Here are this week’s 5 things you should know.
01. Under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) 30 hours per week is considered full time
There is a common misconception that is echoed by the media and politicians that if you drop your employees to 30 hours per week, they are no longer eligible for health benefits. They would be wrong.
The term ‘full-time employee’ means, with respect to any month, an employee who is employed on average at least 30 hours of service per week.
02. Per U.S. fire code, exit/entrance doors on public buildings open out
Save yourself the embarrassment of pushing when you should have pulled. This applies to all entrance and exit doors of public buildings over a certain occupancy (which can vary), not just fire exits.
Part of the inspiration for that code was the fire caused by pyrotechnics at a Great Lion Concert in Rhode Island. Doors to the club opened in and there were too many people rushing the doors for anyone to be able to pull them opened. 100 people died.
03. God Mode
On your Windows 7 computer make a new folder and name it “God Mode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}”. Without the quotes. This gives you shortcuts to all Admin functions.
On windows 8, name the folder, “GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}”. Without the quotes.
The Windows Master Control Panel shortcut, labeled All Tasks and also called Windows God Mode by bloggers and All Tasks folder by at least one Microsoft developer, is a short-cut to access various control settings in Windows Vista and later operating systems. By creating a folder with a certain name, users have access to all of the operating system’s control panels from within a single folder. The hack was published outside of Microsoft documentation in 2007 and gained popularity when the name God Mode was used by bloggers. Variations of the same method can access different settings, and have also been called ‘God Mode’ folders.
04. How much money pharmaceutical companies spent on your specific doctor
With this government website, you can find this. So far, data is available for 2014.
05. Every credit card company has a secret Backdoor “reconsideration line”
It rings directly to a person who very well can overturn your denied application. Just because you get denied by an algorithm that has set thresholds doesn’t mean you don’t deserve a line of credit. It just means you could be off by literally a few points and still very worthy and responsible.
This isn’t a myth. This isn’t the regular customer service line. It is a special, relatively unknown group of reps who strictly deal with reconsidering your application. These phone numbers generally never appear on the company websites. Now, before you go calling one of these numbers, please do a bit of research and Google best practices when calling these numbers.
You will be speaking to someone who has total power and discretion – so be nice to the rep on the phone. Know what you’re going to say and be prepared to answer the questions straight up that don’t get asked on credit card applications. The above is key though to why this works. When you fill out an application, it pulls your credit report and the system auto approves/denies based on various factors. This is your chance to explain why you have those blemishes on your report. Be honest, tell them you were 20 and given a huge line of credit and weren’t as financially responsible as you are now or whatever the reason was.
Either way, as long as you don’t have a completely horrible score, but are within arm’s reach, there is a very good chance they’ll reconsider, and override the denial. Good luck! This should only be leveraged if you just recently applied but were denied, no more than a couple weeks or so.
American Express
(866) 314-0237 – Main Application Reconsideration Line
Bank Of America
(866) 458-8805 – General Account and Reconsideration Line
(877) 721-9405 – Personal Application Status Line, dial option 3
(800) 481-8277 – Business Application Status Line Online Application Status Check
Barclay’s Credit Card
(888) 232-0780 – General Card Services and Application Line, dial option 3 for application status
(866) 408-4064 – Credit Line Questions Online Application Status Check
Capital One
(800) 625-7866 – Application Services Line
Chase
(888) 245-0625 – Application reconsideration line – direct to live rep
Citibank
(800) 695-5171 – Personal Application Status and Reconsideration Line with live rep
(800) 763-9795 – General Personal Application Inquiries with live rep
(800) 645-7240 – Business Application Status and Reconsideration Line, dial option 3 then option 1 for application status
So this is where the big boys play ? Look at the adjective….play…..we ain’t here to play.