this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2024
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[–] [email protected] 87 points 4 months ago (17 children)

I know the more I make, more people expect me to just pay for everything because 'I make so much'.

Ive had people demand I pay for their vacation (flight and hotel)...just because.

Oh they have a car issue "Can I pay you back later?" (They never pay back)

"Im a little short for groceries, I need food!" (Proceed to buy junk food and high quality produce they never get with their money) (And again Im an ass if I ask to be paid back, cause what I expect them to STARVE!!)

Oh shit, they dont have money for rent, how many times Ive gotten this one. Just 50, 100,150,200,250...and keep slowly creeping up. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU WONT PAY IT,ILL BE HOMELESS BECAUSE OF YOU!!!

Even had my neighbor demand (not ask, demand!) I pay for their car cause theyre 3 months behind and its about to be repo'd, and itll be MY FAULT! (with them yelling at me on my porch).

I know I had to stop being nice about lending, cause everyone else never wanted to stop 'asking'. So yeah, I cant give an inch or people will just go for the full mile.

[–] [email protected] 71 points 4 months ago (4 children)

I find it to be the opposite, I make enough that I haven't checked my bank account while making a purchase in a long time.

My friends are almost offended when I offer to cover dinners and nights out. I'm not trying to show off with my buddies, I just know $400-500 isn't a lot to me and for them it's a week's pay but I really like hanging out with them.

So I try to compromise in that I'll cover dinner if they cover bowling or something like that.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 4 months ago

This is the way: equity.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 months ago (1 children)

your friends are good friends

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

That's a good point. It's the eternal struggle over who pays for dinner. If you're good friends, everyone wants to pay, the only difference is capacity.

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 4 months ago (1 children)

How the hell do these people know how much you make?

Fuck's sake, I don't make $450k but my neighbor doesn't ask me for shit because he has no idea what kind of money I make in the first place.

Either you live in the wrong neighborhood or maybe you need to keep your mouth shut? idfk lol

[–] [email protected] 28 points 4 months ago (1 children)

All my friends know how much I make, because I believe in pay transparency and all that. None of them ask me for money because they aren't assholes.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

The more I make... Well nothing changes.

We have helped friends out on various occasions to varying degrees.

Nobody demands shit from us let alone asks. Ok well, asking to donate to a school thing maybe.

Idk what kind of weirdos surround you but that sucks. Do you live in a gold plated house in the suburbs or something? Or are the matching Bentleys in the garage tipping them off? :)

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I had a Vietnamese coworker who was the first in his family to get an engineering degree as a second generation family member. They absolutely treated him like that. He was making $75k compared to his parent's combined $50k.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 months ago

They don't expect you to pay for everything. Everyone who knows people like that also knows that they'll easily get the money they need elsewhere.

It's honestly kinda sad that people like you, who seem to be generally generous and willing to help out, get driven towards this mindset.

I'm pretty sure more than half of the money I give to beggars occasionally will be spent on booze and drugs, but I don't really care. But when I do it I am the one who makes the decision to basically throw away my money. Plus if I lend someone money I consider it gone forever. But I never let someone guilt trip me into lending them money and I will aggressively call anyone out who tries. You seem to have a ton of really shitty people around you. Take care.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago

Sounds like a call to up the quality of peeps in your life?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

Sounds like your friends just suck. Where do you live? Maybe it's a culture thing?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

you are surprisingly good at typing with your dick

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

This is why you can never tell anyone if you receive an inheritance or a lotto win.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

When I have had money, I made loans to people, with the knowledge that I might not get paid back, and if I wasn't, well, generally the amounts were little enough that that one time cost of letting someone test themselves on repayment wasn't that high. If it had been a constant thing, like you seem to be having, I don't know that I could have kept that up. At the very least, I've been cutting out a lot of people over time. Sucks that you've been having to deal with that.

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 4 months ago (1 children)

For some people at least, they get into the habit of being poor and it's a hard habit to break. Just because you have a lot of money doesn't change your mindset.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Honestly I think paying for other people's stuff is the mentality of being poor. People without money help each other out because we know that our support network is other people, not our income.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

Absolutely, they can't afford to insulate themselves behind a wall of money. And recognise community will there for them even when the paycheques dry up or the rents go up.

Money is a way to get someone else to do something for you that they wouldn't normally do for you, without really having to think of their needs or real reciprocation.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Got an uncle like that, my father had to go work around where he lives for two weeks so he stayed at his place and he sent him a bill for the difference in his electric bill for that period compared to usual. The man is a retired engineer that used to own his own firm that is a major player around here...

[–] [email protected] 26 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (4 children)

I'm in an industry where pay bands are public and everyone knows who makes what.

The easiest way to find out who's a cheap fuck is to offer up and buy a round of coffee. Nine times out of ten, you'll get a coffee back next time they're swinging by. Happy days.

Even for the one in ten, it's not a deal-breaker. If my round comes round again, then yeah everyone gets offered. Nine times out of ten, you'll get one offered back.

If someone either doesn't collar me privately and say "hey thanks for the coffee but don't expect one back" or "sorry man, I don't feel comfortable doing rounds" then that's absolutely cool, I qint here to judge reasons - but if you take two coffees and offer fuck all, then that's a cheap and easy way of finding out who's not the giving kind. Even if someone was brave enough to say "dude I can't afford a round" then I'd happily say "pipe down, these are on me then".

I don't judge them. I just don't offer a coffee in future.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago (1 children)

You need to stop buying 9 or 10 rounds of coffee. That's hundreds of dollars. Buy better beans once and make 10 pots instead. Or get an espresso machine if you need to. It's super easy, and more fun.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Honestly I'd love to have some logical, economic, or entertaining argument to debate you but I don't have one - you're right.

Problem is, we need to make 24/7 coverage of this task and honestly some people are just minging - we've come in to coffee pots with mould on the surface, and as much as I'm willing to become one with nature, that ain't tickling my fancy.

We are however lucky enough to have an indie coffee shop in our local town so at least our pennies are going to a decent pocket, and in fairness the owner is a lovely bloke so I'm quite happy to plan my mortgage payments around him.

Point taken though, I appreciate it 😁

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

There's a very simple solution to this problem, but you may not like it. Tell everyone the coffee pot needs to be washed every day and put up a sheet assigning the task to people. When that person washes the pot, they sign the sheet. If you have a camera in the break room, it's even more effective.

Then you can see on the sheet who was supposed to wash the pot but didn't (or did it poorly). It will not work with people who say it's "not their job", but at least the problem is clearly visible.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 4 months ago

Your choice of friends is a continuous choice.

Thinking your friend group is an encapsulation of society as a whole is your ignorance on display.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 months ago (6 children)

Baristas are making $20/hr now? Shit, I may have to go back to slinging lattes. I was making a little over minimum when I was working at coffee shops 20 years ago.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 months ago (8 children)

In some places $20 is just over minimum wage these days. But you couldn't afford to live in those places on $20/hr.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I live in a pretty LCOL area and I feel like 20 dollars an hour is the least you have to make to rent a studio apartment and live on your own. I make about that and barely afford rent on a townhouse with 2 other people. It feels like 20 dollars an hour, nowadays, is somewhat equivalent to 8 dollars an hour, twenty years ago. Its sad, but it doesn't feel like a good wage anymore.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago

Denver has a minimum wage of $15/hr now, and you're def not living comfortably on that.

$450k is pretty far from an average salary for a software engineer, too.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago

With inflation, $20 today is $12 in 2004

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

Probably 20$/hr including tips

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago (2 children)

450k? How does that happen?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Higher tiers engineering in FAANG.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Very few software engineers earn those numbers

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

FAANG + Bay Area + L5 and up is likely to get you there.

That's a very small portion of software engineers, but under these conditions it's no longer exceptional.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago (5 children)

what exactly are they coding to get paid that much?

asking ~~for a friend~~ for me. im asking for me.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

They probably only code a little bit. They review and guide at that point. Essentially leading the team's coding efforts, ensuring the product is of quality.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (6 children)

Full stack, split discipline, niche solution architects, specialty languages (old, science), principals, founders. It's the minority

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

Likely very little, they're paid for knowledge of their codebase and higher level stuff. It's cheaper to then pay someone lower level to do the grunt work.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Yeah normal companies don't pay anything like that in Colorado (or if they do wtf am I still doing in cybersec lol). Cali, FAANG for sure.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (2 children)

It's amazing how much you can spend on small things when you don't make enough to afford rent so you don't have rent to pay.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I'm not sure what you mean by this? Are you implying they live with their parents or couch surf or something?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago

I mean, when i was broke money questions were a lot simpler because it was never "do I pick food, electricity or rent?", it was "once I pay rent, do I eat ramen in the dark or do I go to bed hungry in the dark?"

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago

A bit silly comparing hourly wage to yearly wage. The barista just needs to work 22500 hours a year to earn the same... that's not even three times the amount of hours in a year.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I sincerely hope that I never EVER become that stingy about money...

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago

Nothing wrong with keeping an eye on your spendings, but stinginess is a trait of character I absolutely despise. And I say that as someone who's had little money for most of their adult life.

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