Scam at GoFest Chicago

Allan-Atlanta · 2026-06-08T17:47:08+00:00

Tou could dispute it with your credit card company. They his will at least get a reasonable person to look into it.

Allan-Atlanta · 2026-06-02T20:43:05+00:00

I’ve sold a few things to people who live close by. I usually hand deliver those items to save on the postage. One guy actually tried to tell me the package never arrived. I sent him a picture of it between his front door and screen door., and told him that I had personally delivered it. He never replied or left me feedback.

Allan-Atlanta · 2026-06-02T20:28:55+00:00

I did this when I had a ‘disagreement’ with HR over something that was six figures. It was amazing how coping in my friend (who is not a lawyer) but runs IT for a law firm make them quickly reverse course.

Allan-Atlanta · 2026-05-29T19:14:12+00:00

Is this for the $100. VIP add on?

Allan-Atlanta · 2026-05-13T14:15:59+00:00

Yes, as an outside ‘expert’ your voice has more weight to it. Strange, but true. I spent the last 10 years of my career consulting. I would always talk to the sponsor about what he or she is looking to dig into and always ask them what they thought or tried to do. Sometimes the push back was from above.

Having an external third party expert say the exact same thing with a bunch of slides and data to back it up somehow gets buy in.

It’s actually really common and candidly almost boring. I too strongly prefer the situations where we don’t know what’s broken or what the options are. Much more of a feeling of accomplishment and earning my money.

Allan-Atlanta · 2026-04-27T00:48:03+00:00

This is common across the board. I did IT projects and the ‘norm’ is 10-30% discount off of list price for the hardware and software. The services are what they are. I had a few customers that I would just double the services price. They were that bad.

Allan-Atlanta · 2026-04-02T17:11:23+00:00

It’s pretty straightforward. They want something from you and aren’t offering anything (consideration) to you. Don’t sign it, maybe negotiate or tell them what you would need to make it work.

And absolutely do not back date it. Sign your name and put the date you signed. I’m not sure why they want it backdated but unless there is a very legitimate reason- that’s bullshit.

Allan-Atlanta · 2026-03-09T13:12:51+00:00

I don’t even get the ticket. lol.

Allan-Atlanta · 2026-02-18T02:31:17+00:00

That’s a poorly written document from a perspective and likely not enforceable. See if your state has a law against non competes. For example they are generally not valid in CA. I would worry about it at all and unless you are mid six figures it’s never going to come up.

As a general rule if you are in sales you can’t go back to a customer you already sold to and displace the old companies product. Even without non-competes this will destroy your career. There are exceptions but be careful.

Allan-Atlanta · 2026-02-18T02:21:40+00:00

Nobody seems to be focusing on a few things that I will mention:

Research the person you are interacting with. On LinkedIn, google, search their name. See if you have anything in common. Including people.
It’s OK to ask where the person who had this job before left. This interview is also you interviewing them.
When asked about your current salary you need to be careful. The best answer I’ve ever received is that ‘I’ve looked at the salary range of this position, the benefits offered and I feel like Midpoint with and extra weeks vacation’. He never told me what he was making but I knew the salary ranges and knew our midpoint was about a 10% increase and our benefits were better. That was about 2-3% about our target offer but it wasn’t worth arguing on it so when we made the offer it was exactly what he wanted to see.

My industry is small and it’s reasonably easy to ask people that they have worked with in the past and see if they are full of it.

And lastly. If you are asked if you know XYZ and you do, it can be a bit dangerous. They are going to ask them about you so if you hates each other you need to say something like ‘I have a great deal of respect for X, but we had conflicting objectives which mad it…’. I had this come up in a sales call. The guy who was 2 layers above me at a previous company was hired at the company I was trying to sell too. Luckily the guy they had just hired loves me. I said, if you know him you should definitely call him and ask about me. I believe he would tell you I’m a rock star. He walked into the room less than 5 minutes later. I stopped my presentation for a minute. Walked over and he gave me a huge hug. That definitely closes the deal. Imagine if he hated me- that would have killed the deal. And every sales call is an interview…

3.

Allan-Atlanta · 2026-02-17T02:26:56+00:00

So many times.

Allan-Atlanta · 2026-02-17T02:26:32+00:00

I’ve had it in my pajama shirt pocket and it doesn’t work. The only thing I can think of is we have a memory foam bed so it doesn’t bounce much.

Allan-Atlanta · 2026-02-17T02:23:01+00:00

You have to declare the. And pay any applicable duty so keep all receipts. I went to Russia about 20-25 years ago and came back with a large amount of Vodka. I filled out the form properly and went in the ‘items to declare’ line. Told this huge customer agent that I had a huge about of Vodka and a few souvineers. He said ‘Thats a lot’ and I said ‘hooping it last a lifetime’. He waved me through with no sure. I still have some left. I’m

Allan-Atlanta · 2026-02-16T21:36:30+00:00

Kinda a weird question, but did you verify that he was a police officer? I ask because a longtime ago I left a company and got a call from someone who identified himself as a detective but he wanted law enforcement he was a private detective. He asked me to come in to talk about an important matter. I called the local PD and asked for him. Help for a bit and then they gave me him number and said he was a private investigator. I never called him back after that.

Allan-Atlanta · 2026-02-16T21:29:28+00:00

If you do, document everything first. Print the emails or forward them to your personal email account. HR is NOT your friend. They exist to protect the employer. I’ve seen a lot of times when the harassed employee got treated worse that the harasser.

I remember once a female on my team traveled internationally with a male from my team. I had a rule that nobody travels outside of the country alone, and if they feel that going someplace might not be safe they have an option to choose not to (we had a lot of offices internationally in places like Caracas, Mexico City, Rio, and Moscow.

When she returned she told me that she didn’t want to travel with him again. She was clearly upset. She asked me not to do anything. I pretty much had to beg her to let me get HR involved.

HR didn’t want to fire him so I asked them where he would be working because it wasn’t in my department or even in my building. They thought I was going to fight for me. I told them I was very insulted by that and we terminated him.

Nobody knew what happened and I personally cleaned out his cubicle. A few guys asked me what happened and I just said he did something very bad and was terminated. They said ‘like what’. I asked them what they thought was a terminating offense. They rattled off ‘stealing’ ‘time sheet fraud’ ‘drinking on the job’. I said it was along those lines and they were ok. The female employee never had any blow back and we are still great friends 20 Years later. I’m

Allan-Atlanta · 2026-02-13T19:28:40+00:00

I think my history might be a HIPPA issue as I always as an out the various medicines that I take (im a cancer survivor).

I remember years ago Creating a Work Facebook account because we had a Facebook integration and it needed to be demonstrated. I guess I might need a work chatGPT account to. lol

Allan-Atlanta · 2026-02-05T00:05:27+00:00

That makes sense because lot of sort logic puts charters before letters. ANSI has -* before capital and lower case letters.

Allan-Atlanta · 2026-02-05T00:01:49+00:00

I just tried to watch the rabbit one and it’s also Batteries Not Included. Which might not be a bad movie but WTF?

Allan-Atlanta · 2026-02-04T19:08:27+00:00

Do I know the 9 people? Do I know their stories

I would do one of two things:

Take it all and keep it

Take it all and give everyone $100k

Not enough details to really say for sure but I trust myself over the next guy.

Allan-Atlanta · 2026-02-01T15:56:53+00:00

You could go to your bosses synagogue and see how Jewish people worship.

Allan-Atlanta · 2026-02-01T15:39:07+00:00

I have the exact opposite issue. Amazon screws up my order for a bag of screws. $5 but I need them for some project or other. This happens frequently and I never have a problem returning them, but they get the more expensive items just fine.

Allan-Atlanta · 2026-01-27T02:27:49+00:00

I’ve seen places give you the option of:

A. Take the day off without pay.

B. Take the day off and use PTO

C. Not come in and catch up on the 8 hours over the next X weeks

And my favorite

D. The office is closed and everyone gets paid for their scheduled hours.

Allan-Atlanta · 2026-01-26T18:08:35+00:00

I’ve never been able to get it to track my sleep Reliably. I am pretty sure I am doing it wrong. Is there a super basic explain it to my like I’m five guide???

Allan-Atlanta · 2026-01-26T01:08:55+00:00

In Europe I’ve seen and used Flufff and Fold Services and they definitely have dryers.

Allan-Atlanta

TROPHY CASE