How to protect yourself from getting screwed when helping others.

L

lixluke

Refined Reinvention
Valued Senior Member
Have you ever helped others, and got screwed in the end?

How do you handle helping others while not getting screwed.

Should we not help others?


I witnessed somebody get into a car accident during a shoot out.
A little later, some people stopped by to help the damaged car on the side of the road.
The shooters robbed the vehicle of those people that were trying to help.

Even Jesus got lynched.


I bring this up alot because this is the worst case scenario in current times:
Michael Jackson allowed a family to visit and spend some time in his home because they told him their son had cancer, and needed his help.

Michael Jackson has helped thousands of people in the same way.

Now his life is a nightmare because of it. They are now maliciously trying to get money out of him, and screwing his career and good name in the process.


When you put yourself out there to help others, make sure that you are protected.
Especially when you have alot at stake. That's why many businesses are so fearful of lawsuits. Anybody can easily exagerate and make a claim against them. The business can end up losing everything.

It is so easy to see somebody in need of help, and to let the person into your home, and provide them with some assistance. To you it might seem all good and fine. You are helping somebody, and a having guest could be fun.
Unfortunately, because of the nature of the world we live in, this type of situation can turn in to hell for you.
 
Now his life is a nightmare because of it. They are now maliciously trying to get money out of him, and screwing his career and good name in the process.
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I think it was Jackson that did the screwing.

It is hard to help people. People that say they want to change the world should try to help just one person, and see how hard it is, how sometimes you have to sacrifice your own goals to help them.
 
Helping people is like falling in love. Sometimes you'll get hurt no matter how well you protect yourself. But it would be a much worse life to be the kind of person who never falls in love -- or never helps people.

I was surprised at the punch line of your help anecdote. I thought it was going to end up being a con job. That is so common.

All you can do is be savvy, recognize the most common cons (I mean does anybody anywhere actually respond to those e-mails from the President of Nigeria???), develop some people skills so your instincts warn you when to be wary... and then trust your luck. Helping people feels so good that I quickly get over the occasional bad feeling of being screwed.
 
My friend "knows" a lot about computers. he came over one day and just stared changing evrything on my computer. he installed a firewall. then he changed the size of the fund. then he tried to clean up my computer. then when the computer got stuck he pulled the cord, and when i tried to turn on the computer everything erased. i had to call a real computer doctor to reinstall all new programs. he didn't even say sorry.
 
Marta666 said:
My friend "knows" a lot about computers. he came over one day and just stared changing evrything on my computer. he installed a firewall. then he changed the size of the fund. then he tried to clean up my computer. then when the computer got stuck he pulled the cord, and when i tried to turn on the computer everything erased. i had to call a real computer doctor to reinstall all new programs. he didn't even say sorry.
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My home computer is password protected. Nobody lives there with me except my wife. She was a bit surprised but we tend to use "family" passwords so she guessed it on the first try and realized that it's not her I'm protecting it from. I don't want exactly what happened to you to happen to me. I also don't want the cable guy or some friend to wander over and look at our financial and other personal records.

My personal computer is protected better than my computer at the office. The company can recover from someone else screwing up my data or my settings, and if it's bad enough they can just fire him. It wouldn't be so easy to deal with at home.
 
cool skill said:
Have you ever helped others, and got screwed in the end?

How do you handle helping others while not getting screwed.

Should we not help others?
/.../

When you put yourself out there to help others, make sure that you are protected.
Especially when you have alot at stake. That's why many businesses are so fearful of lawsuits. Anybody can easily exagerate and make a claim against them. The business can end up losing everything.

It is so easy to see somebody in need of help, and to let the person into your home, and provide them with some assistance. To you it might seem all good and fine. You are helping somebody, and a having guest could be fun.
Unfortunately, because of the nature of the world we live in, this type of situation can turn in to hell for you.
Click to expand...

People are blinded by their own sympathy for others!

The same as one should not just trust anyone who says "Trust me!", one should also not just help anyone who says "Help me!"

Really, it is tragic the way some people behave just to "help others" -- they are so afraid to say no, so afraid to *first* see what is going on and *then* act.


* * *

Marta666 said:
My friend "knows" a lot about computers. he came over one day and just stared changing evrything on my computer. he installed a firewall. then he changed the size of the fund. then he tried to clean up my computer. then when the computer got stuck he pulled the cord, and when i tried to turn on the computer everything erased. i had to call a real computer doctor to reinstall all new programs. he didn't even say sorry.
Click to expand...

Why did you let him?! I mean, you did not *ask* him to fix your computer in any way, he *forced* his "help" on you.
One doesn't have to accept something just because it was offered.
 
spidergoat said:
It is hard to help people. People that say they want to change the world should try to help just one person, and see how hard it is, how sometimes you have to sacrifice your own goals to help them.
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Have done it. It is not hard. Those are the real problems I have faced while helping others:

1. Do people want to be helped?
2. How many times can you get screwed while helping (your limits)?
3. How can you manage to fulfill your most basic needs while trying to help others at the same time?


In any case.... a selfless act....
 
Fraggle Rocker said:
Helping people is like falling in love. Sometimes you'll get hurt no matter how well you protect yourself. But it would be a much worse life to be the kind of person who never falls in love -- or never helps people.
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That's a great comment... :cool:

cool skill said:
How do you handle helping others while not getting screwed.
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Answer that question and I will kiss ya! :p

Have you ever helped others, and got screwed in the end?
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Almost daily....

I bring this up alot because this is the worst case scenario in current times:
Michael Jackson allowed a family to visit and spend some time in his home because they told him their son had cancer, and needed his help.

Michael Jackson has helped thousands of people in the same way.

Now his life is a nightmare because of it. They are now maliciously trying to get money out of him, and screwing his career and good name in the process.
Click to expand...
Don't use this example. It is not necessarily true....

It is so easy to see somebody in need of help, and to let the person into your home, and provide them with some assistance. To you it might seem all good and fine. You are helping somebody, and a having guest could be fun.
Click to expand...
Yes. And it got much worse in the past century. It didn't use to be as bad as it is today. That's simply because we live in a very competitive scarcity-based society...
 
Frankly, for me the worst pain I ever get from trying to help people is that it doesn't work. Some people refuse to be helped or at least to be helped by you, others screw it up, others don't exactly do anything but no matter how hard you try they seem to be immune to helping.

One of the saddest lessons in life is that sometimes you simply don't get to help the people you want to.
 
I just have a hard time deciding what constitutes "help".
 
Doesn't giving somebody a jump when their car battery is drained constitute help?
What's so difficult?
 
There should only be a handfull of people you help, and they should be well trusted.
Why are you surprised by strangers screwing eachother over? Are you aware of the natural behavioural traits of the homo-sapien?

You're helping your natural enemies.
A wolf won't take a slab of meat over the neighbouring wolf pack, they'll fuck him up whether he's trying to help or not. They have no allegiance to him, he is their competition, opponent, enemy.
 
Cool Skill said:

Doesn't giving somebody a jump when their car battery is drained constitute help?
What's so difficult?
Click to expand...

Well, there's that.

But slightly more complex is my first impression of the the topic, upon seeing the title. I thought of Samaritan laws and the like. You know, someone gets hurt, you administer first aid, they die anyway, their family sues you. It's happened, but I don't think it's common.

And then beyond that, how does one help a person in more complex ways? I sometimes refer to a certain decade as the "Interventionist 80s", in which television advertisements abounded for various drug-related issues. Shock therapy for cigarettes; a comprehensive, life-changing regimen for alcoholism or cocaine; "medical" therapy to end marijuana "addiction". In the present, I'm split between how much of a social life my parenting partner "deserves" and when to put my foot down and call it alcoholism.

Or, as a parent, the question isn't whether or not I f@ck up my child, but how badly.

As a teenager, dealing with a suicidal friend, did I do more harm than good?

Depending on what's on the line, I don't see how it's so simple.

• • •​

When I was in second grade, my family took a trip to Los Angeles, Disneyland, &c. Actually, it was a business convention in Anaheim, but we made a vacation out of it, anyway. While my father was talking business with someone, my brother and I were hanging out by the car. Across the parking lot was a church. The Reverend happened to be coming by as I was bemoaning the early demise of a cheap, plastic dart gun. The good preacher took me inside to his office where he replaced the rubber band with a tighter one, applied some model glue to the plastic frame, and then bound the thing carefully with Scotch tape in order to give the glue time to set, and told me to give it a few hours before testing it again. In the meantime, it was good enough for pointing and yelling, "Bang!"

The old man never said a word about God and Jesus. Or about street violence; after all, the gangs were already rising. Rather, he simply fixed the toy, and sent a child along his way to have fun.

• • •​

In my teen years, through college and beyond, something as simple as pushing a car out of an intersection became disdainful. A girlfriend complained that it was dangerous. Family complained that we were late. My friends just wanted to go wherever we were going in order to get drunk. And then one day, at about 27, I came in from smoking a cigarette, chuckling to a friend. "What's up?" my brother asked. "A car broke down in the street," I told him. He frowned. "Did you help him push it out of the street?" I shook my head. He looked the question at me, and in a flat tone I had heard more than I cared to think about, I said, "Why?"

It was a valid point in that corner of the Universe, in which compassion was hippie granola bullshit, charity was socialism and an insult to pride, and personal convenience was elevated with a "What's wrong with you?" attitude aimed at dissenters.

My brother didn't say anything. He just shrugged and got up, and we all went out into the street to help the guy move the car.

A couple weeks later, a single, homeless mother showed up on our doorstep hawking magazine subscriptions in exchange for shelter. On this particular occasion, I was simply broke. My brother, who had on a previous occasion, advised against funding these people, simply took out his wallet and passed her some cash.

In all those years there were no real lectures. Plenty of incoherent, frustrated outbursts, but he knew exactly what drove my cynicism in that moment, and faced with it, he chose not to bitch but simply do, and now that we're done with that chapter, that little part of life is a lot more clear.

It's almost like people bear blind expectations and are suddenly horrified when brought face-to-face. It's not like anyone in that circle ever set out to be cruel; style simply usurped humanity for a period, and when it came to question, the answer was quite clear. That we were in our late twenties when the issue finally came to a head suggests loudly that it's not nearly so simple.

Remember, giving a man a fish only makes him lazy. Teaching a man to fish, well, that can be made into a profitable opportunity.

Or so says a curious vein of conventional wisdom that also, like you or I, Cool Skill, wonders what's so difficult about perceiving what it sees.
 
cool skill said:
How do you handle helping others while not getting screwed.
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Just help anonymously. Then don’t otherwise help unless the risk is low or when helping them is the obvious thing to do despite the risk.
 
Are you saying that you really care weather your help encourages a person's behavior?
It might be easier to just give somebody a fish than to teach him how to fish.
I guess it depends on the person. For me, I would rather somebody give me a fish or fix my car. But when it comes to fixing my computer or making music beats, I would rather have somebody teach me how to do it than do it for me.
 
Unfortunately, it is true that it is necessary to be wary of giving help and expressing sympathy. I read an article once about a family that took in a homeless man, only to have him kill their daughter while they slept.

Do you have any specifics about how to avoid being exploited while trying to be helpful?
 
Dr Lou Natic said:
There should only be a handfull of people you help, and they should be well trusted.
Why are you surprised by strangers screwing eachother over? Are you aware of the natural behavioural traits of the homo-sapien?

You're helping your natural enemies.
A wolf won't take a slab of meat over the neighbouring wolf pack, they'll fuck him up whether he's trying to help or not. They have no allegiance to him, he is their competition, opponent, enemy.
Click to expand...



A wolf has no choice over his behaviour. Hopefully humans do.
 
This thread is another "woe is me thread". We all get screwed. It sucks even more when we're trying to help somebody. Cool Skill, this thread seems to be oddly similar of the "Rip Off Thread"

http://sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=42949

I'm not trying to cause a stir. I just think that as many good things happen to us as bad things. We have been helped anh have helped others. It evens out in the end.
 
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