Offers on items for slae...WTF??

[Fergie]

I buy and sell various different items fairly often, and it always surprises me at how gruff people try to be.

When someone says "Your ??? is worth $$$, and that is what I will give you," I tend to baulk at their offer.

However, when a person begins an actual dialogue with me in regards to the price of the item being sold, I am much more open to offers, even if they are low ball offers.

What gives with folks thinking they can bully someone into selling an item? Unless the seller is desperate, all it takes is patience to wait for the right buyer.

Fergie

[TRNDRVR]

I'll give you $5.00 just to make you feel better.

[Fergie]

I'll give you $5.00 just to make you feel better.
Thanks, but someone else already has that title, and she is free...kinda...

[Root Moose]

I buy and sell various different items fairly often, and it always surprises me at how gruff people try to be.

When someone says "Your ??? is worth $$$, and that is what I will give you," I tend to baulk at their offer.

However, when a person begins an actual dialogue with me in regards to the price of the item being sold, I am much more open to offers, even if they are low ball offers.

What gives with folks thinking they can bully someone into selling an item? Unless the seller is desperate, all it takes is patience to wait for the right buyer.

Fergie

Assholes are assholes.

If I get messages for stuff I have listed online like that I don't even bother responding to the sender - it's a waste of my few seconds required to type a response. Rudeness begets rudeness.

Getting too old I guess.

[TRNDRVR]

Thanks, but someone else already has that title,Get your mind out of the gutter Gavin. and she is free...kinda...But now that you mentioned this, I think when you were growing up, your daddy left out some pertinent information on women.

[5-90]

I chalk it up to increased incivility, increased rudeness (I count the two differently...) and Wal-Mart has a hand in that somewhere (since Sam Walton died, the kids are just low-balling everything, and having it all "Made in China," which sucks.)

I'm perfectly capable of being rude, but "rudeness begets rudeness," and I'd prefer not to start out being an asshat. One can start out decent and change to being a hardass - but once you start out as a hardass, you can't really switch to being civil later. Important lesson for kids to-day (and don't get me started on the "false sense of entitlement" they all seem to have...)

5-90

[bajacalal]

5-90, I think you are right, not only are we rude but we (society as a whole) are also becoming more impatient and greedy. I also think ignorance is on the rise.

Recently, I was re-selling a brand new condition, unused product on ebay.com for about about the same price ($100) as other stores but I was including free shipping for the item and they weren't. I had all sorts of people trying to tell me that you can buy these "on the internet" for the same price and I should lower my price. WTF? I think this is the internet..

Lets face it, dealing with the general public sucks no matter how you look at it.

[truckin6382]

I know what you mean. I recently put my truck on craigslist.org and in one day I had two interested parties offering up the full asking price (I told both that the first one with cash in my hand gets it) and when I got into my house and went to delete the add I recieved an email that read "$10k you must be smoking something". THAT WAS IT! That was all they had to say. I couldn't believe it. I sold my truck in 22 hours for the full asking price.

[5-90]

I know what you mean. I recently put my truck on craigslist.org and in one day I had two interested parties offering up the full asking price (I told both that the first one with cash in my hand gets it) and when I got into my house and went to delete the add I recieved an email that read "$10k you must be smoking something". THAT WAS IT! That was all they had to say. I couldn't believe it. I sold my truck in 22 hours for the full asking price.

Brilliant. Don't these people understand that negotiation is a series of counteroffers? "You must be smoking something" is not a counteroffer...

Pity they aren't teaching anyting useful in schools anymore, isn't it?

5-90

[truckin6382]

Maybe "want something to smoke" would be a better starting offer. party1:

[DaJudge]

[quote=5-90]Pity they aren't teaching anyting useful in schools anymore, isn't it?/quote]

Blaming everything on our schools is BS. Being directly involved with the school system I can tell you that while they may have some issues, the biggest problems facing education is the lack of interest parents seem to have in their children. The teacher shouldn't have to play mommy and daddy as well as teach. Too many people have children and then realize it actually takes effort to raise them, at that instance they lose interest.

Back to this thread...It seems that more and more people are asshats..rude, selfish, and yes...Stupid!

[Rob Mayercik]

Blaming everything on our schools is BS. Being directly involved with the school system I can tell you that while they may have some issues, the biggest problems facing education is the lack of interest parents seem to have in their children. The teacher shouldn't have to play mommy and daddy as well as teach. Too many people have children and then realize it actually takes effort to raise them, at that instance they lose interest.

While I agree with you on the lack of interest on the part of parents these days, there is far more wrong with the schools than poor parenting (though I daresay that if parents gave half a rat's patootie, some of those other problems might get fixed too).

A district near my home is bringing in a new math program. Something called "Everyday Math". Apparently, this so-called math system eschews teaching kids the multiplication tables for a different approach: You can solve problem "X" in the following <n> ways (insert explanations of the options here). Pick the one you like the best and use it. Oh, and if you don't understand this, don't worry - we'll cover it again next year.

WTF!?

While as an engineer I can appreciate that there is often more than one way to solve a problem (for math, you think through the process in different ways), this is ludicrous. Teach the fundamentals first, and then get into alternative algorithms. You can't run until you walk. You can't play Coltrane until you learn the Blues.

The punchline on this math program? One of the parents looked at this, decided it made no sense, and made a call to get a second opinion (to a mathematician out at Stanford, IIRC). The mathematician's opinion? "pull the kid out and home school him/her - the district is doing irrepairable damage". The district's response? "People seem to think we pick these programs at random" Gee, I wonder why?

And then there's calculators - you should be doing it with a pencil and getting it right before you ever get to lay hands on a calculator. No kid should be using an electronic calculator until they're at least up to Trigonometry, and they should not be permissible on tests. Maybe they had it right back in the slide rule days - you had to understand the math to work the thing. (you know, one of these days I really should sit down with my dad and learn to use one of those things, just for the sheer oddness of being able to do it in the computer age)

And then there's political correctness, and the increasing leftward lean of most schools as you progress higher in grade.

And if that weren't enough, how about the fact that there are many districts (such as the one that I went through) that essentially tried to run everyone through the same mold. Anyone who wasn't average academically and interested in sports, and they didn't seem to know what to do with us.

(Darn it all, I recall a cool quote along those lines. Went something like "Any system which does not encourage excellence is doomed to mediocrity". anyone know where I can find the actual quote?)

Rob

[5-90]

[quote=5-90]Pity they aren't teaching anyting useful in schools anymore, isn't it?/quote]

Blaming everything on our schools is BS. Being directly involved with the school system I can tell you that while they may have some issues, the biggest problems facing education is the lack of interest parents seem to have in their children. The teacher shouldn't have to play mommy and daddy as well as teach. Too many people have children and then realize it actually takes effort to raise them, at that instance they lose interest.

Back to this thread...It seems that more and more people are asshats..rude, selfish, and yes...Stupid!

I took an active role in my boys' education - they went to school, and then I taught them myself afterwards.

Still, I have to wonder that (CA at least,) now wants mastery of what used to be fifth-grade maths for high school graduation. And, I wasn't blaming the teachers (a good teacher contributes to society in the most elemental and basic way possible - I've always thought that. A poor teacher should be fired outright,) but the administrators and planners. After all, this push for "bilingual" education is not a good thing - we're becoming more worried about presentation than we are about content (nicht gut!) and we're going to end up cycling out good teachers because they don't have a second language - and this "bilingual" crap is going to be the last nail in the coffin of American education, I think.

Dumbing down American education serves no-one. I haven't finished a degree yet, but I've found that my high school education (and I only graduated in 1989!) can be readily held up against nearly all two-year non-specialised degrees, and most four-year non-specialised degrees (we're talking General Education or Liberal Arts - either of which is only slightly less useless than Political "Science") on a whim.

Explain to me how a kid can take American Literature in HS, and have no idea at all who Samuel Clemens is?

Discuss.

5-90

[98XJSport]

there is far more wrong with the schools than poor parenting

Definately agree on that part. 2 events come to me, getting a lower grade on a writing paper because I didn't do it the way the teacher prefers to do it. Even though the way I did it was one of the way the $70 book I "had" to buy said to do it. And this was in college. And in High School we had to take MEA tests. Some standardized test to see how your school was doing statewide, grades 7 and 10 I think it was. I basically failed a whole section on..... writing and reading music! My school does not have a music program past 4th grade. And this is the school system we are relying on and basing kids futures off? As my sociology teacher once said, most people don't become teachers to educate and improve people. They do it because they want to change people and make them adopt thier ways of doing things. Plus summers off.

Edit: Talk about way off topic, rude buyers to screwed up school systems. Gotta love goofing off at work.

[5-90]

Definately agree on that part. 2 events come to me, getting a lower grade on a writing paper because I didn't do it the way the teacher prefers to do it. Even though the way I did it was one of the way the $70 book I "had" to buy said to do it. And this was in college. And in High School we had to take MEA tests. Some standardized test to see how your school was doing statewide, grades 7 and 10 I think it was. I basically failed a whole section on..... writing and reading music! My school does not have a music program past 4th grade. And this is the school system we are relying on and basing kids futures off? As my sociology teacher once said, most people don't become teachers to educate and improve people. They do it because they want to change people and make them adopt thier ways of doing things. Plus summers off.

Edit: Talk about way off topic, rude buyers to screwed up school systems. Gotta love goofing off at work.

That's funny - I had "Music Appreciation" foisted upon me until 10th grade or so (ditto Art - I can't play a kazoo, and my favourite "artist" is John Moses Browning. Always has been...) and I managed to consistently blow holes in the standardised tests. I probably wasted my last three and a half year in school, because by then I was able to teach myself what they wanted me to "learn," and I was consistently ahead of the system on important stuff (reading, maths, sciences, and trades.)

If it wasn't for shop classes (automotive, electronics, wood shop, metal shop, plastic shop,) I wouldn't have had anything to bother going to school for, and I'd probably have dropped out.

This was 15 years ago. Imagine what I'd be like in school now? Ugh.

5-90

[xjcrawlr]

Well to bring things back to the subject, I belive most poeple have either forgotten, or never learned one of the most vital skills a man could have.....




the art HAGGELING.

Once upon a time, this is how nearly all transactions were made. Now, we as a society, have become so used to a set price of things that most poeple have lost the art of negotiations. In fact, I think sites like Ebay have made it worse, as they instill a mind set of "I'll pay more than you will for that". That is exactly the opposite of the mind set of a good bargin hunter.
When I was young, My father would take me to the swap meet quite a bit. It was there that I first learned the proccess of offer, counter, counter, counter, ect... Deal!
Now, too damn many poeple think thier junk is worth as much as it was when it new, and they get offended when you make an offer lower than thier asking price. Example; I was looking for a new (to me) paintball marker. I found one I liked on a local board and sent an email with an offer. The jokers responce was like this..." Are you F*****G crazy! Dude paid $xxxx for this less than a year ago. Go f*** yourself." To which I responded.."That was to be my first offer of many that may have ended up very near your asking price. But your attitude has negated any future negotiations".

I'm telling you, my favorite saying now days is "Other peoples kids...."

[98XJSport]

If it wasn't for shop classes (automotive, electronics, wood shop, metal shop, plastic shop,) I wouldn't have had anything to bother going to school for, and I'd probably have dropped out.

This was 15 years ago. Imagine what I'd be like in school now? Ugh.

5-90

Thats probably why more kids drop out these days, when I was in school those were the programs they were thinning out. The real world stuff. God forbid they made you get your hands dirty.

Which kinda brings us to what xjcrawlr said, in a world of ebay and buying online, people expect to get something for dirt cheap instantly, or to sell something and getting rich quick. Hell a lot of people don't go to lawn sales and such these days, used to be a big event when I was a kid, fishing stuff for cheap, maybe a "new" knife. Plus that teaches you how to be better with your money, give a kid 5 bucks at a flea market, not to long before you learn to stretch it as long as you can, and to take care of your purchase because you earned it, and truly own it.

[DaJudge]

[quote=DaJudge]

I took an active role in my boys' education - they went to school, and then I taught them myself afterwards.

Still, I have to wonder that (CA at least,) now wants mastery of what used to be fifth-grade maths for high school graduation. And, I wasn't blaming the teachers (a good teacher contributes to society in the most elemental and basic way possible - I've always thought that. A poor teacher should be fired outright,) but the administrators and planners. After all, this push for "bilingual" education is not a good thing - we're becoming more worried about presentation than we are about content (nicht gut!) and we're going to end up cycling out good teachers because they don't have a second language - and this "bilingual" crap is going to be the last nail in the coffin of American education, I think.

Dumbing down American education serves no-one. I haven't finished a degree yet, but I've found that my high school education (and I only graduated in 1989!) can be readily held up against nearly all two-year non-specialised degrees, and most four-year non-specialised degrees (we're talking General Education or Liberal Arts - either of which is only slightly less useless than Political "Science") on a whim.

Explain to me how a kid can take American Literature in HS, and have no idea at all who Samuel Clemens is?

Discuss.

5-90

I should have been more clear with my response. Basically all of this is a reflection of our society. Almost no one takes responsibility for themselves and the politicians (they run the schools) are too scared to offend any one. I guess we agree then on the basic problem. My slant is though, unless we stop (as a society) being whiney little piss-ants the schools are going to continue to reflect that.

Glen

[5-90]

[quote=5-90]

I should have been more clear with my response. Basically all of this is a reflection of our society. Almost no one takes responsibility for themselves and the politicians (they run the schools) are too scared to offend any one. I guess we agree then on the basic problem. My slant is though, unless we stop (as a society) being whiney little piss-ants the schools are going to continue to reflect that.

Glen

Thanks - I knew I should have clarified that.

You, Sir, are erect - the problem is administration (what capacity do you participate in, anyhow? I seem to recall you're some variety of teacher, but my memory isn't what it used to be - I've been hit upside the head too many times in the last couple of years...)

However, let's also lay some at the feet of the "Human Potential Movement" (whatever name they're using this fortnight,) because it's they that push the "social promotion" agendas, and we end up passing - and eventually graduating - incompetent adolescents.

Let's get after the politicans - "No Child Left Behind" sounds good in theory, but how is it put into practise?

Don't forget the "One size fits all" approach to education - one size does not and has not "fit all" - I'm highly intelligent, but I prefer to work with my hands. I'm studying MET for a real-world approach with mechanical experience - no theoretical crap here! It took me a good 20 years to decide what to go back to school for - expecting people to know what they want to do right from the off is preposterous. And, being a tradesman and intelligent does not present a mutual exclusion problem - I've met brilliant ditch-diggers, who did the job because using their hands without the brain connected allowed the brain to think freely and they came up with some of their best ideas while working. Me? I just come from a long line of people with calloused hands - and we all enjoy it. Besides, it presents something tangible when you're done.

And last, for now, is "bilingual education." Again, a silly notion - this is America, and the lingua franca is English (actually, American English if you want to be picky. Oddities in my writing are caused by my long-term use of British English, which some have referred to as "Imperial English" as well. Bad habit I never got around to losing, and don't plan to lose. I already quit smoking, and cranked down my drinking...) If you move to a country, you are expected to pick up a basic competence (300-600 words and basic grammar) in the language of that country if you're going to get along - unless you move to the United States. Am I the only one to see the problem with that? I spoke six additional languages up until last year (recall of languages seems to be the only thing I've lost due to brain trauma - I'll take that over the alternatives...) but I only ever used English in America - the other languages were picked up during my travels. If you speak anything other than English to me here in my home country, I'll just give you a blank look (even if I did understand what you're saying,) until you switch to English or find someone who can interpret. I'm not sorry - you'd do the same thing to me if the roles were reversed. I don't think of it as "provincialism," more as "respect for country."

I'm not even going to get started on the potential major educational atrocity - OBE (Outcome Based Education.) That's a programme designed by the Left to make "Good Global Citizens" out of us all, and provide an excuse for lifetime though control (for lack of a better description) over academics. Google it if you want to know more, but I'd suggest you have your tolerace for idiocy refreshed before you do...

5-90