that was the conversation opener. Since I’ve dealt with and worked for scumbags in the past, I knew exactly where this was going and I prepared myself to have some fun. I said, “So I received your message-” and she interrupted me with, “Yeah you claim you’ve been reaching out and you can’t get me. Well, I’m here now.”

Oh, what a pity?! It would appear that this deadbeat is a victim, right? Poor her – sitting there and having to actually do work with one of her contractors! Oh – the horror! It gets better.

So I responded with something like, “Yeah I saw your e-mail. So do you have a new web provider in mind that I can work with to transfer the services?” And she said something like, “Yes. And he’s offering services much cheaper than what we’ve been paying-” so then I cut her off and in my rosiest, happiest voice I said, “Right! So if you could get me his information, I’ll be happy to contact him and work to complete the transfer.”

You see, having worked for a scumbag, I saw that “pity me, I’m a victim” card being played way before this deadbeat began dealing it out – thus why I cut her off when she lied about being offered cheaper services. How do I know that she lied about the cost of the services? Easy! I’m actively engaged in this work and I know what my competitors charge. I typically charge between 25% and 50% of what every single one of my competitors charge (except this one guy who does websites in the area and charges an exorbitant fee – I’m about 10% of his costs).

The conversation pretty much ended after that with the deadbeat saying that she’d e-mail me her new web person’s contact information. I responded with a dreadfully cheery, “Wonderful! Thank you!” Which she followed up with a half-asleep, extremely aggravated, “Bye,” before she hung up. It’s always the same with scumbag business people and deadbeats – they all act the same, they all talk the same, they’re all the victims in situations where they try to screw their contractors. I’ve seen it before, I’ve worked for it before, and I’ve watched it be disassembled before (which is what makes me so good at dealing with these scumbags).

Anyway, I’ll be glad when these deadbeats are out of my portfolio. One of the lessons that I’ve learned thus far in owning a small business is that scam artists and deadbeats will try to take advantage of you all of the time. In my world and with my hectic schedule, I don’t have time for the bullshit so I don’t have time for the deadbeats. Usable Web Solutions, LLC will be a stronger, faster, more profitable company once I get these idiots out of my hair.

A Quick Story About a Moron I Encountered Two Weeks Ago

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Much like all of my readers, I encounter various forms of idiocy on a daily basis. Some might argue that the forms of idiocy that I encounter is magnified due to my living in the great Garden State, but I would argue that they’re wrong. What I’ve come to understand is that idiots are just idiots and it doesn’t matter where they live or what they do for a living! Case in point – the idiot at the local college’s bookstore.

As some of you may remember, I teach at the local college. Well, two weeks ago was the first day of class and I just took over the teaching assignment for this class at the end of August. The problem with switching teaching assignments so close to the beginning of the school year is that the previous professor’s books are still the ones that are listed as the required texts – and I use different books. Thus, we have a problem.

My students came to class on the first day and most of them had the wrong textbook with them. No problem, I thought. I told the students to go back to the bookstore and explain the issue and that it shouldn’t be a problem to get a refund and switch out the book that they bought with the correct one. I’ve worked with the bookstore before and they’re typically a good, easy-going bunch.

However, I decided that since I was on vacation from my day job that after class that day I would walk over to the bookstore and just double check to be sure that the right books were assigned to my class section (they were). When I arrived at the bookstore, I noticed some of my students switching out their books, which was good. I asked one of the runners (they have students that run to the back to check on questions when they come up) if she could go and check my book assignments. By the response on this young girl’s face, you would have thought that I asked her to do high end calculus using nothing but an abacus. She responded with something like, “Oh… I don’t think I can do that, but let me ask my supervisor.” And before I could tell her not to worry about it, she was gone.

Folks, the last thing I want to do as an adjunct professor on the first day of school is bother a supervisor in the bookstore. If you’ve ever been to a college bookstore on the first day of classes, it’s mayhem. The young girl came running back and said to follow her to the back. Immediately, I put my guard up because not only was this completely unnecessary, but I knew that whoever I was going to speak with was going to be irate at my presence.

And I was right.

This young girl took me to a person in the back who was checking something on her computer as she was hunched over it. She said something like, “Yes. Hello.” I told her who I was and that my class had been changed a few weeks ago and that I used different textbooks than the previous professor. She responded with, “You can go online and check the textbooks to see if they’re the right ones.” So I told her that I went online the night before to check the texts and they were incorrect. And I also told her that I e-mailed the bookstore about the assignment change a few weeks prior to school starting and never received a response. She responded with, “Well, it’s been a little busy around here in case you can’t tell. You can go online and check the textbooks to see if they’re the right ones.”

Now, at this point I’m not in the mood for some idiot’s stance that she’s going to keep on going to the same line about checking online. So I said very calmly, “Yes. I checked online last night and they were wrong. I know that you guys are busy and you are all doing a great job. However, my students came to class with the wrong books this morning so I just wanted to double check.”

She responded with, “You can double check online.” I should note that the dummy was doing ten different things while trying to address my concerns and that after she repeated about going online to double check, she walked right by me without looking and stomped towards the front of the book counter. I slowly followed her and said, “I’d like to check the shelf.” And as it happened, she was marching by my books and said, “They’re over here somewhere,” as she pointed to her left. She then added, “If they’re wrong, let me know, but you can check all of this stuff online in the future.”

At this point, and as you might imagine, I was done talking to her. The combination of her not listening to me and relying on some stupid talking point about going online wasn’t helping the fact that her tone was a mixture of anger and frustration. So I walked over to where my books were, saw that the change was made, and began to walk out of the restricted area. On my way out, I called out, “Thank you. You guys are doing a great job. I appreciate it.”

No one responded.

And so I share this story with you because it’s been a while since I wrote about someone this rude and downright ignorant. I hope you’ve enjoyed because I enjoyed shaking my head in disgust as I left the bookstore! 🙂

A Quick Trip To Wal-Mart – Always Filled With Annoyances

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Whenever you’re looking to get aggravated at the failures of everyday life, go to Wal-Mart. No, it’s not the store itself (I actually like Wal-Mart both from a consumer sense and as a corporate citizen). And, in truth, it’s not the bulk of the people who shop at Wal-Mart or the employees that are the problem. I think the reason why Wal-Mart can be so annoying is due to the sheer amount of consumers that enter its doors during a day. With that many customers, the store is bound to get a handful of dummies that can provide aggravation for the other shoppers.

And now today’s aggravating experience at Wal-Mart…

I’ll never understand why shoppers feel the need to stop at the end of an aisle and hover when there is no other consumer traffic either coming or going. You know these people. They are the ones that linger at the end of an aisle and sort of look at the vast Wal-Mart in front of them and wonder, “Wow – where do I go next?” Hey, here’s a clue – get the fuck out of the way so I can go and buy my stupid candle and get on with my day, damn it! By the way, the Wal-Mart in Neptune has a great deal on candles where you can buy two large, scented candles and three votive candles of the same flavor for $10 all in – not bad.

However, I didn’t run into any of these people at the Wal-Mart today. Instead, I ran into their sinister cousins – the folks who think it’s a great idea to stop and scan their receipt when they are one foot outside of the store. These morons feel that it is their right to block the exit of the store so they can scan their receipt to make sure that the three fucking items that they purchased were correctly registered. Really? You bought three items and you couldn’t pay attention while they were being rung up, nor could you scan your receipt while you were walking towards the exit (which is acceptable)? Instead, you had to wait until the fresh, outside air hit you in the face until you realized that you were a waste of guts and skin?

That’s how self-consumed some people can really be. And it’s also how incredibly dumb human beings can be – imagine a person that can’t walk and scan a six inch receipt. They have to stop their entire body from moving so they can read a few numbers. Absolutely incredible.

There were other aggravations at the Wal-Mart today, but I’ll hold them for another time. Oh, and thank you to one of my roommates for sending me this link: http://peopleofwalmart.com/ Go and take a look – it’s as ridiculous as you might imagine.