I don't hate America, I just hate paying with ATM cards. And in my head, most retailers don't accept credit cards for amounts under $10 even though I KNOW that's not true anymore. I just have a hard time unremembering it.

I think technically their agreements with the credit card companies don't allow this. And I do wonder, now that we give credit cards for $1 purchases at the parking meter, how the city is dealing with that.

BUT, I don't think I spend more money on credit than I would with cash usually (barring the times I wouldn't have cash in my pocket!)--except for the occasional times when I want something that's $3, don't have cash, and feel ridiculous paying credit for something that small and decide to buy something else!

I try and use cash at small businesses and restaurants. I have seen it recommended that you not use a card any place where they take the card out of your sight. Too much CC fraud out there. Many times I have been given a 'cash' price, usually a minimum of no tax, sometimes more.

I have seen it recommended that you not use a card any place where they take the card out of your sight.

Isn't that 95% of sitdown restaurants? My sister won't let her card out of her sight in Jamaica, but they bring readers to the table. It's so normal to do it here, I'm not sure what the recourse is--follow your server back to the register?

Also, they have your credit card number anyway, don't they?

I have seen it recommended that you not use a card any place where they take the card out of your sight.

Isn't that 95% of sitdown restaurants?

I've seen that advice, too, and had the same reaction w/r/t restaurants. I can't think of any sitdown restaurant I've been to where they brought a card reader to the table.

Apparently there are even machines they have where they swipe the card and record the info. I'm not as well educated on this kind of crime as I could be. But they do tell us down here that restaurants are the #1 place that your card numbers are stolen. I try and go to non-chain restaurants anyway so another reason to give people cash.

I am just beating myself over the head with My Nemesis. I can't go around her, I can't get her to cooperate, and my boss thinks I'm over-reacting or expecting too much. She's the one calling me unprofessional and waving her "forty years experience" flag.

If she'd just say, "I'm too busy to do your work," I'd be much happier, because I could then go get someone else to do it. Instead she lies about what she's been doing on it, until it becomes too obvious, and then she rushes it out without proper review, while simultaneously making me look like I'm unrealistic and demanding.

And nobody who supervises her thinks there's anything wrong with this.

The crazy. It burns.

You know, in my job, I do a risk assessment that involves combining lots of observable legal/permissible behaviors into a matrix that may indicate a high risk entity. So I followed the links, and of course that's what the FBI is advising -- and it's not paying cash at a coffee shop (internet cafe seems to be the closest entity). And I couldn't find the statement that it was cash payments for small purchases. It was insisting on cash, in combination with other behaviors. Maybe the FBI is using its resources to exorcise terrorists from cash-based businesses. But I don't see it from these documents. [link]

Things I Have Learned in My Job: there is a virus whose real scientific name is BK virus. "BK" isn't an abbreviation for some long name (like, you could call norovirus just "Noro," I guess, if you were on a first-name basis with it).

It is not named for Burger King, as I feared, but because it was first isolated from a patient whose initials are BK. That's kind of cool.

But every time I read it, I think "Burger King virus!"

Has anyone tried arnica gel or cream? I tried some capsaicin, and that was more painful than the pain I was using to treat it. WAY too hot.

"Burger King virus!"

I think msbelle's had that.