28. Time and Money
When I was in college there was a pay-by-the-hour parking lot right next to the college of business. (Accounting major) The university charged $1.00/hour to use the parking lot or you could park 2 miles away, wait for a bus, and then ride it to and from campus. Being the savvy business student I was, every year at the beginning of the fall semester I would park in the pay lot, buy a ticket, and then run home and enter it into a spreadsheet. I’d record the first day of classes as day 1 in the first field and then enter the ticket number that I had received that day in a separate field. Needless to say, after 3 weeks, I would have a strong enough amount of data to plot a line of best fit (using simple algebra that I had learned in college) and was able to predict a ticket number for any given day. I’d then scan a ticket into my school laptop and use Photoshop to edit the date, time, and ticket number. Printed that b*tch out, stuck it in my window, and cashed in on free parking. Sure it was a bit dangerous, but it saved me a sh*t ton of time and money. Plus, my argument, if I was ever caught, was to explain that I used those skills that the university had taught me in my courses to take advantage of a flawed system. My ethics teacher would have been pissed, but I know my management and econ professors would have been proud.