My Question of the Day: When the trust has gone out of a relationship, it’s very difficult to get it back. Imagine you’ve gone to bed before your spouse/significant other, and you wake up in the middle of the night to find that his/her side of the bed hasn’t been disturbed. You get up, walk into the hallway outside your bedroom and see a bright light coming from the family room. As you walk toward the light, you see your mate sitting with his/her back to you, huddled over his/her laptop and typing away. When you get close enough to see what’s on the computer screen, you see that your mate is in an x-rated chat room on one half of the screen and there’s a pornographic video showing on the other half of the screen. How do you feel about this, and/or what do you do?

My 2 Cents: I sometimes forget that when I ask these questions I have to answer them myself.

I’m still trying to decide how I would handle this.

I want to believe that I would turn around and go back to bed since I’ve ascertained that my mate is not injured or in danger. If he is so engrossed in what he’s doing that he doesn’t hear me coming up from behind, then that is not the time to address the issue. It’s going to be way too emotional for both of us.

The next morning, I would like to think I’d say something like, “I woke up and you weren’t in the bed. What was up?” Hopefully, he’d be open and honest about what he was doing the night before. Hopefully, we have the kind of love and respect in our relationship that he knows that honesty is more important to me than anything.

Whether he’s honest or whether he’s secretive, I’m still trying to decide where to go from there. Hm. I’m thinking, I’m thinking.

We don’t have to have all the answers right this moment, but it’s good to be able to think about stuff like this, so we can be better prepared if/when it happens.

Sometimes the answer is, “I don’t know,” and that’s OK, but at least you have time to figure it out.

I’m not just saying that as a cope-out, y’all. I’m just hoping that you all understand that thinking about what you’d do/how you’d feel can be as important as knowing exactly what you’d do/how you’d feel.

Being prepared starts with a plan. Plans start with a thought process. I’m just saying.

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Take a few moments to check out the tweets from Twitter on this subject:

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JoshDamage lol I’d be upset but I wouldn’t make a big deal out of it however I certainly express my unhappiness

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The commentary doesn’t have to end!

Please feel free to continue to add your comments below.

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3. Please keep your comments respectful. We can agree to disagree without attacking each other.

My Question of the Day: Some of us work in environments where there is a lot of down time. Would you say that during the down time it is appropriate to browse the web, check your phone, read and/or work on your own activities instead of just sitting/standing around, or should you look for other work-related things to do, even if they’re not in your job description, so you will be using company time for company business?

(this question was submitted by @fulaanah; thanks!)

My 2 Cents: I always make it a point to ask about this upfront, especially if I see I’m going to be working a job where there’s going to be a lot of down time.

I want to know from the beginning what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable before I even take the position.

If there’s going to be a lot of down time and the company doesn’t have anything for me to do, other than what I’m responsible for, and they forbid me to do anything else besides sit/stand around, that’s not a job I’m going to take.

If there’s going to be down time, and the company asks that I try to find other things to do that aren’t in my job description, and once I’ve done that they’re okay with me doing my own thing, I’m more likely to take this position.

I have to be honest and tell you that I would be very, very reluctant to take a job where I wasn’t able to do my own thing, at least a bit, once all my responsibilities are met. I’m a hustler, and I’m used to having my irons in more than one fire (yes, I know it’s have more than one iron in the fire, but I said what I mean ), so having some down time to do my own thing is almost imperative for me. That’s just me, though.

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Take a few moments to check out the tweets from Twitter on this subject:

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JoshDamage as long as you aren’t violating any company rules I’d say it’s Ok to surf, tweet, text etc.

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The commentary doesn’t have to end!

Please feel free to continue to add your comments below.

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RULES FOR COMMENTS

1. DO NOT include links in your post. There is a place for you to include one link when you’re filling out the Name/Email/Website information. Comments that include links will be deleted.

2. If your post is obviously irrelevant to the question at hand, it will be deleted. This is a tactic spammers use to simply show up on blogs.

3. Please keep your comments respectful. We can agree to disagree without attacking each other.

My Question of the Day: It seems like the day after the warranty on our mid-to-high-dollar-value items expire, we begin to have problems with our now not-so-new purchases. Knowing that this does indeed happen sometimes, do you make it a habit to buy the extended warranties for your mid-to-high-dollar-value items when they are available?

My 2 Cents: I always, always, always get the extended warranty, and I’ve used my extended warranties a good portion of the time to warrant this, especially with my notebook computers. Right before the warranty expires on my computer, I take it in for routine maintenance. Every extended warranty I’ve ever purchased for a notebook comes with that service, even though folks don’t know this. In the routine maintenance check, if something is found to be wrong, they’ll fix the issue and my notebook will keep working for at least a year or two after the extended warranty has expired.

Years ago, I bought a treadmill and hemmed-and-hawed about buying the extended warranty. I finally decided to do so, and about six months after I started using it, the rolling mechanism in the front of the treadmill that makes the belt go around and around went bad. The guy who came out to my home to repair the treadmill showed me the cost of the part he brought with him to replace that mechanism. That part alone was three times the cost of what I paid for my extended warranty.

Having said all that, I’ve actually never purchased an extended warranty on a car. Hm. That might happen the next time I buy a car.

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The commentary doesn’t have to end!

Please feel free to continue to add your comments below.

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RULES FOR COMMENTS

1. DO NOT include links in your post. There is a place for you to include one link when you’re filling out the Name/Email/Website information. Comments that include links will be deleted.

2. If your post is obviously irrelevant to the question at hand, it will be deleted. This is a tactic spammers use to simply show up on blogs.

3. Please keep your comments respectful. We can agree to disagree without attacking each other.

My Question of the Day: A night out with friends is usually a good time had by all involved. Imagine you and several friends decide to go out to a restaurant. You all are talking and laughing and having an awesome time. Everyone orders their food, and all your friends drink, but you don’t. They each order one or two alcoholic beverages, which runs up the bill considerably. Even though you’ve ordered one soda and a Caesar’s salad, you’ve enjoyed your time with your friends tremendously. When the bill comes, someone suggests that you all split the bill evenly between everyone at the table. Several other people agree. What do you do?

My 2 Cents: I love my friends, and I enjoy having a good time with them, but I’m not paying for anyone’s alcohol, and anyone who knows me, and considers themselves my good friend, knows this is the case. They can all split the big bill between them, but I’m paying for my soda (it would probably be water since I don’t drink soda ) and salad and leaving the waiter/waitress a generous tip, if s/he has given us excellent service.

In the past, I’ve actually had others just pay my portion because it was such a small part of the tab, and I leave what I was going to use to pay my tab as a tip for the waiter/waitress.

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The commentary doesn’t have to end!

Please feel free to continue to add your comments below.

———-

RULES FOR COMMENTS

1. DO NOT include links in your post. There is a place for you to include one link when you’re filling out the Name/Email/Website information. Comments that include links will be deleted.

2. If your post is obviously irrelevant to the question at hand, it will be deleted. This is a tactic spammers use to simply show up on blogs.

3. Please keep your comments respectful. We can agree to disagree without attacking each other.