Chris Jennings

Yesterday a co-worker asked me this brain-bang of a question and I am stumped. I hope I’m not overlooking something simple, but I’ve got to admit I’m questioning all existence.

It went like this:

Three businessmen were on a trip. They were tired and needed a place to stay for the night. One of the hotels they passed were offering a $30 a night special for one room. The businessmen thought that it would be wise to split the $30 and stay together.

The businessmen each paid the hotel clerk $10 a piece and headed up to their room. Moments later, the clerk realized that the hotel had a special that night of $25 a room, so he sent his assistant up with a $5 rebate all in $1 bills.

Once the businessmen answered the door, the clerk’s assistant realized that he couldn’t split the $1 bills evenly among the three and started to head back down to get change. The businessmen stopped him and said, “How about you give us each $1, leaving yourself a $2 tip?” After thanking the businessmen, the clerk’s assistant went on with his business, $2 richer.

The men returned to their beds, and being businessmen, they were happy to only be $9 in the hole instead of $10.

And this is where it got me. There was $30 in play. The men paid $10 a piece and got $1 a piece back… leaving the clerk’s assistant $2.

3 * 9 = 27, add  2 from the clerk’s assistant and you have = 29.

What happened to the last dollar?

Time keeps flying by, everyone is decaying slightly more each day. I told Tim that something he designed was “the bomb” earlier and then turns out he wasn’t laughing at me, he was laughing with me.

The end of my corporate life is drawing near, which sucks because… When am I going to be able to write on my blog? When will I be able to spend hours talking to Brian about our next big web app? Where else am I going to get paid for wasting time?

For the last 8 months I have been making more money than any of my friends and yet it feels like i’m always broke. I’m seriously wondering how you guys do it. Due to my current situation, I am forcing myself to follow Ramit’s “I Will Teach You to Be Rich” course. This means that I will have to monitor ALL of my spending for a month and budget accordingly. In a very weird way I am looking forward to this… as I am positive if I would have started this when I first read it, I would be much better off here in the now.

In the mean time I want to write a book, travel, learn the meaning of life and maybe pay the rent.