Champagne dreams, lemonade pockets

As a teenager, winning prizes in a raffle is super cool. You get to buy all those things your parents won't give you or the clothes and jewelry they can't afford. But what if your parents need the money more than you do? What then? Well, I guess it really depends on the situation. And this particular situation feels really unfair considering adults need to own up to their actions and face the consequences. One teenager won $1000 in a town raffle, which she was really excited about. Her biologic…

If you ever find yourself talking to someone who is not from the US about college, they are always shocked by how much college students have to pay for tuition. Some countries in Europe have actual free universities , and here in good ol' America, people carry their student loans for literal decades. That is why when we hear of stories in which colleges and universities take even more money from their students, without an actual valid reason, it simply makes us see red. For example, can someone…

Hotel front desk workers are responsible for many things, but fixing poor customer decisions is not one of them. One hotel worker at a popular beach destination knows that all too well in the aftermath of an incident with one customer that really stood out. Taking a summer trip to the beach can be an amazing way to relax and unwind for a few days. You can start each morning with a hotel breakfast, then spend your days with your toes in the sand while the kids build sandcastles. After spending t…

Have you ever, in your whole life, had a friend charge you money to eat at their house ? I really haven't, with the exception being takeout food. If you order takeout with your friend group, someone's going to have to send out those Venmo requests for that pad thai. But that's different than inviting your friends over for an off-the-cuff dinner, and then insisting they need to pay for it the next day . It's not always cheap to host a party: all those ingredients, beverages, and decorations can…

Finding a good roommate is like searching for a needle in a haystack… it's difficult, to say the least. Even if things are good for a while, they almost always end up going south. People don't know how to communicate, let alone clean, and they can owe you money they never intend to return. So if you're living with someone you can stand, count yourself lucky. This housemate (OP) uploaded a few screenshots of a bizarre conversation he had with his roommate, who was livid after finding out he was…

One has to wonder if this entitled choosing beggar felt like this odyssey was worth it in the end. This Redditor was selling tires that were originally sold at $2K for $1K on Marketplace when he started to get a barrage of messages from our story's choosing beggar demanding to have the tires for $250. At first, the original poster (OP) rejected the offer and blocked the guy because it seemed like he wouldn't quit. Well, he didn't. Instead, he messaged OP from a second and third account and refu…

These siblings were trying not to argue in front of the kids, but they just can't agree on who needs to repay who . Children will get into everything that they can. They don't always understand the concept of valuable items. They have no problem throwing food on the floor, breaking plates or vases, or keying your car, just to name a few examples. Their brains simply aren't developed enough to know why some things are more important to grown-ups than others. That's why it's usually the responsib…

There will be those who want you to fail and those who want you to succeed. However, regardless of who is around you, you should constantly strive to be the best version of yourself. The story below tells the tale of a resentful construction worker. Despite all the challenges, the Original Poster (OP) started his own construction company. To put things in perspective, during his undergraduate years, OP looked for a part-time job that could help him balance his academics and become somewhat fina…

A quick message to any employer who might be reading this–if you want to make your employees feel appreciated, rewarding them by making them work more is never the right answer. Never. Don't even try to think about it. Instead, try and reward them with the only thing that is actually considered a reward for any working adult… money (shocking, I know). Simply give them a nice bonus or holiday treat or whatever you want to call it, because trust me when I say that the only way your hardworking em…

Each and every action has consequences. Because of this, you should think twice before intentionally betraying someone else because you never know when or how it can come back to haunt you. The story that follows is the account of a petty client. The story is relayed by the Original Poster (OP), who provides readers with a detailed explanation of his motivations for starting the years-long payback plan. To put things in perspective, OP hired a contractor a few years ago in order to finish some…

Every young adult who has a job these days, in this economy, has realized how impossible it is to keep up with inflation. No matter how many graphs have been published showing how much the cost of living has risen in the past 20 years, compared to the average monthly pay, the gap just keeps on growing. So when an employee asks for a raise in their pay, after being a top performer and doing an exceptional job, raising their salary to keep up with inflation, doesn't actually count as a raise. It…

What can you buy these days with $14? You can get a drink with a friend at happy hour, you can see a matinee at the movie theatre, or you could maybe–just maybe–order a pizza. These days, 14 dollars isn't going very far, but for the intern at a law firm in our next story, her deluded boss seemed to think that $14 was just enough for an hour's labor.

Be very very careful with anonymous surveys… you never really know if they're actually anonymous or not! In some workplaces, HR will send around anonymous surveys every now and then. They can address mundane topics, like asking if people want more employee events, and trying to take the temperature on morale. Other times these surveys are directly asking how leadership is doing, and those feel risky to answer. Even if the results come through a third-party service, it can't be that hard to figu…

Some employers have an incredibly hard time grasping the idea that their actions have consequences, even when it concerns their trusty employees. As an employer, you might think you can put your employees through basically anything without them doing anything about it, but thankfully, that is often not the case. Much like the story of this employee on Reddit. The employee, OP (original poster), had been working incredibly hard to get his company to achieve all its targets and succeed in its fie…

It's spring cleaning season, which means it's time to dig through the treasures deep in your bedroom that haven't seen the light of day since your high school years. With the New Year's Eve glasses from the turn of the millennium on your face, you peep through the center 0's of ‘2000’ and shuffle through yearbooks, old costumes, and miscellaneous junk that you once thought held value. While most of it is probably overdue to be tossed in the trash, sometimes you can find some hidden treasures...