Who Am I?

I am an avid runner and have been running since I was 15 years old. I began running low to medium distances while on my high school track team, running the 800 meter and 1600 meter races (I was a sub 5 miler and a 2 minute 800 runner). In addition to the track team, I also joined the cross country team. After high school I still wanted to run and decided to start doing road races. I have probably ran a couple hundred 5k races (16.29 PR)along with many 10k's as well. In 2009 I decided to step up my game and try to tackle my first marathon. I will be honest; the only reason I did this was because my father ran a few and I wanted to show him that I could do what he did. I trained poorly for my first one and regret it. If you are going to run a race, train like you want to win. I still continue to run marathons and other distances as well, and every race is a chance for me to better myself.
I started this blog to hopefully communicate with other runners and to shed any knowledge I may have about the sport that can help other runners. I believe running is the best sport and can be a great stress reliever. I encourage all runners to spread the word of our sport and show people why running is so good and why the community of runners has such great people. You can follow me on twitter @byrne1324 or find me on facebook- Shaun Byrne

Friday, June 12, 2015

Lie, Cheat, and Scam!!!

Call me naïve, or call me just plain stupid but I am the type of person that likes to give people the benefit of the doubt. Recently though I have really started to see just how much people love to lie, cheat and try to scam situations. Example, I do sales for a rental company, most of the equipment is heavy duty and requires you to have a certificate of liability insurance in order to rent the bigger equipment. One problem we recently ran into is most businesses have this certificate and it is hard for us to prove who is a legit contractor and who is just saying they work for that business with the certificate. Anyway last week 2 gentleman came in with their certificate and wanted to rent a certain lift from us. Now this lift hardly ever goes out and can only be used in certain buildings because of how it works. First thing I ask is do they have insurance, they then show the proper paper work, next I ask if one of them is a general contractor or an electrician (they were changing lights out that is why I asked that). The one gentleman said he was and knew how to work the machine. We then set up a date for the equipment to be delivered. Since my job doesn’t always require things to be delivered, the other salesman and I will take turns delivering the big equipment. As we dropped off the lift one of the gentleman told us to just drop it off and they will set it up. Since this piece of equipment is so sophisticated and one thing done wrong will stop it from working, I insisted that me and my co-worker set it up and go over everything. When we left I felt confident that they would get the work done and everything would run smoothly. WRONG!!! The next day one of the guys shows up and says the machine only worked for 2 lights and they were forced to use ladders to finish the job. I told him I would come pick up the machine and go over it once I was there. We couldn’t run the machine when we picked it up because of where it was placed so we had to wait till we returned to our office. All the customer was worried about was his refund, he kept asking am I going to refund him. That is hard to answer when you don’t know what is wrong with the machine. After going over the machine we learned a piece was broken off and that one piece would in fact shut the whole machine down, only problem was it was working when I left it, so now how do I say this is your fault when truthfully I don’t know if it was? I then called the man who said he was the electrician and after talking to him learned that they used the machine for more than half the lights, not 2 like the other gentleman said. At this point I am in a tough situation, I already know one of them was telling a lie and I still have no clue if the machine just broke or did they break it. After talking a bit we decided we would split the cost.

The point of that story was obviously one of the men was telling a lie in order to get a full refund and if it wasn’t for the other guy he probably would of got away with it. I just don’t understand why people feel to try to scam the system. Same goes with sports, why do teams and individuals feel the need to cheat? New England Patriots, Lance Armstrong, and a number of runners have been caught cheating. Is this what our society has become, win at all cost? What ever happened to the integrity of the sport, where the best man wins? You want to be the best then you train harder, you out work the competition. Almost every day you can turn on the news and see someone suing a company for something so stupid, the coffee cup didn’t say hot, or there wasn’t a label that said do not drink the detergent. Are you fucking kidding me, this is what we do now? Scam the system in order to make our pockets fatter. I will be the first to admit it I am not rich, most of the time we live paycheck to paycheck, but we pay our bills and we are able to live comfortably. Would I like more money, hell ya I would, hell who wouldn’t? I am not willing to lie or scam the system in order to get more money though. Call me old school but I still believe in working hard for my money. You will not see this guy taking advantage of a company or lying to move up the corporate ladder. I don’t know if I believe in karma, but if there is such a thing god do I hope these type of people get it.

Is it just me or do think more and more people are abusing the system and trying to scam over on people?

2 comments:

  1. I HATE scammers. At work, to purchase a pass to our community swimming pool you need to show proof of residency of our municipality in order to qualify for the resident rate. You would not believe how people try to beat the system so they don't have to pay the non resident rate. It's insane.

    You are so right about karma - it will bite you in the ass EVERY time.

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    1. I use to live in a township that had the same type of thing with a pool and I know exactly what you are talking about. I would stand in line and laugh at the shit people would say just to save a few dollars.

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