Recovery Reader The October 2019
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FROM THE DESK OF Dan Larson
As a variance of Trick-or-Treat, let’s play: TRUTH OR DELUSION
1. There are no up-front costs in the collection process whenworkingwith Bridge FirmRecovery. (Truth) We work on contingency which means we only get paid if we get you paid. We also front all court costs and attorney fees when we recommend legal action on an account. 2. I didn’t get a money judgement so I can’t send it to collections. (Delusion) We review options and often obtain judgments for unpaid rents and damages.1212 3. A balance under $500 is not worth sending to a collection agency. (Delusion) Many of our clients find it successful to turn over balances as low as $100. misleading information, so there is no reason for me to run Background Checks. (Delusion) Actually 36% of applicants give false or misleading information. Is who you are hiring or renting to trustworthy? Did they lie on their application? 5. It’s worth it to obtain a Money Judgment on a Landlord Eviction. (Truth) A Money Judgement allows you real recovery options after eviction for rent and damages. Our Process Servers focus on obtaining personal service to assist in securing the money judgment. Our focus is on Background Screening, Money Recovery, and Service of Process — Let us bring you Treats, and provide solutions to those Tricks. 4. Only 10% of applicants provide false or
5 MONSTERS DESTROYING YOUR COMPANY CULTURE How to Dodge the Business Boogeymen This Halloween When Halloween rolls around, it’s easy to become so preoccupied with the monsters stalking the sidewalks and TV screens that you forget about the everyday boogeymen plaguing your office year-round. While the pillagers of workplace culture don’t wear fake fur, excessive makeup, or rubber masks, they can be just as terrifying as their fictional counterparts. Here’s a list of monsters to watch for, just in time for collecting candy.
BOREDOM: THE MUMMY
Though it often creeps up quietly, few monsters are more damaging to workplace culture than the boredom mummy. If excessive routine has made your office yawn-inducing or has mummified your employees at their desks, a crisis is likely nearby. One CNN article postulated that boredom is “the new stress,” and bored employees are more likely to be unhappy and seek new positions, even if they’re still effective. To keep boredom levels in check, try to automate repetitive tasks, offer new challenges, and encourage communication.
GOSSIP: THE WEREWOLF
Gossip is like a werewolf. It doesn’t show up every day, but, when it does, it wreaks havoc. Rumors quickly destroy morale, erode relationships, and ramp up workplace tension. Worse, they can cause even the most dedicated employees to quit due to what’s often labeled as a “toxic” office culture. Inc. Magazine claims that zero-tolerance policies, regular meetings to air
- Dan Larson
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Cover story, continued ...
expectations well. To keep your managers from causing shrieks and scurries every time they pop in on their charges, ensure they maintain good, consistent relationships with staff and spend regular hours in the office. That way, employees will be more likely to run to them rather than from them.
grievances, and one-on-one discussions with loose-lipped personnel are good strategies to keep the werewolf in check.
OVERWORK: THE VAMPIRE
While some employees can handle packed schedules and extra work, overloading your entire team or office can be as ambition-sucking as the
MISGUIDED INITIATIVES: FRANKENSTEIN’S MONSTER
thirstiest vampire. Too many tasks can throw off your team’s work-life balance, keeping your employees up all night and inviting angst, sleepiness, and inefficiency. To stake the vampire, encourage your employees to share concerns about their workloads, embrace flextime, and set a good example by keeping reasonable hours yourself.
Like the scientist Victor Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s tale, it’s all too common for businesses to begin projects with the best of intentions, only to create monsters instead of successes. A project that stems from a good idea but lacks realism or follow-through can turn into a money pit for your company and a time-suck for your employees, rearing its ugly head again and again like Frankenstein’s Monster — and perhaps even bringing your company down. Try preventing the monster’s rise by investigating all eventualities and assigning specific roles to team members before you put the final stitch in a new initiative.
ABSENTEE MANAGEMENT: THE GHOST
An absentee manager can terrorize an office just as effectively as an unhappy ghost. If a manager is there one minute and gone the next, their presence can cause stress for employees, who won’t know them or their
Insulted and a little afraid, Purtell’s neighbors called the police to have the headstones removed. After a couple of visits, Officer Bruce Mason arrived and threatened to arrest Purtell if he didn’t take the tombstones down. Purtell obliged, but the matter wasn’t put to rest. THE VERDICT Purtell sued Officer Mason on the grounds of violating his rights to free speech, and the case made it all the way to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Sykes ruled that the tombstones did not constitute fighting words and were protected under the First Amendment. However, she also ruled that Officer Mason was entitled to qualified immunity, as any reasonable officer would act the same under the circumstances. The bigger question might be how this case made it all the way to the U.S. Court of Appeals. As Judge Sykes wrote in her opinion, “Lawsuits like this one cast the legal profession in a bad light and contribute to the impression that Americans are an overlawyered and excessively litigious people.” HALLOWEENDECORATIONS OR FIGHTINGWORDS? A Grave Legal Matter
We’ve all played a harmless trick or two, but sometimes, Halloween shenanigans get out of hand. They can lead to hurt feelings, outraged neighbors, and, in the case of Purtell v. Mason, a lawsuit. In the days leading up to Halloween, all was not quiet in the village of Bloomingdale. Previously parked in a storage unit, Jeff and Vicki Purtell’s 38-foot RV was now parked in front of their house. In protest, neighbors petitioned to town officials, wanting an ordinance put in place to prohibit RV parking on residential property. While the ordinance was under consideration, Jeff Purtell took matters into his own hands. He erected six wooden tombstones in his front yard. They seemed to be innocuous Halloween decorations, but these tombstones displayed a special message for the neighbors. Each headstone was inscribed with a sarcastic message and house number, implying the occupants’ death dates. These messages soon caught the neighbors’ attention.
“Bette wasn’t ready, but here she lies, ever since that night she died. Twelve feet deep in this trench, still wasn’t deep enough for that stench! 1690.”
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CHANGING (AND SAVING) FACE: How FaceApp’s Privacy Policy Is Aging
only use your data as much as necessary to provide their varied services and are under strict confidentiality agreements. HOW YOUR DATA IS STORED Your data is transferred and stored in locations across the world where FaceApp and their affiliates or service providers maintain locations. FaceApp and all related companies adhere to the data protection laws of the countries where the data is transferred to, not necessarily where the data originates from. However, many first-world countries have data protection laws that are heavily enforced and keep your information safe. FaceApp may be relatively safe in terms of data collection, but you should still always be wary when using any phone app, regardless of its origin. When it comes to social media, skepticism and careful browsing is always a good idea. Be sure to research the privacy policy for any social media app you want to use before downloading it.
Log file information is collected when the content of an app is downloaded to your device. Log files record data like your IP address, browser type, number of clicks on an app, exit pages, and other pieces of information. Data identifiers uniquely identify your device. These will tell FaceApp what you do while in the app. These are used primarily to determine how consumers use the app and to provide personalized ads. USE OF INFORMATION FaceApp will utilize the information for internal uses such as app updates, bug issues, demographics, and traffic patterns. However, this does not grant the FaceApp developers the right to rent or sell your information to any company outside of FaceApp, which may not be the case for other social media platforms. WHO ELSE HAS ACCESS FaceApp does share your information with “affiliate” companies and service providers. Affiliate companies will use your data to improve their own products. Service providers
Ever since its inception in January 2017, the phone application FaceApp has given users a glimpse into how they would look as the opposite sex, howmany wrinkles they’ll have when they’re 80, and how chubby their baby cheeks might have been when they were young. It’s a technological phenomenon, but recently, the app has come under fire, not for its face- swapping action but rather its privacy policy. FaceApp’s privacy policy loosely states that any person using FaceApp will “grant the application a license to use, reproduce, modify, and display user content, all without compensation to the user.” At first glance, the policy seems scary, but before you delete the app from all your devices, take a look at the type of data FaceApp will collect and what that means for you as a user. INFORMATION COLLECTED There is a plethora of information the app collects when you use it, and the most popular method used to collect that data utilizes cookies. Cookies find trends in aggregated data, like web pages visited and items looked up on search engines.
Take a Break!
LEFTOVER CANDY SNACK MIX
Inspired by Food & Wine Magazine
This recipe fromMomofuku Milk Bar chef and “Master Chef” judge Christina Tosi makes great use of those extra Halloween goodies. It’s a quick and easy way to both elevate and get rid of unwanted leftovers.
Ingredients
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6 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
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2 cups mini pretzels, coarsely broken
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12 oz mini candy bars, such as Snickers, chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
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1/4 cup light brown sugar
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2 tbsp granulated sugar
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1/3 cup dry milk powder
Directions: 1. Heat oven to 275 F. 2. In a large mixing bowl, fold together pretzels, sugars, milk powder, and butter. 3. Spread mixture on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for 20 minutes. 4. Let cool for at least 30 minutes and mix in candy bar pieces before serving.
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INSIDE THIS ISSUE From the Desk of Dan PAGE 1 5 Monsters Destroying Your Company Culture PAGE 1 Grave Matters of the Law PAGE 2 How FaceApp’s Privacy Policy Is Changing PAGE 3 Take a Break PAGE 3 Leftover Candy Snack Mix PAGE 3 The Meaning of Dia de los Muertos PAGE 4
DIA DE LOS MUERTOS
A Celebration of Life
FULL OF LIFE Though the name might lead you to believe differently, Dia de los Muertos is a joyous time. If you visit Mexico during the holiday, the air is filled with music, and the streets are full of dancing and color. Instead of a sorrowful mourning of the dead, it is a vibrant, joyous celebration of life. Intricate altar displays, called ofrendas, honor the spirits of relatives who’ve passed. Families fill them with photographs and the relatives’ favorite food and drinks. It’s believed that during Dia de los Muertos, the boundary between the living and the dead is lifted, and for one night only, spirits come back to visit and enjoy what their families have set out for them. Today, the multiday celebration takes place throughout Central and North America. As tiny Batmans and Skywalkers add the final adjustments to their costumes, other families clean their homes and prepare to honor the spirits of their loved ones. And in today’s beautiful blend of cultures, many families celebrate both holidays.
Despite the common misconception, Dia de los Muertos is not an offshoot of Halloween. While the two holidays often happen simultaneously, Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is a Mexican holiday that originated with the indigenous people of Central America, including the Aztec and Mayan civilizations. Each year, they gathered and gave offerings to their dead. When the Spaniards came to Mexico, they fused the indigenous celebrations with their traditions of All Saints’ Day (Nov. 1) and All Souls’ Day (Nov. 2). ANCIENT BEGINNINGS Ancient Mesoamerican civilizations viewed death as a beginning rather than an end. This was likely tied to agricultural practices and the seasons, with crops dying in the winter and being reborn in the spring. Dia de los Muertos evolved from those roots and is now observed throughout Mexico and the United States. It’s a time of remembering your loved ones by celebrating their lives.
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