Dean's Life Hacks

Reducing municipal complaints

2012-03-19T05:06:00.001-07:00

If you run a municipality where people complain about some common problem a lot such as traffic, sometimes you must use creative solutions. Change your traffic pattern to something completely ridiculous that no one understands. Wait a year or two then have everyone vote to see if they want to put it back to the old way. This way everyone should be happy because at least they got to choose their bad traffic patterns.

Beating do it yourselfers

2012-03-12T04:42:00.001-07:00

Start a company as an electrician. Make sure that all the wiring you do uses proprietary colors instead of the standard colors, then attach a "business card" to the end of each set of wires. People will have to call you for repairs because they can't figure out which wires do what.

Fund raising for college

2012-02-29T05:59:00.001-08:00

When working a part time job at college sometimes you still need a couple extra bucks for tuition or food. Put a jar out at your job and label it something innocent like "under privileged children's fund" and put a cute picture of a kid on it. Then take your money at the end of the day because you are under privileged.

Profit

2012-02-14T06:55:00.001-08:00

Invent a corporate holiday. Associate all sorts of silly gifts that are tied to the holiday. Copyright the name, then sue all the major corporations for copyright infringement when they use your holiday name.

Forcing acceptance of new policies

2012-01-30T03:41:00.001-08:00

Introduce a new set of policies that will make the public generally unhappy. Continue to offer the old policy, but make sure you deliver the old policy at an unreasonably slow rate. People will get frustrated.waiting and just accept the new policies out of frustration.

This post brought to you by the TSA. Well played holding an all hands meeting for the staff in charge of opt outs this morning. What you forgot is that business travelers don't care if they miss their flights when it is the travel organizations fault.

Starting a gym

2012-01-24T06:38:00.001-08:00

Open a gym that guarantees weight loss after every session. Crank the heat up to 90. Have everyone weigh in before their workout. Require a minimum of an hour. Then have people weigh in after their workout. The water weight lost over the hour just by being in the heat will hit your guarantee. All you have to do is make sure you have scales that are accurate to tenths of pounds.

Support

2012-01-18T06:35:00.001-08:00

Design a Server product, then make simple things like clearing memory or turning on and off too complex to do through an interface. Turn them into multiple step scripts so that people have to buy your support contracts.

Guaranteed legacy support

2012-01-10T08:02:00.001-08:00

Develop an application that has a legacy support or compatibility layer. Release many versions of code that still rely on that layer (but don't tell anyone), then you never have to worry about actually upgrading anything.

Banking strategies

2012-01-03T12:53:00.000-08:00

As a bank you should set up savings account type that has a high yield interest rate. Then after a few months reduce the rate to almost nothing. Then tell your customers that if they make multiple purchases using their check card they can get an increased interest rate. Make sure that you only raise the interest rate enough that all it takes is one overdraft charge to cover their interest for multiple years. The customer will think you are helping them out while you are really making more money off of them.

Bad christmas gifts

2011-12-27T09:24:00.001-08:00

If you are going somewhere that is notorious for bad christmas gifts, be sure to fly. Then bring only a small carry on bag and inform everyone ahead of time that you won't have any space to bring things home. No more terrible christmas sweaters from grandma.

Super Soakers

2011-12-19T13:42:00.001-08:00

Buy real guns instead of super soakers. You don't have to pump (most) real guns. Plus people don't shoot back when you use a real gun.

Start up

2011-12-12T17:04:00.001-08:00

Start a company that is a non profit that people would contribute money towards. Then issue refund checks that are mailed in envelopes that look like spam. Most people will tear up or throw away their checks and you will have a nice profit to pay your employees i.e. yourself.

Sign at the dotted line

2011-12-06T06:10:00.001-08:00

Start a business that requires a release waiver. Put all the important information in really small print so that it looks like the dotted line at the bottom of the page. You can get them to sign over anything you want.

Shifting blame

2011-11-28T05:32:00.001-08:00

Tell someone you will be available for meetings to set up a project. Then on the morning of the meeting tell them you are out of the office until the day before the deadline. This way you know the project will miss the deadline and you can absolve yourself of responsibility because you were out of the office.

Software Customer

2011-11-21T13:23:00.000-08:00

Hire a company to write software for you. Then don't respond to emails, phone calls, or show up to meetings. Then when the project runs long proceed to blame them for all the shortcomings. As long as your position is high enough in your company no one will question that it is the contractor's fault.

Leaning Back

2011-11-15T15:57:00.001-08:00

Wear multiple hats (most particularly cowboy hats) stacked on top of each other when flying on an airplane. Anyone who is on a cross country or overseas flight will not want to sit behind you. This way you can lean your chair back without getting kicked constantly, prepare for a nice peaceful sleep.

Arriving early

2011-11-07T05:44:00.001-08:00

Always tell people it will take you 30 minutes longer to get somewhere than it actually takes. This way you are always early and look punctual, when you do run late you will look perfectly on time.

I don't know if all the airlines flying to st louis do this on purpose, but they are very reliably 30 minutes early.

More flight room

2011-10-31T07:39:00.001-07:00

When flying on an open seating airline like southwest, bring a bunch of items a baby would need on a flight. Things like a stuffed animal, a small blanket, etc. Place them out on the seat next to you no one will want to sit there and you can have extra space.

Running a cab company

2011-10-24T22:37:00.000-07:00

Start a cab company. When you pick up people with foreign accents automatically take them to the wrong location and then just say that you misheard them. Then deliver them to the correct location and still charge the full total.

This one brought to you in part by the shady cab system in London.

Flight hacks

2011-10-10T11:31:00.001-07:00

When flying always carry a set of earbuds even if you don't have an mp3 player. That way if you really don't want to talk to the person next to you, you can just put them in. They will either think you are listening to music or crazy enough that they shouldn't speak with you.

Credit Card Companies

2011-10-05T14:48:00.000-07:00

Create a credit card company specifically designed to appeal to traveling customers. Then lock down accounts when people leave the state or country where they reside. Have your help center designed to immediately unlock the card so that you can claim a very high percentage of successful help center calls.

Thank you very much traveling credit card. I'm glad I got you in the first place.

Fist Fights

2011-09-26T07:16:00.000-07:00

If you know you are going to get in a fight ahead of time be sure to rub habanero pepper all over your cheeks. This way even if you lose the fight, when the person who hits you rubs their eyes or touches their own facial wounds later they will experience the fiery burn of revenge.

Repentance

2011-09-19T06:35:00.000-07:00

Live your life however you want committing all of the seven sins. Be greedy and take from others, be envious of those that have more than you, etc. Then at "the end" all you have to do is repent and you will be forgiven. Maybe all those cats on wall street figured they could have it work out this way. Too bad the court system doesn't allow you to just repent.

Faking Conversation

2011-09-12T11:34:00.000-07:00

Memorize a few buzz words for all the major sports. This way when people are talking about sports you can drop a few words in here and there so that no one will question your awesomeness. The easiest way of course to do this is to actually play some sports video games. Just another excuse to play some games.

Taking advantage of the little guy

2011-09-06T07:22:00.000-07:00

Form an internet company that profits from the advertisements that other people post on their website. Then once they start to make real money close their account and take all their profits. Design the account recovery process to be extremely complex and time consuming so you can sit and make money on the interest accrued.

This post brought to you by AdSense.