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Post by Cei-U! on Nov 25, 2021 6:13:21 GMT -5
Happy Thanksgiving to all you CCFers!
Cei-U! I summon the roast turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce...
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Post by Mister Spaceman on Nov 25, 2021 7:43:32 GMT -5
Happy Thanksgiving!
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Post by EdoBosnar on Nov 25, 2021 8:57:34 GMT -5
Not a good idea to give poultry bones to dogs, though...
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Post by brutalis on Nov 25, 2021 10:10:28 GMT -5
A happy day of mass turkey consumption to everyone here in the CCF. May you and your loved ones celebrate with food, drink, desserts, joy and happiness! I say gobble son, gobble I say! Are you listening to me?
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Post by Icctrombone on Nov 25, 2021 12:38:44 GMT -5
Hurrah!!! After being rejected for science journal covers again and again, these images finally made it to a science symposium!!! Granted, decorating a bag or a t-shirt isn't the same as gracing the cover of Cell... but hey, they're still technically in print!!! Awesome to have several world recognized creators in our forum. Congrats , my friend.
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Post by Icctrombone on Nov 25, 2021 12:46:02 GMT -5
Had a bit of a kerfuffle at a restaurant last night. The bill came and the waitress brought the little card reader around for me to pay. The service had been marginal. Not actively bad but not particularly attentive and they weren't very busy. Add on to that that most of the side dishes came out somewhere between lukewarm and almost chilly and I wasn't in the best of moods. So the reader gave me an option of 20%, 25% or 30% tip. I looked for a way to give a custom tip and there wasn't one. So I asked and was told those were the only options. So I checked my wallet and all I had was a twenty and that was not happening. I grudgingly hit the 20% and then when when she gave me a look I asked to see the manager. She said she'd get him...and I waited. So eventually I went up to the front and stared her and him down until he came to see me. He told me he had another reader up front that would allow me to customize the tip. I told him that their readers weren't acceptable to me and that I would be unlikely to come back unless it changed. I was polite to everyone and tried very hard to avoid going full Karen. The thing is, I'm a good tipper. But I want the options to be in my hands. But really it just was the culmination of a growing irritation with the U.S.'s tip culture. It feels like everywhere I go (except the grocery store) the first thing I see at check-out is whether I want to leave a tip. I ran in to a local convenience store and grabbed a pre-made sandwich and it asked if I wanted to tip. FOR WHAT? Pay your damn employees a decent wage. Then maybe we won't have to hear the whines from business owners about how "nobody wants to work anymore." Pay a decent wage and then if someone goes above and beyond the call of duty and I want to slip them a few bucks it's because they did a hell of a job instead of because their employer is a cheapskate and we, as a nation, have built entire industries on a business model that is a charade. There's a rib place that my wife and I frequent maybe 2-3 times a month. During the pandemic we still went and ordered take out and ate in the parking lot in our car. They are fully open now but they have added the tip to the bill now. It's located in the next state over , so we have to pay tolls to get there, but it's worth it. I don't mind the added tip as we have never stiffed the servers. But it makes me wonder if the servers are seeing any of that money.
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Post by kirby101 on Nov 26, 2021 11:16:07 GMT -5
The American system of the patrons paying the employees' salaries at restaurants is ridiculous. Between a less than livable wage and inadequate social safety net, combined with most economic policy targeted at helping the wealthy, we have moved more to feudalism. Every time I go to Europe I see how much better it can be.
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Post by Rob Allen on Nov 26, 2021 12:43:38 GMT -5
I recall a study from a few years ago. They found that customers like the current tipping system because it gives them the power to punish poor service.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 26, 2021 12:50:56 GMT -5
I recall a study from a few years ago. They found that customers like the current tipping system because it gives them the power to punish poor service. And yet I bet every single one of them would be appalled and pissed if their pay was docked if they did a less than stellar job at their place of employment. If tips were supplemental instead of the core of servers earnings, that might be acceptable, but it's not. Servers live on tips not salary, which is laughable. If minimum wage is not a living wage, what is a fraction of minimum wage, which is what tipped servers get. In Ohio, min wage was $10 last I checked, servers were getting $4 and change an hour plus tips in most places. -M
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Post by The Captain on Nov 27, 2021 9:56:34 GMT -5
Related to the discussion on tipping is a disturbing trend I'm seeing in stores and restaurants of "toxic apologizing" from the staff. I was running around yesterday with my younger daughter to hit some Black Friday sales at a few of our LCS, and while visiting one in a shopping mall, we stopped into the Hot Topic, as my girls and I are Funko Pop collectors. Saw one of their new exclusives that I absolutely could not pass up, so I grabbed it and went to the counter. The girl ringing me up asked for my phone number for their rewards program, but after she typed it in, she said she couldn't find me in the system; she asked for me to give her my number again, and it worked on the second time. She apologized repeatedly for a) mistyping my number and b) wasting my time. I told her that I'd worked retail years ago, completely understood, and said that I wasn't going to yell at her, after which she relaxed and then engaged me in a normal conversation. This morning, I went to pick up doughnuts for my older daughter to take to HS swim practice. I'd called in my order last night so it would be ready when I got there. Walked up to the counter and the girl behind it (probably only 16, no older than 17) was filling an order for the drive-thru, so I stood there. When she finished, she apologized profusely for making me wait, even though I had been there probably about 45 seconds, 1 minute tops. My order was ready to go, she handed it to me and told me to have a nice day, at which point I told her that it wasn't paid for. She had assumed that I used their app, which requires payment, but I had actually used the telephone (yeah, I'm old). Again, she started apologizing for a) making a minor, completely legitimate mistake and b) for wasting my time. I literally asked her to stop because she was making me uncomfortable and reassured her that she had done absolutely nothing wrong, but she still seemed rattled. This is the environment these people work in, where they feel compelled to apologize for every little thing because they know that if the customer gets mad, the manager will back the customer and not them. I can't even imagine being waitstaff in a restaurant, where they need to be on point the entire meal to ensure that they get that tip to make their hour's work profitable, and even then, if the customer doesn't feel like being generous, tough luck to the server. It's a garbage system that is just so American that it hurts, because to Rob Allen's point, many Americans love the idea of getting to "punish" those who have "wronged" them, so being able to affect someone else's wallet because they didn't get treated like royalty is probably very satisfying to them.
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Post by brutalis on Nov 27, 2021 10:12:32 GMT -5
More than often I find that I need to APOLOGIZE for crappy customers that were ahead of me. It seems courtesy, patience and understanding are put aside in favor of being in a rush, being entitled and being rude. CUSTOMERS need to take into account the sheer volume of other people shopping around them, how stores are all stocking less product while utilizing less staff and even improperly or under trained staff.
Being the consumer doesn't grant you any royal privileges above and beyond others.
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Post by Cei-U! on Nov 27, 2021 10:56:30 GMT -5
Being the consumer doesn't grant you any royal privileges above and beyond others. Sounds more than a little like something my dad told me eons ago: "Having a handicap is not a license to be an asshole."
Cei-U! I summon the personal credo!
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Post by Deleted on Nov 27, 2021 11:23:23 GMT -5
the customers treat employees so crappy these days (not ALL customers, but many of them), as brutalis said?
I often find myself apologizing for the assholes that were in front of me and acted like kings ordering their subjects around.
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Post by kirby101 on Nov 27, 2021 11:33:23 GMT -5
I recall a study from a few years ago. They found that customers like the current tipping system because it gives them the power to punish poor service. The problem here is that waiters are often punished for a problem caused by the kitchen or management. The other problem it causes is the need to turn over tables to get more customers, and therefore more pay. In Europe, no wait person would ever ask if you were done and take your plate away.
And we have also found here, as so many restaurants can't find wait staff, that is wasn't the extra $600 that the government was providing so people would not starve, but that people realized that did not want to be overworked at crappy jobs for crappy pay with no benefits.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 27, 2021 11:47:51 GMT -5
If it weren't over $5 per person and involving travel in the pandemic world, this would be my wife and I's perfect vacation... D&D in a Castle-M
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