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9/27/2021
No wedding photographs 😡
Wedding photos rank among the most prized possessions of many married
couples. Yet one photographer got a surprising reaction online after detailing
how she did the unthinkable and deleted a newlywed couple's photos from their
big day.
She had agreed to take photos for only $100 as a
favor to the bride and groom, who are—or at least were—friends of hers and had
recruited her in a bid to save money.
"I'm not really a photographer, I'm a dog
groomer," she explained. "I take lots of photos of dogs all day to put on my Facebook and Instagram, it's "my thing" if that makes sense."
On the wedding day, she drove around following the
bride from appointment to appointment before the ceremony, taking photos along
the way.
She also shot snaps throughout the ceremony,
reception and during the speeches. At around 5 p.m. food was being served and,
having been on her feet since 11 a.m., the photographer was looking forward to
a well-earned break.
Unfortunately, the bride and groom had other ideas.
"I was told I cannot stop to eat because I need to be a photographer; in
fact, they didn't save me a spot at any table," she said.
At this point, she admitted she was "getting
tired" noting that the venue was "unbelievably hot."
She told the groom she needed to take off for 20min
to get something to eat and drink. He told her she needed to either be a
photographer, or leave without pay.
That proved to be the tipping point.
"With the heat, being hungry, being generally
annoyed at the circumstances, I asked if he was sure, and he said yes, so I
deleted all the photos I took in front of him and took off saying I'm not his
photographer anymore."
In spite of the severity of her response, the
photographer found herself inundated with 17,000 upvotes and 2,200 comments,
most of them messages of support, where users were quick to condemn the
newlyweds' behavior.
One user, mon0chrom, said she had no reason to feel
bad writing: "You could have risked your health and they treated you like
s***." Tanooki07 was stunned that they expected her to "work for 8.5
hours without food, with little water and no break....How did they think this
would go?"
JuryNo7670 noted that their photographer was
treated like a "paid guest" at their wedding saying it "helped
make it a better celebration and helped with making it more fun which only
enhanced the pics."
HighPriestoftheBog said "it seems like common
sense to also feed the photographer."
"If they're going to be there all day then
they absolutely should be fed. Plus it just seems like the polite thing to
do." Greenlupin, meanwhile, inferred: "if your friend couldn't have
the manners to let you have a simple break he can live with his f*** up."
Despite widespread support for her actions, the photographer
expressed some regret at deleting the pictures.
The story is just the latest example of how, when
it comes to wedding days where emotions run high, things can and often do go
wrong, much to the delight of people on social media.
From CNN (edited)
9/18/2021
Catching up with Emma Raducanu (captions)
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Are neobanks the future of banking? (captions)
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Will Neobanks outlast the pandemic?
The company is one of a hundred-odd “neobanks” competing to shake up retail banking in
America, and which have exploded in size and number in the past year. On August
13th Chime, the country’s biggest neobank, raised $25bn—about the same as
America’s 13th largest listed bank.
As the ad suggests, most neobanks are not technically
banks. They offer debit cards and online banking services through fanzy apps.
The startups are proud of their speed: they typically deposit paycheques a few
days faster than large banks and, thanks to simpler identity checks, open
accounts in minutes, even for customers with poor credit histories.
Unlike conventional banks, which also earn money on
overdraft and other fees, neobanks make most if of their money from interchange
fees on debit-card transactions. Regulators allow small banks to charge at
least double the interchange fees that large ones do; the benefit is passed on
to the fintechs that latch on to them.
The pandemic partly explains neobanks’ success.
According to Apptopia, a data provider, the number of monthly active users of
neobank apps doubled between July 2019 and June 2021, while those of
traditional banking apps shrank a little. Top neobanks boasted nearly 20m
downloads in the first half of this year alone.
The underlying drivers of the boom, though, are
long-standing. Many customers have been poorly served by the financial system,
if not shut out altogether. The larger
neobanks aspire to help those living paycheque to paycheque; others cater to
specific underserved groups such as migrants. Social purpose aside, this makes
business sense: such customers tend to save little and spend often, which suits
the interchange-fee business, explains Max Flötotto of McKinsey, a consultancy.
Jarad Fisher of Dave, another neobank, hopes that, once in the system, customers
“graduate” to using more profitable services. To that end, his firm helps
consumers find gig work.
Optimists say traditional banks will struggle to
compete with neobanks, given the difficulty of modernising technology and
customer service, and the risk of cannibalising their fee-based business.
Banks’ shareholders may also be less keen on innovation than venture
capitalists, says Scott Galloway of New York University.
Many neobanks have realized that to achieve sustained
profitability, they have to get into lending, says Jeff Tijssen of Bain,
another consultancy. A few firms are launching credit cards and other lending
products, venturing further into the terrain of conventional banks.
However, the challengers face hurdles, too. A business
based on interchange fees is only viable if costs are contained and volumes are
high. Surveys suggest that a small fraction of bank customers regard the
fintechs as their primary bank.
Meanwhile, giants such as Google and Walmart are
starting to dabble in digital finance.
From The Economist (edited)
9/10/2021
9/05/2021
A manta ray for his 5th birthday
Holloway soon
realized she had a problem. She looked online to buy one of the stuffed sea
creatures, then checked her savings account balance.
“I saw that I
had only $2,” she said. “There was no way I could afford even the cheapest
Manta Ray that I saw for $20.”
With two
weeks to go before her son’s August 26 birthday, Holloway, a single mom from
McLoud, Okla., decided to get creative.
She took a needle and some thread, fetched her son’s old blue baby blanket and cut out a manta ray pattern she’d drawn on a cardboard box.
“I sat on the couch until 1 in the morning, poking myself with that needle until I finally finished sewing it together,” said Holloway, 33. “I took two buttons off one of my blouses and used those for eyes.”
She felt so
proud of her creation that she took to social media and posted a photo on Reddit’s
poverty/finance page, which she follows for money-saving tips.
“My son
wanted a stuffed manta ray for his 5th birthday but I didn’t have money to buy
one, so instead I converted his old baby blanket into one!” she wrote.
“I figured
I’d be lucky to hear from a couple of people,” said Holloway. “I thought I
might get teased because the button eyes aren’t on straight.”
She was
floored, she said, when she logged in the next day and saw that more than
66,000 people had liked the photo of the homemade manta ray she named Roger
after a favorite childhood doll, Roger Rabbit.
“This is so
much better and more special than a store-bought manta ray could ever be,” one
person commented.
“This was made with your own 2 hands and the
love for your son, and that will last a lifetime,” wrote another. “I really
hope you’ll be in a better spot financially soon.”
On his big day, she gave him a birthday cake made of pancakes — and her manta ray. It was his favorite of them all.
“He ran all over the house with it,” she said. “And now he insists on sleeping with every single manta ray — they’re piled everywhere on his bed.”
“I’ve never seen him so happy — I can’t thank
people enough for making him feel special,” said Holloway, who has three other
sons, ages 16, 8 and 2.
“I’ve been having a tough time financially and was feeling like a failure as a parent until this happened,” she said.
Holloway has
been on her own since her divorce two years ago and is unemployed. She
takes classes at a community college to become an Emergeny Medical Technician. About two months ago,
when her mother lost a job in Hawaii, Holloway cleaned out her savings to fly
her mother to Oklahoma.
“It took
every penny I had and that’s why I was down to $2 in savings,” Holloway said.
“I was actually thinking about dropping out of school because I didn’t think I
could pay my tuition this fall.”
People who
saw her post on Reddit have sent her more than $1,500, she said, which allowed
her to pay for her classes and put several hundred dollars in the bank. More
importantly, said Holloway, they made her son’s birthday one he won’t soon
forget.
“One man paid
for us to go to the aquarium in Oklahoma City about 20 minutes away, and
another person bought us tickets to the zoo,” she said. “In both places, Jonas
was able to see manta rays for the first time and pet them.”
Holloway said
she’s grateful for the kindness of strangers, and for the unexpected turn of
events.
“It’s not
about presents and money,” Holloway said. “It’s about love and humanity. The people
who saw my post are a lot like me — they’re not well-off. But they came forward
to lift us up and make a dream true. We’ll carry that happy feeling with us.”
Photo credit: Tiffany Holloway
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