Tell me if I'm an asshole. Just had an incident.

I'm in this coffee bar that has WIFI. I have my notebook up and running, sipping on a Hammerhead. There are these kiosks that have PC terminal where you pay a buck to use them while you buy something there. This young couple walks over to the kiosk and starts raving about how a buck is too much to check their e-mail.

Then they walk over to me and ask me to let them check their mail on my system. I refused, telling them that I dont routinely let strangers use my new notebook. The girl started fun-pleading "please, please...I wont break it". I said no. Then the dude starts getting bold with me. "C/mon man, she needs to check her mail". I pointed to the kiosk and they said "What? For a buck. No way!".

This went on for another minute of so till they walked away calling me a "Dick".

Was I a "Dick" for not letting complete strangers interrupt my work and use my new notebook, because they didnt want to cough up a buck?

Geesh!

but none of them are you. :thumbsup:

If it's an emergency, sure. I've let someone use my cell phone for an emergency.

But if it's just to check their mail? Ehhhh.

own damned laptop. I wouldn't let a complete stranger use mine either...and there was a PC available for their use and that appears to be a decent fee for its use. :hi:

Free access in most of them.

You were not the asshole.

Frankly, I wouldn't let a valuable item like that out of my hands.

If it was so damned important for Buffy to check her email, Biff would've spent a buck. You have nothing to feel bad about, except for the sad state of the manners of random assholes.

:applause: Bravo!

Courtesy toward strangers is dying and that is worthy of mourning, but not some piece of shit shaming someone for being personally protective.

I don't know why you would even think that. Sounds like the troglodytes who were rude to you are suffering from that most American of conditions--inflated entitlement mentality.

wrong.

What kind of person asks to use someone else's notebook because they're too cheap to cough up a whole dollar? (ooh, that'll break the bank!) Sounds like they were up to something fishy. Or they had no clue that not everything in the world is for their own personal use.

Nobody touches my shit, except people I know and trust to not screw it all up.

Laptops are very expensive pieces of professional equipment.

No freakin' way do I let strangers touch mine. Hell, not even my spouse has an account on mine.

They are the assholes. If they had an emergency... sure.

But just to cheese out on a buck?

Go to Radio Shack.

Holy crap, it's YOUR 'puter, and they can friggin cough up the buck.

Those so-called people were completely out of line!

You handled it perfectly, IMHO......I can't believe that they would behave like that.....

NO manners at all!

Good for you!


:loveya: :hug: :pals: :yourock:

I'd have had the same reaction.

"Sorry...I'm very busy here." Then I would ignore them.

You don't have any idea what kind of viruses she might have exposed you to by opening her e-mail. The nastiest virus I ever got was from opening an e-mail that appeared to be from a friend. It turns out that particular virus attached to a senders address list and hit everybody on the list.

You were definitely right on this.

I would of said "Here asshole, if I give you this dollar will you go away?"

No, just kidding. They suck. I wouldn't let anybody use my laptop.

I might have allowed them to check it, but it's ridiculous how they felt entitled to use it.

Put it out of your mind -- it's their issue, not yours.

Tell me your e-mail address and password, and I'll check it for you! Think they would have given it to you? You must have felt like a hemorrhoid, because you were surrounded by assholes. :)

He'd be picking his teeth up with broken fingers.

I wouldn't let anyone touch my notebook unless I knew them and also knew that they respected something I worked hard to pay for.

Life is full of jerks. And those two are double-jerks for ganging up on you like that, too.

...your credit card.
...your girlfriend.


Right. I didn't think so.

you were correct in your actions

Actually I agree with you. It's not like you deprived a starving person of food or were being nasty for the sake of being nasty..

There is a huge difference between someone asking a favour and someone demanding your own personal property.

I got lots of stuff on my computer that I don't choose to share with everybody. It's great to be nice, but there are limits. So she checks her mail - what does she say in return? If you let her use your account you are, in some part, responsible for it.

So, no, you are not a dick.

Khash.

What pricks for having the audacity to ask even though it just costs a buck.

And give them a fucking dollar.

Throw it at them, and say "Don't be so damn cheap! Giving you a buck is a lot cheaper than buying my own ass a new laptop after you break this shit!"

with strangers. You're not asshole. They are.

IMHO asking somebody to use their laptop is tantamount to asking them to borrow your toothbrush. You've probably got a lot of private stuff on there that you don't want to share with some strange asshole at a coffee shop.

You did the right thing. They were jerkoffs.

I'd have mumbled something along the lines of "Too cheap to give your girl a dollar?" to the male, but- that's just me ;)

No.

does not make you an asshole. You have healthy boundaries. These were fucking rude ass strangers. How dare they ask such a thing.

It obviously didn't occur to them that you could have stolen her identity by allowing her to check her e-mail on your notebook. What jerks. People like this really piss me off!

Several years ago, my husband was car jacked at gun point. We were driving a rental while trying to decide if we were going to purchase a new car. We were out of our area to get away and think. In a restaurant parking lot, some guy approaches us.

He goes into this song and dance about how he's locked his keys in his car and asks us if he can use our car antenna to stick into his partially opened window to retrieve his keys from his seat. We POLITELY refused, explaining that the car wasn't ours---but a rental, and we couldn't damage it by removing the antenna. We even apologized.

While we were inside eating, this human piece of shit leaves a shitty note on our rental car about how we are horrible people for not helping him--he even called us a name...oh and there were spelling errors in the nasty note. I guess I should have allowed him to damage a car that wasn't ours (he didn't believe our story apparently). It was somehow OUR fault he left his keys in his car and didn't have AAA to come bail him out. Whatfuckinever.:mad: :grr: :mad: :grr:

And excuse me, but not being able to check your e-mail is hardly a fuckin' emergency. :wtf: Their sense of entitlement--astounding, and beoming far too commonplace, sadly.

Sorry you went through that, really. :hug:

...for her double foamy frappe Columbian espresso mocha latte.


I wouldn't ever let a complete stranger into my computer. They were arrogant to demand it, rude to pressure you, and immature to insult you. You were completely in the right, and more polite about it than many would have been.

Good for you.

although I guess she has to strap hers on....

or take advantage of you in some way. If they asked to borrow a buck to use it, that would have been different. You might have kept yourself from being robbed, in a way.

I would be yanking any cables I have plugged in and backing toward the door, with a hand going for my cell phone if I had one free.

In which case... may I call you Rick? ;)

Don't worry. You're not an asshole.

However: if you cut me off in traffic.... ;)

I'd be fine with their asking, but if you are not comfortable with it then they should back off.

fuck em

I would NEVER let a stranger, or anyone else for that matter, check their e-mail on my computer. You just don't know what you might be allowing into your system. Can't be too careful, IMHO.

No telling what they might have done to your laptop. That is really rude.

otherwise just laugh. You can ask anyone for anything, but it doesn't obligate the askee to do what the asker asks.

I'll use that one next time.

And a pair? never. It would be too easy for one of them to grab you and restrain you while the other one steals it, not to mention that if there's a kiosk, they can take advantage of it.

You weren't being a dick - you were entirely reasonable. They were presumptuous and rude.

Dick and Jane were too cheap to cough up a buck. They're freaks.

It would've been a good time to use that evil-eye that all moms come equipped with.

smiled :)

I like doing out of the blue stuff like that, but also wouldn't want a stranger touchin my laptop either.

let someone use my laptop. It's like letting someone read the newspaper section you were reading.

They were very naive and rude.

The request itself was FAR out of line. The attempts at cajoling, and then snide parting comments... way out of bounds. Would guess that anyone in earshot was cheering you on.

There are a lot of good reasons not to let strangers use your computer, from identity theft to just plain dirty hands, but the number one reason is because it's computer and you decide what's done with it. You weren't the asshole. Sorry!

use their laptop. Not only did he let her check her email, he's letting me post at DU too. In a couple of minutes he'll be back with coffee and muffins for us which he's paying for.

:hide:

shortly :)

They are a bunch of low-life leeches.

On second thought, you were using wi-fi, that might have been a set up to steal your laptop!

Very appropriate response.

a couple of weeks with that title? :evilgrin:

"Hi, could we interrupt your cellphone call so my girlfriend can call her best friend? Oh yeah, we see the payphone, but no way are we coughing up 50 cents to use it when we can just interrupt and inconvenience you."

MAYBE if I were broke or there was no pay phone, and the other person's cell phone was sitting in plain sight unused, I might ask if I could use it to call the auto club or some semi-urgent matter.

Especially when access is a single greenback away. Some people's kids....

Do not ask for whom the asshole bell tolls...it tolls for them, not thee.

If these people were unwilling to pay a measly dollar, they obviously didn't need to check their e-mail that bad. They were just too cheap to pay, and preferred scamming off of somebody else instead.

for exposing assholes like these people.

If these people approached me with that attitude, they'd be faceless now.

Which raises the obvious questions, why'd you hesitate to insult these cretins and then why'd you post this rant as if there were nothing you could do? Were they that imposing and, if they were, that should raise some immediate danger signs in our culture shoudn't they?

Just because I have a cell phone doesn't mean I'm an asshole for not letting some stranger use it when they are standing next to a payphone. That is your personal property and you are under absolutely no obligation to let strangers put their grimy hands on it because they are too cheap to cough up a dollar.

Surely they can wait til they get home..or pay the lousy buck.

Rude people will never learn without correction.

...but this may be a generational issue. As I'm pushing 40, I just see that these young whippersnappers in their teens and 20s have atrocious manners and language.

No, not all. But the vast majority of them. It's as if they're not used to anyone ever telling them "no." No impulse control. No self-control. No self-respect. And certainly no respect for elders or others.

Flame away, youngsters. Prove me wrong.

Sometimes I feel that I am the only kid in my school that knows how to chew with my mouth closed, or hold the door open for people, or say thank you.

It's easier to not have kids, and so a lot of younger couples (And teens) will probably 'Opsie' and forget the condom or something like that. If that makes any sense, then this is what my thing is:
Since condoms are easier and cheaper to get, more people may misuse them. This will lead to welfare mothers and broken families. I don't mean this to be offensive, but this is my outlook on this matter. These mothers and fathers may still in all maturity levels be children themselves, so how are their kids going to learn rules? It's not the kids fault that they behave badly...

But then again, there's plenty of kids who have loving parents that act all good at home and act like complete assholes at school.

Just my just my two cents.

I'm 25, so technically a "young whippersnapper," and I've noticed a lack of decorum among many of my peers. However, there are still many of us with good manners, etc., me included.

I remember an incident several years ago when I was about to enter a restaurant. I opened the door, then noticed a woman was coming out at the same time. I held it open for her, but it took her a second to realize I was helping her out. She finally said "Oh, thank you!" and walked out.

all ages. I've lost track of the number of times I've held a door open behind me etc and not gotten a thank you. My favorite though is holding the door behind me and the person walks through not even taking the door like I'm their fucking butler or something.

Both were dressed well and had plenty of jewelery. They werent street waifs.

I'd love to see there faces!

they can use those computers for free to check their stupid mail.

I probably would have let them use it because I'm a bit of a pushover and usually do whatever it takes to avoid conflict, but I'm not proud of being that way. They were being the pushy assholes in this case.

I would NEVER presume to ask a stranger to let me use their notebook. If the e-mail was that important, $1 is a small price to pay.

You are NOT an asshole.
:)
Moni

I wouldn't let anyone I didn't know check their stuff on my computer.

didn't they understand?:shrug:

that's your shit.

they had no right to come into your personal space like that.

everything is fine and dandy until somebody starts fucking with someone else.

shit, when i was younger, i'd a probably smashed the laptop in the guy's face.

had WAS a dollar they should have have paid it even though it is a bit pricey. where we stay in the city the cyber cafe charges $3/hr, which is price & time efficient for checking in on things

You should have let them use your computer to check their mail. Then you should have gift wrapped your computer and given it to them with your compliments. Also, you should have wired their entire house for wireless internet for free.

Wow. The nerve of some peoples kids.

Paying to access the PC terminal probably cost less than whatever they were buying from the coffee shop. If the girlfriend was that desperate to check her e-mail and they were that short on cash, they should have forgone the coffee and used the money to use the PC terminal

You were in the right here. I am very cautious about allowing close friends –let alone strangers use my laptop –because I know from past experience that even people with the most harmless of intentions can innocently cause harm to a laptop just by the touch of a button. Furthermore this is your own personal property which either you or your company purchased with hard-earned money.

what jerks...I like WCROSS idea of giving them a buck...in NO way should you feel that you should be obliged to lend out such an expensive piece of equipment. Viruses, theft....anything could happen.

"I'd be happy to check your e-mail for you. What's the URL, login and password?"

let the yuppie scumbags spend a dollar and check their own e-mails. :thumbsup:

Don't feel bad. I'm paid to be an asshole--that's why I'm so nice away from work. :evilgrin: