SC's that put luxury ahead of priorities

[Hon'ya-chan]

One of my friends works as a mechanic, and he's shocked at the services he's done to cars.

He's seen pimped out SUV's with the bling-bling rims, DVD players, amped up Stereo systems, and guess who's the owner of said cars?

Some woman that thinks she's Paris Hilton, yet her kids look like Joe Dirt.

[Jadedcarguy]

*I* can't afford half the crap they order and I get a 25% employee discount from that company. ( Which I have yet to use but is very nice to have. )

You need it.

Pink camo is in your future.

[Gravekeeper]

Gotta love welfare.

I can always tell when its Welfare Weds here because we get a ton of calls all weds night on the 867 abused order line. They always order $500-800 worth of really nice cloths, sunglasses, etc.

*I* can't afford half the crap they order and I get a 25% employee discount from that company. ( Which I have yet to use but is very nice to have. )

[CancelMyService]

The cable company must offer some kind of discount or free digital cable to low income people/people on welfare. My ex roomate's gf was below poverty level when he first met her....and she had digital cable and plenty of beer in the fridge.

My ex neighbors.....the children probably had one bath every 2 weeks, all you could smell was marijuana and BO seeping from the windows, and yet there were speakers bumping rap music that rattled my walls and the crackwhore elephant always had cigarettes. Not only that, but I could hear her TV, sometimes we'd both be watching the same channel, so SHE had digital cable as well.

Ex roomate wanted to cancel digital cable because it was starting to cost almost $120 a month for all the channels and internet...............I kept the cable in my name and struggled each month to keep that ONE luxury.......nowadays I cannot afford it at ALL and just settle for the free cable my landlords provide....

And you're telling me people on welfare get digital cable and satellite? Uh uh. It'd be one thing to deprive them of tv and local channels, which are free. It's another to give them a LUXURY that most working class people struggle to afford or flat out CANNOT afford for free or damn near it!

Believe me, there's no discounts to low income people. Hell, there's no military/senior/good customer discounts either. People call in and bitch to the cable company because things are too expensive, and if you suggest maybe they pare some of their channels it's like asking them which leg they want to cut off.

To be fair, I was poor to the point where I was living off eBay for 6 months (back when such a thing was possible) and I still managed to pay my cable and internet bill, but I was also was sharing the bills so I could somewhat excuse it. Most people I talk to have no sense of priority and consider TV to be essential like electric and water. It bothers me to see all people who are not well off get lumped in as lazy freeloaders just because some people are assholes who know how to work the system.

It might not be what corporate wants, but when someone calls in saying their bills are too high (and they're usually past due which underscores what their saying is true) the first thing I tell them is you can save money by getting rid of premium movie channels. You can get standard cable + digital box with all kinds of free movies for about $50 a month without promotions. If that's still out of your budget, you really need to rethink the whole cable thing.

[cinema guy]

The problem with anonymous calls is that once someone fromthe authorities come out, the neighbour can probably guess who it was reported them. He/she can may then make life hell for the reporting person and it will potentially take months for the authorities to sort it all out.

[K'Z'K]

We once had to board a dog for a few days while he was recovering from carbon monoxide poisoning and the house was being cleared. He and his owner were overcome by the fumes of a leaky generator, and both lost consciousness and were lucky to survive (they're actually both fine). The reason for the generator was that the family's electricity had been shut off, presumably for non-payment. Yet the wife had perfectly styled hair, a fancy manicure, and a designer handbag a coworker who knows these things said was real. They were actually perfectly nice people, but the priorities...

-K'Z'K

[Hopefull7]

IF you are in the USA (not sure about abroad) you can call CPS and be anomous. In cases like these people really should report these conditons. You may be the only one who can help these kids.

[blas]

The cable company must offer some kind of discount or free digital cable to low income people/people on welfare. My ex roomate's gf was below poverty level when he first met her....and she had digital cable and plenty of beer in the fridge.

My ex neighbors.....the children probably had one bath every 2 weeks, all you could smell was marijuana and BO seeping from the windows, and yet there were speakers bumping rap music that rattled my walls and the crackwhore elephant always had cigarettes. Not only that, but I could hear her TV, sometimes we'd both be watching the same channel, so SHE had digital cable as well.

Ex roomate wanted to cancel digital cable because it was starting to cost almost $120 a month for all the channels and internet...............I kept the cable in my name and struggled each month to keep that ONE luxury.......nowadays I cannot afford it at ALL and just settle for the free cable my landlords provide....

And you're telling me people on welfare get digital cable and satellite? Uh uh. It'd be one thing to deprive them of tv and local channels, which are free. It's another to give them a LUXURY that most working class people struggle to afford or flat out CANNOT afford for free or damn near it!

[wagegoth]

I reported a family one night who lived next to me, and I was shaking so hard I could barely hold the phone, but I was more scared by what I heard coming from next door (paper thin walls) and I knew I couldn't live with myself if I didn't call. My husband traveled a lot for his job, which meant I was alone for weeks at a time, but I had a 100+ pound dog (Briard), and the crying of the children was killing me.

The cops came. They must have taken the whole group into custody, because I never saw any of them again.

But the casual abuse and neglect of children eats at me. I worked in an elementary school at one time and I was crying myself to sleep at night, grinding my teeth away from tension headaches. I could never go back.

When I say, "Global birth control," I'm not joking.

[Jadedcarguy]

An old boyfriend used to work for Nielsen, the tv rating company. His job was to sign people up to be Nielsen raters, and go and install the equipment in their homes and the stories he would tell! His territory was some of the poorest, most rundown areas in the state, and he had many of the same experiences…he’d go in to install the equipment, and some of these places were just filthy, roaches, clutter, etc., obviously none of these people had a pot to piss in, yet they’d have 3 or 4 tvs, vcrs (back before DVD), etc. one in every room, and sometimes more tvs than people actually living there!

Is that why TV mostly sucks anymore?

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I've had them in the store scrounging their coins together for a pack of cigarettes and then tell their kids they don't have enough to get them a treat.

Treat, nothing. I dated a guy in high school who had four brothers, the youngest of which showed signs of malnutrition. I understand breakfast in that house usually consisted of hot chocolate mix and water. The family had one car between them that was so beat up the doors were held on with bent coat hangers.

There were always several cases of cigs in the kitchen, though, because the Dad was a heavy smoker. Young boy is underweight, sickly, and hollow cheeked, but by damn the old man didn't have to do without his smokes.

[Sliceanddice]

personally i would report it no matter what, and if they retaliate well... hell most likely its illegal.
and arent there silent witness lines where oyu live?

[draftermatt]

See and that's the problem. People (and companies) too scared to say something for fear of retaliation, so the kids suffer.

[SuperB]

I've had them in the store scrounging their coins together for a pack of cigarettes and then tell their kids they don't have enough to get them a treat.

People like this piss me off more than anything and flame away if you want but they're the reason I'm a conservative republican. I'm sick of working my arse off for what I need only to watch the government hand it over to someone who sit's on theirs all day and then come in and ask if we take food stamps for beer.

[greensinestro]

What's your company's stance on reporting conditions in your clients' homes to social services? (Or is it not quite that bad?)

I mean, if someone wants to live in their own filth, that's one thing. But I'm concerned about their toddlers crawling around in soiled diapers on filthy floors.

I don't really think my company has a stance. If we reported things like this, the customer is most likely to retaliate, and would most likely also know the identity of who reported them to child services. I had a next door neighbor who had a nasty apartment, had cockroaches up the ying yang (which eventually made their way to mine), and their child was always in need of a bath. Yet, the parents always had money to smoke and drink right outside my door each night, plus they had satelite TV, a luxury I could not afford, and I was single then! I thought it would have been the right thing to report this couple, but I was always afraid of them finding out it was me, and they could exact revenge. They knew which car was mine in the parking lot, and the wife had a bad temper much of the time.