I was an Airbnb host for about five months. I had an extra room in a nice condo and it certainly helped pay the rent.
My first guest was a young girl from Korea. She booked for one night and stayed for all of an hour. I then overheard her in the other room giggling on the phone and making plans to stay with her boyfriend for the night.
A minute later she approached me sobbing loudly saying she had to run to catch a plane back to Korea because her mom was in the hospital dying. I offered her a tissue for the crocodile tears and a polite no on the refund.
The second guest I really liked. A friendly lady with whom I shared some great conversations over a glass of wine. Unfortunately, a hitch occurred when the water was turned off for one night due to plumbing problems downstairs. I apologized and tried to make it up for it by buying her dinner.
She seemed to understand but was obviously inconvenienced. However, we continued to chat and laugh together and I thought all was well.
She thanked me as she left and said she would definitely book with me again. When it came to rating time, I gave her five stars and was horrified to discover that she had left one star for me.
I tried calling her frantically, to ask her to revise the feedback before that ridiculous 48-hour rule was up. She didn’t understand the time limit of the rating system and promised she would change it after work.
Too much time had elapsed by then but she seemed to think that Airbnb would make an exception. Nope, if it is one minute past 48 hours, obviously the host is holding her at gun point forcing her to lie.
Numerous guests came and went. Most were no bother at all, a few others quite the headache. I loved the older lady who walked in on me in the bathtub. As if that wasn’t awkward enough, instead of leaving she just oddly stood there and made small talk.
Airbnb really was a stressful way to make extra money, especially doing it alone. However, just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, the guests straight from the lowest pits of hell arrived…
My long email to Airbnb about how their system fails to protect the hosts tells it all.
Here are ten very good reasons to avoid selling on eBay but very few of us including myself can seem to resist staying away from that website.
Let’s face it they have more traffic than every other online auction site combined!
In the meantime, I am just going to do the most constructive thing you can do with a problem. Bitch about it!
1. Customer Service
Half the time spent on the phone with an eBay agent could so easily be reduced by removing one simple time-consuming factor.
Stop asking us every two minutes if we wouldn’t mind holding on another two minutes!
Doing this just added two more minutes, next time just say four minutes.
2. The Hold Music
I wish they would play Gary Glitter! I don’t know how he sounds but it has to be better than that same old tired tune.
How about some Barry Manilow, Englebert Humperdinck, Barbara Streisand …
3. The Seller Photos
This is not “New without Tags”! Would I ever say that to her face? Hell no…
Nor would I tell this lady to her face that if a bra has been squashed into the intimate sweaty crevices of your body, it is not new because you left the tag attached.
4. Shady Competition
How did somebody sell some used Tupperware for $11,000? I can’t sell new Tupperware for $11.00!
This long ongoing mystery where everyone else is selling the latest iPhone at $600 and then we have that one guy who is able to sell his at $4500 has me stumped. Was it personally signed by Steve Jobs?
And, China, how do you sell anything for an auction that starts at one penny, and then offer free shipping?
5. eBay Selfies
While Generation Z is using Instagram to show off their selfies. Generation X uses eBay as their platform.
And for those still holding their cell phone up in the bathroom, the camera has a reverse button.
I just want to know whether to expect a camera or an ugly gold dress in the mail!
6. Not as Described
Is it ever? They have photographs to look at. Do we need to write a two-page essay here?
This is every eBay seller’s worst nightmare and every eBay buyer’s favorite reason to scam.
7. The New Buyer
No, no, no!!! Not the one with 0 percent feedback who suddenly orders the most expensive item in your inventory. We already know what is going to happen, but we are forced to ship!
It was my pleasure to learn to be a better seller thanks to this buyer. I don’t mind the negative feedback or, the free product I gave him along with his money back. I understand that his terrible buyer experience nearly scared him and his multiple accounts away from eBay.
8. The Charge Backer
This the very definition of the eBay snake!
He plays a sneaky game. He will bypass eBay, leap right over Paypal and fall straight into the loving arms of his credit card company!
Mastercard will wipe away his tears and reward him with a brand new laptop and give him his money back!
9. The Best Offer Guy
No, I don’t want to sell you a $100 item for $10. Nor do I want to include free shipping in the deal on top of that!
Would you like it hand-delivered it on a silver platter along with a cocktail and caviar! I am not in this for philanthropic reasons.
Why do so many buyers think the average seller from home has a huge warehouse full of goods and can afford to sell it to them at a price where the shipping would far exceed the cost of the item! Do they try asking Nordstrom to do the same thing?
10. MC999!!!
Indefinite Suspension! Two dreaded words that have brought grown men to their knees in tears. Their whole livelihood is suddenly destroyed by some a**hole bitching over something trivial such as the fact that they actually had to pay for their item.
Circumstances are very limited in the eBay world where a seller can just say NO to a buyer without suffering severe repercussions.
So you receive the MC999. You call and say okay fine, what can I do to fix this and when will I be reinstated?
“Nothing and Never” they reply. “You have caused customer dissatisfaction and we feel another site may be more suitable for you to sell on”.
What website refers you to their “competition” when they are making good money from you!
Surely there must be something I can do, you plead. I have a 100% feedback and only two defects! “Nothing we can do the system won’t let us override it”.
“Can you possibly call your IT department then?”
Click! You are hung upon. How will you pay your rent, your bills?
Switch to Amazon or get yourself a stealth account… but that is another story.
eBay is not a place to put all of your eggs in one basket!
For me going to an AA meeting is like going to like going to church and discussing the devil while briefly mentioning God!
Miserable, dying for a drink and feeling resentful at being told that Bill W’s method is the only effective cure for alcohol abuse syndrome?
All that brainwashing and chanting cult-like mentality getting on your nerves? You are not alone !
AA has worked for many people, however every individual is different and what works for some, doesn’t work for all.
I was court-ordered to attend AA for a DUI and I was about to ask the judge if I could have jail instead!
Sitting in a room listening to a bunch of bitter dry drunks complaining about everything under the sun while constantly reliving all the awful things they did while wasted is just irritating.
Seriously, 25 years since your last beer and now you are going to spend the next 25 years talking about it!
“If it wasn’t for these meetings …” Every speaker says. We get it you are so addicted listening to yourselves talk!
Swapping one addiction for another addiction does not cure addiction!
Why not work your steps, then go focus on something else like all the things you couldn’t do when you were chained to that bottle.
Do you ever actually get to enjoy your sobriety?
To me the atmosphere of the meetings were negative, judgmental and completely non-inspiring.
So what you really are saying is that alcohol is now even a BIGGER part of your life than before.
Your life revolves around every aspect of drinking EXCEPT drinking?
Desperate to pass the time, I scan the faces in the room imagining what they are thinking.
There is the depressed fat lady comparing herself to success stories and consumed with guilt that she broke her five years of sobriety over a glass of wine she didn’t even finish!
Now she has to start all over again as if the last five years didn’t even count. 90 meetings in 90 days. Where is the deterrent to not have one more drink to at this point? You might as have a few more drinks before you sadly get up again in front of everyone to “proudly” accept your one day chip!
Then there is that poor guy that nobody clapped for. He made it all the way to the front of the table to collect his one day chip. Yes he fell flat on his ass making it back to his chair. But shouldn’t somebody be helping him up instead of whispering about him!
Finally break time and a temporary relief for my claustrophobia. My hasty attempt to escape is inevitably prevented by somebody who feels it’s their moral duty to “welcome me”.
I have always been curious as to exactly what medical school, AA members have attended? They all seemed to have earned a degree in hypocrisy and ignorance. The conversation starter ended up attracting more people in the room to circle me.
I made the mistake of reaching for a Klonopin from my purse before I had a panic attack. They tried to stop me! Had the nerve tell me I need to go cold turkey off an anxiety medication that could cause my body to have a fatal seizure! But hey, at least I would have died sober!
Sure I will suffer without a doctor prescribed medication as I open my mouth and shamelessly pop it !
I watch them step outside and disappear within thick clouds of cigarette smoke. Quite oblivious of the fact that their logic makes absolutely no sense and quite content to infect others with deadly second-hand toxins. They sound like a bunch of choking dragons as they exhale their pollutants, reach for their coffee and stuff their faces with brownies.
Silly me I think. I should listen to a bunch of codependent know it alls, drowning themselves in caffeine, destroying their livers with sugar and coating their lungs with black tar. None of those things are remotely addictive but wait they aren’t mood altering. I have never witnessed a grouchy smoker out of cigarettes freaking out because they 711 is still five minutes down the road.
Lost in thought, I missed the cue that the last speaker was about to finish up. Not good, it was essential that I timed a bathroom visit at this moment.
Tragically I was too late my inward screams fell upon deaf ears as everyone stood up to form a circle. No, no, no, please! You are going to make me hold hands with some dirty looking people who don’t look like they have had any contact with the soap dispenser after coughing buckets of phlegm in to their hands!
I have Germophobia! It’s a disability and I should be exempt from this part. Can’t they at least bring in some hand sanitizer for everyone! But darn it, that contains alcohol and somebody might drink it!
Chant, chant, chant. We can all recite the same words over and over and not listen to a damn thing we are actually saying.
Keep coming back, it works if you work it!
It does for the 14% success rate who stay sober for at least ten years.
As the Anti-Benzo Advocate makes her way over to me again, this time I do escape. I was tempted to ask her exactly who her higher power was? Satan or that rock on the ground I nearly tripped over trying to get out of the parking lot.
I would have appreciated some useful information from that hour of my life. How about they update that Big Book a little, add some other important information. Nutrition, exercise, vitamins, lessons on how not to judge others would be another valuable insight.
The Bottom Line
If you do struggle with alcohol addiction it is no joke and please get help. If AA works for you, then you should definitely use and embrace it. I know I have bashed it, but that is because it is just not for me.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.
Alcohol is a poison and probably the only reason it is legal is for some kind of government population control! An estimated 88,000 people (approximately 62,000 men and 26,000 women) die from alcohol-related causes annually, making alcohol the fourth leading preventable cause of death in the United States according to the NIH (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism).
The Sinclair Method is another option!
ttps://youtu.be/-9gMU_Lzsm4
The Sinclair method has an 80% success rate compared to AA which only has 5-10 percent!
Lucys Rules 