A cultural problem…
…distilled into one, perfect photo.
Nob Akimoto
Nob Akimoto is a policy analyst and part-time dungeon master. When not talking endlessly about matters of public policy, he is a dungeon master on the NWN World of Avlis
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Reading up on Prop 30, this aspect of the bill seems pretty ridiculous to me, at least at first glance:
“If this proposition is passed in November, 2012, the income tax will apply retroactively to all income earned or received since the first of the year (1 January, 2012).”Report
Which totally justifies stiffing your waiter when you’ve eaten out….Report
I was not aware of Prop 30. Is it an initiative that legislatively requires you to be a dick?Report
Since it raised sales taxes only a quarter percentage point, maybe the guy should have at least tipped 14.75%?Report
It also raised income taxes in several brackets over $250K.Report
Affecting my income just enough so that I can still go out to eat, I just can’t afford to tip the waitstaff. That is one fine-tuned fiscal package!Report
Well if that wait staff person would go get a job so that this guy who was able to print nice little “fish you” cards to hand to wait staff people who really just need to go get jobs so he doesn’t have to continue to pay for all these lazy wait staff people who should really just go get jobs…oh, wait.Report
Do you know the person who got the note? The imgur link said “Friend got this” but I don’t know if it’s your friend or if you found this online.
Something about it seems almost too perfect, which makes me wonder if it’s real. I know that obnoxious assholes are real, but still, this seems just a bit too perfect. I mean, somebody had to print that in advance, rather than just showing up and writing out a nasty note.Report
I admit, I’m skeptical from the imgur link. But real or not, it does seem to reflect a certain mindset among a class of people who complain loudly about marginal income tax increases.Report
This.
I have to say that there is a certain breed of asshole, the No Tipping Asshole, that does not belong to any particular political party. No Tipping Asshole always – always – finds a reason to announcing to everyone why they are self-righteously not tipping.Report
At my first job, we used to go to a lunch place that was ridiculously cheap — cocktails for under a dollar, and multi-course meals for two or three. (We used to joke that they must be laundering drug money.) And there were still people who’d tip a strict 15% and insist that anything more was irresponsible.Report
I never got a note like that or knew anybody that got a note like that when I waited tables, but I did have the pleasure of serving people that left religious tracts in lieu of tipping.Report
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?Report
I wonder if you have gold crosses in your tracts, they become worth a more fixed value….Report
Dude, I’m not giving away any of my gold! I’m going to need it when the fiat money goes kablooey and the gummint starts requiring a 666 stamp on your noggin just to buy a loaf of bread.Report
Well just you wait until the government starts minting PLATINUM AMEROS.Report
Wait, now I’m confused. Should I start trading my gold* for platinum or trade my wife’s platinum wedding ring for gold?
(*And I’ve spent so many years cultivating cavities, just so I could store gold securely.)Report
Didn’t you say earlier you valued domestic peace? I don’t think trading your wife’s ring will bring you much of it. (And right now, given the spot price difference, I think you want to trade gold for platinum on the assumption that gold will eventually crash)Report
Forgoing fresh deer to guarantee domestic peace is one thing, but failing to prepare for the coming Obamaclypse? That’s crazy talk!Report
guns and cigarettes baby. gold’ll be worth practically nothing.Report
Copies of the Lama scene from Caddyshack?Report
Tod like this classic scene
http://youtu.be/sn9nnOkASDgReport
I was emailed a printable PDF of that by a right wing friend recently. It’s a traveling right wing meme, they run it off on their work printers and clip a few to piss off waitstaff and generally be assholes.Report
Would you be willing to share the pdf with us?Report
For the PDF to exist, the “right wing friend” would also need to exist.
For some reason – I can’t quite put my finger on it – I am skeptical that M.A. has any right-wing friends.Report
I’m not so sure about that.
His language is strident but this is also a blog of people he will never meet. He could be a lot more civil in real life, most of us are.Report
You’re probably right. As a matter of fact, after I posted this I sort of regretted it, even though it’s a pretty gentle poke compared to the often-wild swinging to which I was alluding. He’s obviously a smart guy (gal? don’t actually know), and passionate, and a good writer/communicator; I just wish some of the recurring seemingly-compulsive tics about evil conservatives and libertarians (seriously, did a libertarian kill his father? Should I prepare to die?) could get toned down.Report
Is there any .pdf that isn’t printable?Report
Yes.
You can create PDF files that can’t be printed. Well, by “can’t”, I mean “Can’t be printed from inside Acrobat, or a PDF reader that can read write-protected PDF files.
You could just put your monitor into portrait, fill the screen with it, and printscreen.Report
Or use any of the utilities that convert PDF into another format (e.g. PostScript) and print the result.Report
I can easily see why people didn’t like Prop 30. I can understand arguments against raising tax rates on the rich even though i disagree. But if you are going to go to the trouble of printing up cards to give in lieu of tipping people who very likely make a fairly meagre living and far less then you do, so you can express your view at people who don’t have much of anything to do with the views you don’t like then i have to wonder, when did The Jerk Store start serving food?Report
Greg,
OT, but how is Alaska doing in the wake of the recent quake?Report
Kazzy. Little or no damage. No tsunami. It was a big quake with a bunch of aftershocks. It was a few hundred miles away from us so we didn’t even know about. I checked the local news for info. Sounds like it was scary for the people in the small towns near the quake.Report
I’d throw ice cold buckets of water on the homless to protest any tax increases that might benefit the poor, but some of them look like they could seriously beat the tar out of me. I’m glad that these cards give me a way to do real harm to those less fortunate without acutally risking my physical person.
Hooray for the Internet!Report
This is a big ol’ dick move.
Passive-aggressive, too.
Stay classy, conservatives.Report
Off-topic, Burt, but I’ve been meaning to ask you, do you know the restaurant Le Chene on Sierra Highway?Report
Why, is there a waiter there you’d particularly like to stiff?Report
Depends what you mean by “stiff.”Report
Does your wife know about this post?
Would you like her to see you schtuping around here?Report
She knows I never leave the…er… a tip.Report
I am. Le Chêne is without question the best restaurant in northern Los Angeles County and IMO one of the better restaurants in the entire L.A. metro area (and graced with one of the county’s better wine lists to boot). A partner in my law firm was married there. Since I will be unable to afford both the time and the travel costs to take my wife to Paris for a special birthday coming up, I’ll take her to dinner there. She’ll have duck, I know this in advance. But everything on the menu is fantastic but I keep going back to the wild boar goulash. It’s where I learned that a puree of cauliflower works just as well and has fewer carbs than mashed potatoes, and that game meats could be better than traditional fare. Have you had the pleasure of dining there?Report
I’ve been there twice. I particularly remember an incredible chicken with lobster sauce. Perhaps when we’re out there next summer I’ll get to go again.Report
Do let me know if that’s in the works. I might enjoy sharing a glass of grape juice with you, if you don’t mind.Report
We’ll definitely be in Santa Clarita (aka Awesometown) next summer, probably late July/early August. A meetup would be nice.Report
http://laist.com/2012/02/28/bankers_remorse_the_1_tipper_was_a.phpReport
That doesn’t mean that this one was a hoax, but it ups the probability of it being a hoax.
What gets me is that it shows little indication of being wrinkled or folded (except a possible diagonal fold). I can’t tell if the object next to it is a drink coaster or place mat, but either way this sign was bigger than you’d fit in a typical coat pocket. Maybe somebody had it in a laptop case or whatever, which is plausible at a business lunch. But I find it implausible at a social gathering.Report
The picture is framed and posed so beautifully that I’m sure it’s a fake. It’s a funny idea, though.Report
The problem with generalizing from a photo like this is simple, and obvious if you take a moment to step back and look at it objectively:
We do not know who printed out this note.
Yes, it could have been a right-wing bad tipper who wished to justify his bad-tipping by blaming the proposition.
It could also have been a left-wing bad tipper who wished to justify his bad-tipping by figuring he could at least get the waiter or waitress angry at his political enemies.
It could also have been the waiter or waitress for his/her own reasons; perhaps to get attention and sympathy while at the same time casting aspersions against people he disagrees with politically.
Finally, there might have been no waiter or waitress involved at all; that is to say, this is nothing but a photograph of a note on a table; maybe this wasn’t really left as a tip; maybe the photographer simply printed the note himself in order to disseminate a picture of it and create a public impression.
We don’t know the facts.
And going on and on about “yeah, but real or not, it does seem to reflect a certain mindset…” is nothing but self-justification of a fantasy: you’d like to believe that your enemies would do such a thing, so to see this makes you happy.Report
“This inartfully stated dirty liberal smear is a truthful expression of Mitt Romney’s political philosophy, and it is a winner.”
That sounds a lot like your argument here.Report
Er…so an unsourced, probably photoshopped picture, that is in all likelihood a poor joke by one side or the other, is the same as an actual videotape of Romney saying stupid crap?
Yeah…I think I’ll go with bearing on this one. To treat this as evidence of anything more than “someone, somewhere thought this was a funny picture” invests it with far more weight than it deserves.Report
Er…so an unsourced, probably photoshopped picture
Why Photoshop it? Seems like it would be easier just to print out the note and take a picture.Report
Probably so. My point still stands.Report
Maybe it’s real, maybe it’s not, but I’m skeptical that this is a distillation of a cultural problem. There’s no broader movement to exact retribution by proxy on waiters for the government’s cash grabs. It doesn’t even make sense unless you know that the specific waiter in question is a Democrat.
Besides, waiters and retail workers may end up being hit hardest of all by Obama’s policies. Rumor has it that a lot of service-sector employers are planning to eliminate full-time positions to avoid Obamacare mandates.Report