And now what did you do TODAY?

[guzziguy]

Yeah, sometime the chicks only come in handfuls.

[agile_one]

IIRC, the Santa Rosa chick wasn't the issue, it was SR chick's hubby taking exception to Santa squeezing the melons.

[blessingx]

Just out of curiosity - that woman's name wasn't Rose/Rosa was it?  

[crappyjones123]

Two assholes backed into the front of my car in the school parking lot today. Didn't leave a note. Different heights of damage and different paint chips. Then on my way to lunch the rear bumper got completely smashed by this 83 year old lady who got out of the car and said, "oh, I'm sorry. I thought my foot was on the brake but I put it on the accelerator by accident. Please don't call the police - lets figure this out." I waited and she pulled out $80 from her wallet and said that should cover it.

I called the police.

God damn old people.

[acidbasement]

Damn, sucks about your car, CJ.

 

My late grandmother bumped into a thing or two when she re-took her driver's exam at 95 years old.  She flunked the exam, and furiously declared in her defense, "I only hit it because I couldn't see it!"

 

The whole town breathed a little easier that day.

[Dusty Chalk]

Yeezh.  3 different hits?  Wowzers.  Time to get a tank.

[justin]

$80 would have covered it....in 1950

[skullguise]

Reminds me a bit of my father-in-law; he's passing around $1 tips indeed like it's the 50's.  A regular handyman and myself moved a ~350 lb ungainly (and ugly) entertainment center when I visited them in FL.  Lots of work, sweat, and about 1/2 hour of time.  Father-in-law goes to give him a $1 bill, thankfully mother-in-law caught my look, interrupted him, and handed the handyman more.  Same thing when we got free valet parking in Boca Raton, $1 bill given to me to give to the valet.  No.....

 

In any case, good luck with the car CJ, sorry you have to go through the hassle.

[Wmcmanus]

Reminds me a bit of my father-in-law; he's passing around $1 tips indeed like it's the 50's.  A regular handyman and myself moved a ~350 lb ungainly (and ugly) entertainment center when I visited them in FL.  Lots of work, sweat, and about 1/2 hour of time.  Father-in-law goes to give him a $1 bill, thankfully mother-in-law caught my look, interrupted him, and handed the handyman more.  Same thing when we got free valet parking in Boca Raton, $1 bill given to me to give to the valet.  No.....

 

In any case, good luck with the car CJ, sorry you have to go through the hassle.

Laughing out load! My worst experience ever with tipping happened a couple of years ago when I was very late for a flight back to Cayman on American Airways. Normally with American I use curb side check in. They charge I think $2 per bag for the company, and then you can tip whatever. So I'm accustomed to giving $5 per bag (as a tip, in addition to whatever they charge) and that seems to be pretty much the standard. They just check you in on the computer and then toss your bag onto a dolly. After the dolly fills up with bags, I suppose they need to wheel in that batch and return to their post, but basically it's no big deal. $5 is about right and they always seem pleased with that, or at least it seems to be within the realm of expectation.

But this time was different. The guy said, "Uh oh, it looks like it's too late. But wait, there might just be something I can do for you." So he quickly calls someone to see if maybe he can still get my sorry ass and my bag on. He gets a positive response, apparently, but whatever he's doing, he's really pushing his own luck with his contact on the other end, and it means that I need to quickly follow him inside, and we need to move fast! So off we go, and then he disappears with my bag and doesn't come back for about 5 minutes. Don't know where he went, but it must have been a long way. He might have had to take it down to the plane himself for all I know.

Eventually, he comes back and is acting all proud of what he's accomplished for me, and I'm completely oblivious to all of his extra effort, just thinking about my own near disaster that (but for his heroic efforts) was narrowly averted. It would have cost me a $75 change fee, a night in the airport hotel (another $175 or so with tax), and problems with the college because I would have had to cancel my class that night and I'm pretty sure I was giving an exam!

So I reach into my pocket and hand him the same $5 that I had slipped out of my wallet initially when I first walked up to the curb side check-in before realizing that it would be such a close call. The guy palmed it at first and didn't look at it until he got 2 steps away from me, and then he completely went off on me. Not load, not anything that would cause a scene, but very clearly showed me what a dickhead I had been. Something like, "You know, it's not worth. I busted my ass for you, and put myself in a situation where I could have gotten in trouble for breaking the fucking rules. Not bending. Breaking! And for what? Five dollars? Fuck it. I'm done helping people out of jams. I could have stayed out there and checked in 10 more bags by now..."

So now I'm hurriedly fishing for my wallet, and grabbing for $20 bills and he says, "Keep your money" and walks away.

As a result of this experience, my standard is now $10 per bag, and anything extra that they do automatically makes it $20. If ever there is another extra, extra special case, it will be $40 or $50. Not for their sake, but for the sake of my own peace of mind. I hate it, hate, hate, hate it, when I get that feeling of being a total heel. But I wasn't even trying to be cheap, I was just focused on my own issues and was nervous about whether I'd get on that flight. Totally oblivious to his needs, let alone my need to show him some appreciation beyond, "Hey, thanks."

Oh well, you live and learn. Now I feel like a big wheel when I give $10 after someone in front of my gave $2 or $3.

Edited March 8, 2013 by Wmcmanus

[CarlSeibert]

I don't use cash much, so I've always got something like a single and fifty. I hate that. How much of a schmuck does it it make me when I ask the guy to make change for his tip? CJ -- only in effing Boca!

[n_maher]

I'm not a fan of the fact that it is now standard practice/expectation in most industries that you'll tip the person performing the work.  WTF?  When I do a good job I get paid the exact same amount as when I do a shit job.  Do I do a shit job as a result?  No, I have some pride in my work and generally try to do it as well as I can do it.  That said, I do tip pretty generously for service related industries where it's a long established practice and actually assumed to be part of the salary structure (e.g. restaurants) but why is it that the person who simply pours a cup of coffee for me expects a buck for the 20 seconds of effort?  [/rant]

[Dusty Chalk]

Seriously.  I hate those tip jars at the counter.  The rule of thumb is if they serve you at your table (or bar stool), or if you have to do most everything yourself -- tip/no tip.  I tend to overlook them (the jars).

 

You know what else I hate?  When you do take-out on credit card, and there's a spot for tipping.

[morphsci]

Just upgraded our internets from slow ADSL to moderately fast cable. A pretty good start as they arrived on time, did their work quickly and efficiently and actually knew what they were talking about. Actually kind of scary as I think this may be one of the signs for the end of days.

Edited March 8, 2013 by morphsci

[Nebby]

Just upgraded our internets from slow ADSL to moderately fast cable. A pretty good start as they arrived on time, did their work quickly and efficiently and actually knew what they were talking about. Actually kind of scary as I think this may be one of the signs for the end of days.

 

What company was that? That's....rare.

[morphsci]

Mediacom. This surprised me as we had them for cable and Internet in SD and they were absolutely the worst. That is the main reason I stayed away from them when we moved here. Seems to be quite a bit of local variation.

[ironbut]

Actually kind of scary as I think this may be one of the signs for the end of days.

Cracked me up!

Our local cable (comcast) is a roll of the dice.

It was consistently awful a few years back when they were super busy and hired a bunch of "subs" (you could tell because the comcast logo was a magnetic stick on). The guys in the real comcast trucks were okay but the subs were rude and didn't know what the hell they were doing.

Now they're just bad!

[The Monkey]

Just upgraded our internets from slow ADSL to moderately fast cable. A pretty good start as they arrived on time, did their work quickly and efficiently and actually knew what they were talking about. Actually kind of scary as I think this may be one of the signs for the end of days.

 

 

At least we now know the End Times will be quick and efficient.

[aardvark baguette]

Seriously.  I hate those tip jars at the counter.  The rule of thumb is if they serve you at your table (or bar stool), or if you have to do most everything yourself -- tip/no tip.  I tend to overlook them (the jars).

 

You know what else I hate?  When you do take-out on credit card, and there's a spot for tipping.

 

Thanks for taking my money, have some money.

[CarlSeibert]

It's so you can subsidize the employers, silly.

[Dreadhead]

It's so you can subsidize the employers, silly.

I've heard that in some restaurants they even take a cut of the tips. WTF!

[swt61]

^

That would be illegal in all states I'm pretty sure. Some restaurants have a tip pool, where the tips are gathered and distributed evenly, but none goes to management. I hated tip pools, as there was 0 incentive to do your best.

[skullguise]

You know what else I hate?  When you do take-out on credit card, and there's a spot for tipping.

 

This bugs me, but more because I'm worried that someone not-so-scrupulous will put a tip in there after it's signed.  So every time I get one, I put a line through the tip amount space, and total it; only then do I sign.

 

The place from which we do take out most often uses the same CC machine for in-house or take-out, so I don't get too upset about it being there.....

[Dusty Chalk]

This bugs me, but more because I'm worried that someone not-so-scrupulous will put a tip in there after it's signed.  So every time I get one, I put a line through the tip amount space, and total it; only then do I sign.

 

The place from which we do take out most often uses the same CC machine for in-house or take-out, so I don't get too upset about it being there.....

(a) Yeah, I do that, too.  Especially after I heard the story of a waitress who was told to write the tip in herself, probably expecting her to write in 15% or whatever was standard at the time, and ended up writing herself a $1,000 tip or some other extravagant amount in the dollars of the time.

 

( b ) Yeah, it's okay, unless they give you a dirty look for (see (a) above).  Solution -- pay for takeout in cash when possible.

[Salt Peanuts]

One of our friends had a waitress help herself to a bigger tip by changing the "1" on the 10th digit on the tip line to a "4."  She figure it out couple weeks later while looking at her bank statement and comparing it to the receipt.

Edited March 9, 2013 by Salt Peanuts

[agile_one]

CCB Hunahpu day