Overheard at Work

[merula]

He talked to one of his friends who is a lawyer who basically told him that he needs to be able to prove that he's actually on site during the time he 's claiming (he turns in a hand written timesheet at the end of the pay period).  He's really not wanting to rock the boat too much until he has another job lined up though so I feel like he's not taking it very seriously.  So, I silently seethe over his job and he looks for something else.

Does he have a smartphone with location services enabled? If so, that might be a lot easier than it would initially seem.

[Sugaree]

He talked to one of his friends who is a lawyer who basically told him that he needs to be able to prove that he's actually on site during the time he 's claiming (he turns in a hand written timesheet at the end of the pay period).  He's really not wanting to rock the boat too much until he has another job lined up though so I feel like he's not taking it very seriously.  So, I silently seethe over his job and he looks for something else.

Does he have a smartphone with location services enabled? If so, that might be a lot easier than it would initially seem.

That's something we talked about.  I 'm having to bite my tongue a lot about this since it's really his move to make.

[Just Joe]

I'm sure like everyone else with a truck the bed only gets used 1-2% of the time. I've had my small pickup truck for about 1.5-2 years and I think I've moved stuff in the bed maybe 10 times total. Only a handful of those w
He's an employee.  Gets a W-2 at the end of the year.  This is actually the least of the issues I have with them.  His supervisor has been changing his time card and not paying him for hours he worked.  We're just having a hard time proving it.

Two things:

first insurance. His insurance might not cover him in an accident if he is using his vehicle in a work capacity. Our teen wanted to deliver pizzas. Our agent said sure but you'll be required to carry this supplement delivery insurance b/c as it stands our insurance is personal use insurance - shopping, getting to work, going to see grandma, etc.

second time cards: if he has a smart phone it has a camera. Every time he clocks in and out, take a picture of the card. Retain copies on your personal computer. If the boss changes the time card, bust his tail. Nothing worse than not getting paid for hourly work where your own vehicle is used as well.

[tyler2016]

I'm sure like everyone else with a truck the bed only gets used 1-2% of the time. I've had my small pickup truck for about 1.5-2 years and I think I've moved stuff in the bed maybe 10 times total. Only a handful of those w
He's an employee.  Gets a W-2 at the end of the year.  This is actually the least of the issues I have with them.  His supervisor has been changing his time card and not paying him for hours he worked.  We're just having a hard time proving it.

Two things:

first insurance. His insurance might not cover him in an accident if he is using his vehicle in a work capacity. Our teen wanted to deliver pizzas. Our agent said sure but you'll be required to carry this supplement delivery insurance b/c as it stands our insurance is personal use insurance - shopping, getting to work, going to see grandma, etc.

second time cards: if he has a smart phone it has a camera. Every time he clocks in and out, take a picture of the card. Retain copies on your personal computer. If the boss changes the time card, bust his tail. Nothing worse than not getting paid for hourly work where your own vehicle is used as well.

I'd advise emailing the pictures to yourself with something like Gmail immediately after taking them. That way there is no question about the age of photos since you no longer control the time stamps

[BlueHouse]

CoWorker buys new car.
2 years later, coworker buys latest model, same car because the payments are exactly the same. 
Brags on this for the 1.5 years I've known him.
finally on Friday, I say "But isn't the goal to someday not have a car payment?  Because now you're paying for 6 years instead of 4."
CW:  Oh, I never thought about it like that. 

Coworker is an accountant. 

[Linda_Norway]

CoWorker buys new car.
2 years later, coworker buys latest model, same car because the payments are exactly the same. 
Brags on this for the 1.5 years I've known him.
finally on Friday, I say "But isn't the goal to someday not have a car payment?  Because now you're paying for 6 years instead of 4."
CW:  Oh, I never thought about it like that. 

Coworker is an accountant.

Shocking that even an accountant doesn't use his brains. Maybe he doesn't have any?

[87tweetybirds]

Coworker has been looking for a house for the past 3 years. Husband had a ridiculous list of requirements which made their search hard: certain amount of acreage, pool, couldn't see neighbors from the house and, of course, excellent schools (despite planning to send their kid to private school). They finally found one for $150k over their budget and moved in last month.
Now they are buying furniture because their old house was 2,000 sq ft smaller than the new one. Today my coworker comes in complaining that she just had a $10k credit card bill and had a $12k one last month. Apparently just the sofa they bought was $6k!!! That's more than I spent on outfitting my entire house when we moved from a furnished apartment last year!

6K! I'm pretty sure all of my furniture in my house put together didn't cost me 6K. And the only reason we'd get close to 6k for furniture is because of our mattresses.

[Just Joe]

Shocking that even an accountant doesn't use his brains. Maybe he doesn't have any?

Accountant acquaintance has "collector cars" sitting around his house. In reality none are worth more than $1K each I'd guess, probably half that. Town passes law that unregistered cars must be stored inside. Likely his wealthy neighbors have complained to the Mayor. He makes some changes to how he has parked them. Coming up on a deadline. Faces fines. Has good intentions to restore these cars someday but these cars were ordinary cars in their prime. In the long run I expect he'll pay more in fines than they are worth before his sentimentality is overcome. I get it though. I have a few oldies too but mine are inside and out of sight.

[BlueHouse]

CoWorker buys new car.
2 years later, coworker buys latest model, same car because the payments are exactly the same. 
Brags on this for the 1.5 years I've known him.
finally on Friday, I say "But isn't the goal to someday not have a car payment?  Because now you're paying for 6 years instead of 4."
CW:  Oh, I never thought about it like that. 

Coworker is an accountant.

Shocking that even an accountant doesn't use his brains. Maybe he doesn't have any?

Same co-worker is obsessed with credit score.  No matter what silly choice or purchase is being made, always follows up the comment with "but I have an excellent credit score, so I'm sure I'm getting the best deal".  As in, doesn't even negotiate certain things because excellent credit.  I almost want to tell him mine, but it would break his heart because I'm pretty darn sure that mine wins.  In fact, I'm pretty sure that mine is better than most IRL.  Only here on MMM would I never make such a boast!   

[ysette9]

I cared about my credit score when I was applying for a mortgage, but that isn’t a regular occurrence. Otherwise as long as it was good enough for me to keep my security clearance at my old job ( a low bar, presumably), it just didn’t matter.

[El_Mariachi]

A coworker was arguing with me that putting money in our company 401k was a waste of money

I explained to him that just putting 5% would get him 7.5% (stingy company only matches half up to 5%)

He got irritated and told me that he needed the money now, now later....

after I calmed down, I felt bad. He has 2 cars on lease (a 2 year old corvette and a jacked up 4x4 truck) and lives with his parent, BUT he is 33, he should know better

[ketchup]

He has 2 cars on lease (a 2 year old corvette and a jacked up 4x4 truck) and lives with his parent, BUT he is 33, he should know better

Gah, every next word of that gets worse.

[BeautifulDay]

Open enrollment time and HR doesn’t know the difference between a Roth IRA and Roth 401k.

The Roth is a new option for us. Some paperwork says IRA (generated in house by HR staff) other paperwork say 401k (generated by 401k investment company). I pointed out the discrepancy to HR. They hadn’t even noticed. Said they were going to fix it, but when they re-emailed out the paperwork it was still wrong. Sheesh.

Told my boss and others about the issue. I don’t want people to make bad decisions based on inaccurate info. But no one seems to comprehend the difference. Most just seem to think 18k or even $5500 is so high it doesn’t matter. I bet I’m the only one who noticed.

[El_Mariachi]

Gah, every next word of that gets worse.

yep, the thing that mad me the most angry is that he was telling our new employee to follow his example

I knew he was bad with money, but I was left nearly speechless

[golden1]

A girl at work, who is very nice, but a little unstable, has been complaining about being broke.  I found out yesterday that she is broke because she spent 2K on cryoliposuction, which she didn't need because she is thin.  I think she has a lot of body image issues. 

[BlueHouse]

CoWorker buys new car.
2 years later, coworker buys latest model, same car because the payments are exactly the same. 
Brags on this for the 1.5 years I've known him.
finally on Friday, I say "But isn't the goal to someday not have a car payment?  Because now you're paying for 6 years instead of 4."
CW:  Oh, I never thought about it like that. 

Coworker is an accountant.

Shocking that even an accountant doesn't use his brains. Maybe he doesn't have any?

Same co-worker is obsessed with credit score.  No matter what silly choice or purchase is being made, always follows up the comment with "but I have an excellent credit score, so I'm sure I'm getting the best deal".  As in, doesn't even negotiate certain things because excellent credit.  I almost want to tell him mine, but it would break his heart because I'm pretty darn sure that mine wins.  In fact, I'm pretty sure that mine is better than most IRL.  Only here on MMM would I never make such a boast!   

Oh my gosh.  I cannot believe this just happened.  Same co-worker.  Yesterday tells me he's been getting calls from the dealer offering an upgrade to the latest model year.  Proceeds to tell me what a hardass he is when negotiating.  I just shake my head (from the other side of a cubicle wall, so he doesn't see me smacking my head).

This morning... Co-worker bought the new car.  The negotiation was to keep the payment exactly the same.  I tried to keep my mouth shut because really, he just doesn't want to hear how stupid this is.  Then he tells me he'd have to be an idiot not to take the deal for the same payment.  All I could say was that I've gotten used to not having a car payment for the past 8 years, so that's what I would have been thinking about.  Then in kind of a superior way, he tells me that he's used to it, so it's not like he even notices that payment any more. 

No more words.  No words.

[kms]

From a psychological point of view his justification actually makes sense. He doesn't see the vehicle as something that can be purchased and paid for but a recurring cost, like rent or a subscription. His mind simply can't grasp the fact that there's actually a price to be paid associated with that vehicle. Instead, he sees it as recurring perpetual subscription model.

From this point of view it makes perfect sense - if he sees his car as a subscription then why wouldn't he swap it for a brand-new one after two years assuming the payments remain the same? He's still paying the same subscription fee each month but instead of a 2-year old car he's getting a new one.

As braindead as this may sound to a normal person with even the most basic math skills: if you take away the fact that a car is something to be purchased and not something to be subscribed to then it makes perfect sense.

[marcela]

From a psychological point of view his justification actually makes sense. He doesn't see the vehicle as something that can be purchased and paid for but a recurring cost, like rent or a subscription. His mind simply can't grasp the fact that there's actually a price to be paid associated with that vehicle. Instead, he sees it as recurring perpetual subscription model.

From this point of view it makes perfect sense - if he sees his car as a subscription then why wouldn't he swap it for a brand-new one after two years assuming the payments remain the same? He's still paying the same subscription fee each month but instead of a 2-year old car he's getting a new one.

As braindead as this may sound to a normal person with even the most basic math skills: if you take away the fact that a car is something to be purchased and not something to be subscribed to then it makes perfect sense.

I seem to remember catching a commercial where a car company was actually suggesting a car subscription service that would operate just like this. It looks nuts to me, but there are so many people who can't consider life without a car payment so the concept makes sense.

[fattest_foot]

I feel like that's the same kind of logic that's made leasing so popular in the last few years.

[kms]

Exactly. Life seems to be moving towards the subscription model anyway. Leasing has been around for decades and it's basically a subscription. You can lease cars, computers, expensive electronics, etc. As long as you keep paying your monthly "subscription" fee you will continue getting the latest and greatest. Adobe has switched its entire portfolio over from one-time purchased perpetual licenses to a subscription-only model. Microsoft has been pushing their Office 365 subscription for years, and more likely than not Office 2019 is going to be the final stand-alone perpetual license release. Even small software companies are moving away from one-time perpetual licensing to a subscription model, and this trend is going to continue.

It's basically the same with cars. Most people are so used to having a car payment that it really is nothing short of a subscription for them. They simply cannot grasp the fact that a car can be driven for much longer than the payment period lasts and can ultimately be paid for eventually. Let's face it: what do most people do once their car is paid for? They trade it in for a new car and the cycle continues.

Good for us though, because it means the market gets flooded with 3-7 year old used vehicles at sometimes ridiculously low prices.

[Feivel2000]

Office 365

But that's a great value for your money, if you can leverage the family plan and want the online space for backups, at least :)

[RWD]

Office 365

But that's a great value for your money, if you can leverage the family plan and want the online space for backups, at least :)

LibreOffice is free...

[Gronnie]

Office 365

But that's a great value for your money, if you can leverage the family plan and want the online space for backups, at least :)

LibreOffice is free...

In general, when it comes to software you get what you pay for. Very true in this case.

[ysette9]

At my new job we use the G-suite (google docs, slides, sheets, etc.). I always thought of those products as “Microsoft Office lite”. Now that I am really using them in action I find them to be more useful than Office. You may give that a try and see what you think.

[RWD]

Office 365

But that's a great value for your money, if you can leverage the family plan and want the online space for backups, at least :)

LibreOffice is free...

In general, when it comes to software you get what you pay for. Very true in this case.

I disagree, both in general and in this case. I have switched entirely to open source software at home and have found the experience vastly superior compared to when I used proprietary software (on both Microsoft and Apple operating systems). There are certainly commercial use cases, but for personal use open source software is more than adequate.

[russianswinga]

Even small software companies are moving away from one-time perpetual licensing to a subscription model, and this trend is going to continue.

It gets worse. We have a client that had SolidWorks 2013 (fully paid for). They were under support with SolidWorks until 2013 and received new versions annually. Unfortunately, SW 2013 doesn't run on Windows 10.
We place a call to several SW dealers, all state the same thing:
- Here's your price for SW 2019 and service through the next year ($5K or so)
- Here's your backbill for support from 2013 to 2019. ($20K)
Apparently Solidworks uses a new model that if you ever drop support, and need a new version anytime in the future, you will be fined for back support for all missed years you didn't use the software! The only way around that is a whole new business name (not an option in a 200 person well established company). They can and will blacklist you for a single missed year of support, until all (even unused) back support is paid.
At least Microsoft and Adobe don't charge you for the years you don't use them.
Imagine selling your old Toyota in 2013, and now buying a Toyota again and the dealer handing you a bill for all the revenue Toyota missed out on from you over the years you didn't drive one.

[ketchup]

Even small software companies are moving away from one-time perpetual licensing to a subscription model, and this trend is going to continue.

It gets worse. We have a client that had SolidWorks 2013 (fully paid for). They were under support with SolidWorks until 2013 and received new versions annually. Unfortunately, SW 2013 doesn't run on Windows 10.
We place a call to several SW dealers, all state the same thing:
- Here's your price for SW 2019 and service through the next year ($5K or so)
- Here's your backbill for support from 2013 to 2019. ($20K)
Apparently Solidworks uses a new model that if you ever drop support, and need a new version anytime in the future, you will be fined for back support for all missed years you didn't use the software! The only way around that is a whole new business name (not an option in a 200 person well established company). They can and will blacklist you for a single missed year of support, until all (even unused) back support is paid.
At least Microsoft and Adobe don't charge you for the years you don't use them.

Holy crap.  That is awful.  Wow.  No words.

[kms]

@russianswinga Oh wow, that is pretty bad. SolidWorks is not alone in this, though. Apparently, AutoDesk does the same with AutoCAD. Many companies are getting more and more creative in forcing businesses to purchase software they might not even need. For example, I was recently informed that Veeam only allows one license of their Veeam Essentials Standard for up to three hypervisors per company. If you have two sites with two virtualization servers each you need to either purchase the second Essentials Standard license under a different company name or you need to purchase the much more expensive Enterprise Standard license with features you might never ever need.

It's a good thing I don't need any of these for personal use and only have to deal with that stuff on a professional level. In general, I agree with @RWD: in most cases, OSS will be perfectly fine for personal use. There are some exceptions where the open source alternatives are either non-existent or utterly useless though, most notably Lightroom and Photoshop.

[RWD]

It's a good thing I don't need any of these for personal use and only have to deal with that stuff on a professional level. In general, I agree with @RWD: in most cases, OSS will be perfectly fine for personal use. There are some exceptions where the open source alternatives are either non-existent or utterly useless though, most notably Lightroom and Photoshop.

Lightroom and Photoshop are professional tools. I use nufraw and Gimp, though a quick search indicates a few other alternatives to Lightroom that I should look into. Having used both Gimp and Photoshop I can definitely say Gimp sucks. Photoshop is much more intuitive and powerful. But since I don't do much photo editing and certainly nothing professionally Gimp is sufficient for my needs. The Adobe products aren't a choice for me on Linux anyway.

[jinga nation]

From a psychological point of view his justification actually makes sense. He doesn't see the vehicle as something that can be purchased and paid for but a recurring cost, like rent or a subscription. His mind simply can't grasp the fact that there's actually a price to be paid associated with that vehicle. Instead, he sees it as recurring perpetual subscription model.

From this point of view it makes perfect sense - if he sees his car as a subscription then why wouldn't he swap it for a brand-new one after two years assuming the payments remain the same? He's still paying the same subscription fee each month but instead of a 2-year old car he's getting a new one.

As braindead as this may sound to a normal person with even the most basic math skills: if you take away the fact that a car is something to be purchased and not something to be subscribed to then it makes perfect sense.

I seem to remember catching a commercial where a car company was actually suggesting a car subscription service that would operate just like this. It looks nuts to me, but there are so many people who can't consider life without a car payment so the concept makes sense.

Volvo?
I've read abstracts of studies where the conclusion is that people don't know what to do with that extra $300-500 each month when the car is paid off. They can't compute to put that into emergency savings or retirement funds or even a basic savings account.
It's the subscription economy.

[jinga nation]

@russianswinga Oh wow, that is pretty bad. SolidWorks is not alone in this, though. Apparently, AutoDesk does the same with AutoCAD. Many companies are getting more and more creative in forcing businesses to purchase software they might not even need. For example, I was recently informed that Veeam only allows one license of their Veeam Essentials Standard for up to three hypervisors per company. If you have two sites with two virtualization servers each you need to either purchase the second Essentials Standard license under a different company name or you need to purchase the much more expensive Enterprise Standard license with features you might never ever need.

Which is why a lot of companies are moving their VM infrastructure to the cloud (AWS/Azure/GCP). They are tired of the constant dickeration with licensing, support contracts, etc. It really affects business budgets and hampers short-term projections. Tired of getting screwed by the hypervisor vendor, the storage vendor, the server vendor, the networking equipment vendor, the OS vendor, the database vendor, the AC vendor, the datacenter monitoring vendor, ad infinitum screwum.
Just pay for what you use in the cloud.

[Feivel2000]

Office 365

But that's a great value for your money, if you can leverage the family plan and want the online space for backups, at least :)

LibreOffice is free...

Nice how you have ignored the 1 TB of online storage for backups.
But we digress...

[TomTX]

Even small software companies are moving away from one-time perpetual licensing to a subscription model, and this trend is going to continue.

It gets worse. We have a client that had SolidWorks 2013 (fully paid for). They were under support with SolidWorks until 2013 and received new versions annually. Unfortunately, SW 2013 doesn't run on Windows 10.
We place a call to several SW dealers, all state the same thing:
- Here's your price for SW 2019 and service through the next year ($5K or so)
- Here's your backbill for support from 2013 to 2019. ($20K)
Apparently Solidworks uses a new model that if you ever drop support, and need a new version anytime in the future, you will be fined for back support for all missed years you didn't use the software! The only way around that is a whole new business name (not an option in a 200 person well established company). They can and will blacklist you for a single missed year of support, until all (even unused) back support is paid.
At least Microsoft and Adobe don't charge you for the years you don't use them.

Holy crap.  That is awful.  Wow.  No words.

Time to start spawning wholly-owned subsidiary companies (on paper, 0 employees) for the purpose of buying licenses. Bullshit can run both ways.

[Imma]

From a psychological point of view his justification actually makes sense. He doesn't see the vehicle as something that can be purchased and paid for but a recurring cost, like rent or a subscription. His mind simply can't grasp the fact that there's actually a price to be paid associated with that vehicle. Instead, he sees it as recurring perpetual subscription model.

From this point of view it makes perfect sense - if he sees his car as a subscription then why wouldn't he swap it for a brand-new one after two years assuming the payments remain the same? He's still paying the same subscription fee each month but instead of a 2-year old car he's getting a new one.

As braindead as this may sound to a normal person with even the most basic math skills: if you take away the fact that a car is something to be purchased and not something to be subscribed to then it makes perfect sense.

I seem to remember catching a commercial where a car company was actually suggesting a car subscription service that would operate just like this. It looks nuts to me, but there are so many people who can't consider life without a car payment so the concept makes sense.

In my country, there's a very popular bike subscription service. You pay €15 a month for a basic bike or €20 for a luxury bike and you get the use of a bike. The bikes are all the same. When something breaks, you call the company, they drive to your location and swap the non-working bike for the same but working bike. You can call them for anything, they even fix your bike when you're too lazy to pump up your tire. You pay a €40 fine if your bike is stolen, but they aren't stolen often because they bikes all look the same and have a very recognizable design (blue tires and the company logo on the frame).

If you add it all up, it's a very expensive way to own a bike - a bike comparable to the basic model costs about €250 new and the luxury model is probably worth €450. Secondhand these bikes will be lots cheaper (but generally not as well-maintained). For a lot of people a perpetual €15 payment feels better than investing a couple of hundred euro up front + have unpredictable costs for maintenance. Maintenance can be done very cheaply at home, but fewer people than ever have these skills + the tools and space needed, and labour costs are high.

[Hirondelle]

Do you know many Dutch people with those bikes tho Imma? From my experience it's mostly international students getting them as they're not familiar with the 2nd hand biking market here upon arrival and have 0 bike maintenance knowledge. I also have to admit I'm also surprised at the ridiculous amounts of swapfietsen in my city and that I can't get my head around people paying €15/month if you can get a decent €75 bike for your 1 year exchange that you could potentially sell after..

For exchange students or people staying for an even shorter period of time it would make sense tho. Or as a quick emergency solution if your bike gets stolen - saving €15 on bus fees can be done within the few days it takes you to buy a new bike.

[ShoulderThingThatGoesUp]

He has 2 cars on lease (a 2 year old corvette and a jacked up 4x4 truck) and lives with his parent, BUT he is 33, he should know better

Gah, every next word of that gets worse.

You’re not kidding. Wow.

[ysette9]

Wow. That is a pretty shitty thing to do. There are other CAD programs out there. I guess they are counting on the difficulty of converting to another to be a business most that allows them to treat their customers so poorly?

[Imma]

Do you know many Dutch people with those bikes tho Imma? From my experience it's mostly international students getting them as they're not familiar with the 2nd hand biking market here upon arrival and have 0 bike maintenance knowledge. I also have to admit I'm also surprised at the ridiculous amounts of swapfietsen in my city and that I can't get my head around people paying €15/month if you can get a decent €75 bike for your 1 year exchange that you could potentially sell after..

For exchange students or people staying for an even shorter period of time it would make sense tho. Or as a quick emergency solution if your bike gets stolen - saving €15 on bus fees can be done within the few days it takes you to buy a new bike.

Half of the bikes in town seem to have blue tires these days, but only a few people I know personally use one. One of my neighbours does, she says she's just too lazy for maintenance - although I'm pretty sure owning is cheaper in the long run even if you outsource all maintenance. She's not a student, she's late 20s, I'm pretty sure she has some disposable income. She just wants to avoid the (perceived) hassle of owning a bike.

[OrangeFire]

Do you know many Dutch people with those bikes tho Imma? From my experience it's mostly international students getting them as they're not familiar with the 2nd hand biking market here upon arrival and have 0 bike maintenance knowledge. I also have to admit I'm also surprised at the ridiculous amounts of swapfietsen in my city and that I can't get my head around people paying €15/month if you can get a decent €75 bike for your 1 year exchange that you could potentially sell after..

For exchange students or people staying for an even shorter period of time it would make sense tho. Or as a quick emergency solution if your bike gets stolen - saving €15 on bus fees can be done within the few days it takes you to buy a new bike.

Half of the bikes in town seem to have blue tires these days, but only a few people I know personally use one. One of my neighbours does, she says she's just too lazy for maintenance - although I'm pretty sure owning is cheaper in the long run even if you outsource all maintenance. She's not a student, she's late 20s, I'm pretty sure she has some disposable income. She just wants to avoid the (perceived) hassle of owning a bike.

Yeah, I outsource most of my maintenance (except changing tires) and I just couldn't justify paying that much a month for a bike.
Curiously enough, I don't really see them a lot myself.

[Michael in ABQ]

We have lots of plants around here with seeds that puncture bike tires. I don't have a bike but my kids do and it is quite a hassle to repair a punctured tube. Especially on the bike tire for my oldest son's 21-speed bike. The last few times it's probably taken half an hour to change, plus now the brake needs to be adjusted. I may very well take it to a bike shop next time. If I had a $15 per month option it would be tempting soley for the fact that I wouldn't need to deal with maintenance. My time is worth more than $15 an hour so avoiding even 30 minutes of maintenance would make it worthwhile.

[runbikerun]

Have you tried fitting extremely puncture-resistant tyres? The likes of Continental Gatorskins or Schwalbe Marathons aren't cheap, but they're incredibly tough. Panaracer also do one that's ridiculously tough - my wife has a pair on her bike that have had no punctures since being fitted three years ago.

[tyler2016]

Office 365

But that's a great value for your money, if you can leverage the family plan and want the online space for backups, at least :)

LibreOffice is free...

Nice how you have ignored the 1 TB of online storage for backups.
But we digress...

I would guess the most talented hackers on the planet are targeting Microsoft's cloud services. What is in the EULA about what they are doing with your backups? Are they mining the data you upload? Are the selling it to advertisers? Cloud backups are fine if you encrypt them before they leave your network with software they aren't providing the code for.

From my experience, there often isn't much difference in quality between FLOSS and proprietary software.

If you use an Apple or Android device, you use FLOSS. Even high end appliances such as F5 load balancers tend to run on Linux or FreeBSDs. F5s even hook into the Linux firewall to perform a lot of their functions. This forum is running on free software. The main blog is WordPress based, which is free software which is probably running on HTTPD or NGINX,  which are free software.

No, you don't always get what you pay for with software.

[RWD]

Office 365

But that's a great value for your money, if you can leverage the family plan and want the online space for backups, at least :)

LibreOffice is free...

Nice how you have ignored the 1 TB of online storage for backups.
But we digress...

Sure, that has some value. Maybe ~$4/month in value, assuming you're needing a lot of cloud space. If you're just storing documents then there are a lot of free options in the 10 GB +/- range. 1 TB of cloud space is major overkill for most people.

I personally wouldn't put anything of importance on the cloud.

[flipboard]

Have you tried fitting extremely puncture-resistant tyres? The likes of Continental Gatorskins or Schwalbe Marathons aren't cheap, but they're incredibly tough. Panaracer also do one that's ridiculously tough - my wife has a pair on her bike that have had no punctures since being fitted three years ago.

Schwalbe Durano is also pretty decent, that's my current tyre. Before that I had Gatorskins which survived for a long-time across various terrible places. I don't actually know which ones more durable, since I got the Durano's I moved to a place where the roads are clean and in good condition so I haven't really been taking advantage of their protection.

[JAYSLOL]

And do any of them even need a truck to do actual truck things or is it just four wheels to go from A to B?

I'm sure like everyone else with a truck the bed only gets used 1-2% of the time. I've had my small pickup truck for about 1.5-2 years and I think I've moved stuff in the bed maybe 10 times total. Only a handful of those were things that wouldn't fit in a normal car (Christmas trees, mattresses, etc.).

My husband does landscaping/maintenance type stuff at work and is required to use his own vehicle (I hate his job/boss/company) so he does use the cargo area of his Jeep daily.  We considered buying a small used fleet truck for him, but he wanted to keep what he's got.

Is he a contractor or employee? Does anyone know if that is legal if he is an employee?

He's an employee.  Gets a W-2 at the end of the year.  This is actually the least of the issues I have with them.  His supervisor has been changing his time card and not paying him for hours he worked.  We're just having a hard time proving it.

Wow, this is so wrong.  As someone who does professional landscaping, this behaviour makes my blood boil.  We lose contracts frequently to guys like this who screw over their own employees or use other unfair practices to save money.  We never allow employees to use their personal vehicle for work, not even to travel between jobsites, all work travel must be done in a company vehicle for insurance/safety/liability reasons as well as professional appearance.  I really hope this supervisor gets a big dose of karma, and I hope your DH can find something better very soon.  If you are anywhere near me have DH hit me up in the spring about a landscaping job (company vehicle included)

[Feivel2000]

Office 365

But that's a great value for your money, if you can leverage the family plan and want the online space for backups, at least :)

LibreOffice is free...

Nice how you have ignored the 1 TB of online storage for backups.
But we digress...

Sure, that has some value. Maybe ~$4/month in value, assuming you're needing a lot of cloud space. If you're just storing documents then there are a lot of free options in the 10 GB +/- range. 1 TB of cloud space is major overkill for most people.

I personally wouldn't put anything of importance on the cloud.

If you backup photos and videos, 10 GB probably won't cut it. The Golden Rule for backups is to have at least one at home and one somewhere else... If your backups burn together with your PC in that fire, you haven't won a lot. And I would trust the reliability of Microsofts Cloud Infrastructure more than I trust an external hard drive in my drawer...

And I just paid 49€ for a year of the family plan which can be shared with 5 others (who might compensate you for sharing).

If you make use of the offering and shop for deals, there is a lot of value in Office365. If you pay the normal 10€ per month and only use it to write a letter every few months, you are wasting your money.

[Martini67]

Not from work but from younger friends:

Bought a new pug puppy from "Petland" just 2 days before going out of the country on vacation. Asked us to puppy sit because said puppy was not old enough to have had all shots so could not be boarded. Which we were ok with because we like dogs (have 2). They told us the PAYMENTS on the puppy were very reasonable and there as a warranty (i.e if puppy gets sick or dies they get a new one "free"). We called "Petland" just to see what the price was for a puppy like that, $1200!!!!  Plus it is most likely from a puppy mill, unfortunately those are rampant in Texas and that place is known for selling them.

Puppy payments..... (face palm!!!)

[Just Joe]

The shelters are full of critters looking for a home. Have been surprised by a number of people who get a pet and then discard the pet b/c they only want the puppy/kitten experience or they decide 2-3 years down the road that they are tired of taking care of a animal.

[Sugaree]

The shelters are full of critters looking for a home. Have been surprised by a number of people who get a pet and then discard the pet b/c they only want the puppy/kitten experience or they decide 2-3 years down the road that they are tired of taking care of a animal.

Who TF wants the puppy experience?  The housebreaking and training and chewing and losing of teeth (I didn't even know puppies did that!) and hyperactivity.  And then the stubborn teenage years?  Forget all that.  There's a reason that puppies are cute.  The ideal dog is about 2.5 years old is housebroken and has basic manners training. 

[PrairieBeardstache]

The shelters are full of critters looking for a home. Have been surprised by a number of people who get a pet and then discard the pet b/c they only want the puppy/kitten experience or they decide 2-3 years down the road that they are tired of taking care of a animal.

Who TF wants the puppy experience?  The housebreaking and training and chewing and losing of teeth (I didn't even know puppies did that!) and hyperactivity.  And then the stubborn teenage years?  Forget all that.  There's a reason that puppies are cute.  The ideal dog is about 2.5 years old is housebroken and has basic manners training.

For the 'Gram!

I'm only semi-joking. Anecdotally I do know several people who recently got dogs (I'm jealous, I want one) none of them were prepared or ready for the insane puppy months. I've had a few dogs growing up so I remember those days well.