IBGerm

NEW YORK – It is a common fear among users of Facebook and other social media around the world — how to deal with a friend request from your boss or employee.

A survey released on Thursday found that 56 percent of Americans say it is irresponsible to be friends with a boss and 62 percent say it is wrong to be friends with an employee.But 76 percent believe it is acceptable to be friends with a workplace peer, according to the survey of 1,000 people by Liberty Mutual’s Responsibility Project. "When the roles change what do you do then? Do you unfriend someone if they have now been promoted to be your boss or if you’re now their boss," said researcher Kelly Holland.

"We get into some really sticky situations there in terms of what people will think is responsible," she said.

When using social media at work, 73 percent say it is not appropriate to update your Facebook status, 82 percent say you should not upload photos, 72 percent believe tweeting is wrong and 79 percent say it is not acceptable to watch online videos.

Yet 66 percent say it is fine to check your personal email while at work.

"When people focus on responsibility, they know what the responsible thing is to do but whether they are doing that in practice or not is a different story," said Holland.

Americans are split on whether companies should review the social media profiles of job candidates with 52 percent saying it is appropriate and 48 percent saying it is unacceptable.

Social media can also lead to some difficult decisions when it comes to family and relationships. Sixty percent of those polled say that it is "completely acceptable" to unfriend an ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend.

More than 40 percent of parents believe it is irresponsible to post photos of children online. Thirty one percent monitor their children’s Facebook accounts and almost 70 percent are friends with their children on Facebook or MySpace. But 72 percent limit the time their children spend on social media networks.

More than 80 percent of parents say that teachers should not interact with students online, but they are split when it comes to whether social media should be used as evidence to punish students’ behavior.

"The social media arena is incredibly complex in terms of responsibility," Holland said.

But despite the murkiness of social media responsibility, there is one area that nearly three-quarters of Americans agree on — they think it is "egotistical and a waste of time" to develop a Facebook page for a pet.

Pennsylvania: College students John Wagner and Leslie Pope have been arrested and charged with theft after they declined to pay a mandatory gratuity to the Lehigh Pub after they were given poor service.

The pair had to go to the bar for drink refills, get their own cutlery and napk ins, and wait an hour for the pub to serve their wings and salad. The menu states that an 18 percent gratuity is mandatory for parties over six.

"You can’t give us terrible, terrible service and expect a tip," said Pope, who conceded in answer to a media question that if it happened again he’s "probably gonna pay the tip anyway."

That city deal to take on Google’s free email services as a cost-cutting measure will actually cost the taxpayers $1.5 million more next year than if City Hall would have stayed with its old email system.

In what seems like bizarre math, Google competitor Novell points out that the cost of training employees and migrating the city’s thousands of workers to Gmail will cost an additional $1.5 mil. Indeed, the city is actually paying out $.7.2 million as part of a deal with Computer Sciences Corp. to help employees migrate to the Google services. It’s apparently more than the cost of maintaining its old email system.
Novell, which was bidding to take of city email services, is mad: "With the City facing a massive budget deficit, the speculated budget benefits of switching to th is untested application are enticing, but as a recent independent Los Angeles City Administrative Officer report has stated, the proposed system under consideration will actually cost taxpayers an additional $1.5 million in the first year. There are significant costs to migrating, training and securing Google Apps."

The question is, who needs to be trained how to use Gm ail? The city can probably save money on the Google service in the long run after its employees have been "trained," but still, it seems strange that, at a time when the city faces $100 million budget shortfall and possible future deficits that could be higher, we’re paying an extra $1.5 million to use free email.

"Two teenage girls (aged 10 and 12) found themselves trapped/lost in a storm water drain in Adelaide, South Australia. The interesting point of this article that makes it Blog worthy, is that although the teenage girls had mobile phones, instead of calling for help using 000 (Australia’s 911 number), they decided to notify people through Facebook. My guess is it was something along the lines of ‘Jane Doe is like totally trapped in a storm water drain, really need help, OMG!’. Luckily a young friend of the girls was online at the time and was able to call the proper authorities."

I think this is a true reflection on society today!

Points to be made-

Ages 10 and 12 are not typically teenagers but..you must be at least 13 to have a Facebook account. They have Facebook accounts. So they must be 13, and hence teenagers, even if they’re only 10 and 12.

Everyone knows that if you need to call for rescue, you use twitter.

"HELP ME! I am stuck and in real trouble and hurt real bad! I think my leg is broken, and I am losing a lot of blood. You can find me at" http://locme.

Maybe they didn’t have a signal strange enough for a call, but a text could get out (I hope this is the correct one).

TAMPA, Florida —  A Florida man born without arms says a Tampa bank would not let him cash a check because he couldn’t provide a thumbprint.

It was supposed to be a quick stop at the Bank of America.

"I said, ‘I’m going to run over downtown on my break, cash the check and bring the cash back.’ No big deal," Steve Valdez said. "It turned out to be a very big deal."

Valdez said he was cashing a check from his wife, who has an account at Bank of America. But the teller told Valdez she needed a thumbprint in order to cash it — it was company policy.

It’s not that Valdez didn’t want to provide it. He couldn’t provide it, and  the teller even acknowledged it.

"’It’s obvious that you can’t give us a thumbprint.’ She goes, ‘Let me go check with my supervisor,’" Valdez recalled the teller told him.

Valdez was born without arms and wears prosthetic devices. While at the bank, Valdez said he provided two photo IDs. And still that wasn’t enough. The bank supervisor offered him two options.

"One is, you can bring your wife with you. And the other one, you can open up an account with us. And I said, no, I don’t think so," Valdez added.

Valdez said he reminded bank officials the American for Disabilities Act would have a problem with their unfair treatment, but that didn’t seem to bother them.

"You do realize this is in violation of federal law and really you haven’t heard the end of it," Valdez said. "And she goes, ‘Whatever.’"

They never let Valdez cash his check, but he said days later he received a phone call from a bank regional manager with an apology.

Bank of America spokeswoman Nicole Nastacie says the bank should have "offered alternative requirements if an individual is not able to give a thumbprint."

Valdez had a message for them too:

"They need to alter their policies and procedures, or have alternate plans should something conflict with that."

 

You would think with all the money that the government gave out, they might be a little nicer.

source: Fox news

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The electrical smell that caused a Southwest Airlines Co flight to make an unexpected landing Sunday was caused by a coffee maker in the back of the aircraft, a company spokesman said on Monday.

The coffee maker was in the back galley of the Boeing 737 plane. The aircraft was examined and put back into service by 12:30 p.m. EDT (1630 GMT) Sunday, said Southwest spokesman Chris Mainz.

"Anything that might have touched the burner might have caused the electrical smell," Mainz said. He added that the problem was "fairly unusual," although it was not the first time it has happened.

Flight 693 bound for Orlando, Florida, departed from Bradley International Airport in Connecticut at 7:21 a.m. EDT Sunday. The plane, which held 131 passengers and 5 crew members, landed at Long Island Islip MacArthur Airport shortly before 8 a.m.

At halftime of Sunday’s 2-2 tie with AC Milan, Beckham walked toward the "L.A. Riot Squad" section of the stadium and motioned to a fan to come closer. The man jumped down from the seats and was arrested by police for trespassing.

Afterward, Beckham said he’d wanted to shake the fan’s hand. "One of the guys was saying things that really wasn’t very nice," he said after the game, according to the Los Angeles Times. "It was stepping over the line. I said, ‘You need to calm down and come shake my hand,’ and he jumped over." But fans in the section, who booed Beckham every time he touched the ball and displayed banners reading "Go Home Fraud" and "23: Repent," told the Times that Beckham was not blameless in the altercation and used foul language. "He called the guy out," said Eric Lewis of Los Angeles, a member of the fan group, according to the report. "He called out a drunk fan. How stupid is that? He’s the player. He’s the professional. He should have kept himself under control. He didn’t."

Another Riot Squad member, Jeff Austin of Highland Park, said in an e-mail to the Times that Beckham’s actions were "way out of line for a professional athlete," according to the report. "Anything that he says putting the blame entirely on the fan is nothing short of a complete lie," he added. Riot Squad member Bob Ramsey, a theology professor and minister from Glendora, said he talked to fans who were closest to where the fan jumped the wall. "I haven’t talked to everybody, but no one remembers hearing anything beyond ‘scum,’ ‘traitor,’ those kinds of things. Nothing about his family," Ramsey said. Ramsey said he thought what triggered Beckham’s reaction was a fan abusing a Beckham jersey, according to the report. "We were giving him the business as soon as he came out for warmups," Ramsey said, according to the Times. "His first reaction was to give us a thumbs-up and I thought, ‘OK, he’s going to play along with it and just realize that we’re going to kind of give him a hard time here and he’s going to have to play through it.’ "I honestly think if he had done that everything would have been fine. At halftime, he seemed to see something when he was running off the field and he came over and was challenging the guys in the front of our section," he said, according to the report.

Monday, Galaxy coach and GM Bruce Arena said the team regretted the incident.

Now, if that doesn’t get your goat and want to send hate to the Beckham camp, we find out…

He told the Rossoneri’s website he’ll return to Serie A at the end of the MLS season but Milan vice-president Adriano Galliani has insisted the club won’t be buying him. "I hope to return to play for Milan," Beckham said. "They have remained in my heart and honestly I am confident I will greet them again in November.

"Leonardo wants me in Rossonero immediately? It’s really pleasing to see that I have left good memories.”This has led to speculation he is looking for a move away, with Tottenham and Chelsea also credited with interest in him. But Milan say the financial implications are too great.

"There’s no possibility for him to come sooner,” Galliani said. "David knows that the doors of Milanello are always open for him, his lawyers also know that. I hope he returns in January, but before then he won’t because that’s when the market reopens even though he finishes there at the end of November. "There are insurmountable financial obstacles. The most likely hypothesis is that Beckham plays for us from January until the end of the season and then returns to America without all the fuss that happened last March. Before January there’s no possibility.’ "I saw him on TV playing very well. Not to repeat the same things always but I remember how he was described a year ago. Now everyone realizes that he is a great player.”

Beckham has said he wants to return to Europe, and preferably Milan, for another loan stint to make sure he has a chance of an England squad place for next year’s World Cup in South Africa if they qualify.

Credit: The Associated Press.