Ranting On Tips, Service Fees, And Other Hidden Costs

Slate - Cabs in New York City used to accept payment exclusively in cash, and tipping was governed by informal norms. Then they installed touchscreens that display advertorial content and also facilitate credit card payment. When you pay with a card, you can manually enter a tip number or you can select one of three default options, and Joshua Gross notes that the defaults make an enormous difference: During payment, the user is presented with three default buttons for tipping: 20%, 25%, and 30%. When cabs were cash only, the average tip was roughly 10%. After the introduction of this system, the tip percentage jumped to 22%. Those three buttons resulted in $144,146,165 of additional tips. Per year. Those are some very valuable buttons. 

This tipping of cab-drivers thing has always driven me nuts.  You know what my tip for the cab driver is? Rounding to the nearest $5 in whatever I'm paying him. If I owe $22.15, he gets $25...that's it.  Yea, on occasion if its like $24 and change, I'll toss in a couple of singles, but otherwise, what am I tipping for? I don't tip bus drivers and subway conductors, do I?

I hired this guy to drive me from point A to Point B. You've agreed to charge me a set rate...that's what you're getting paid. If that's not enough then work to raise the rates. Plain and simple. Short of defying the laws of time and space and teleporting me to my destination, there's not much a cab driver can do to make me go out of my way to tip them extra...they're certainly not making up for it with their conversation skills. 

In fact, I think that'd be a good rule for our society as a whole going forward, just charge me what you think is fair. Don't make me sit here and think about how much the service I just bought from you should cost, I'm already paying you, you do the work. And don't hide or re categorize charges as fees or whatever bullshit term you want to come up with, just tell me the frigen price. Bottom line it for me. 

Like I stayed at Foxwoods a couple months back...the listed room price was one price, the final bill was another entirely, with random tax charges, and something called a resort fee! Honestly guys, what the fuck is that?! How is that not part of the room fee? Is it optional? If I agree not to go to the pool or get massage or something because I'll be spending the next 24 hours drinking and gambling can I get out of it? No. No, I can't. So put it up front in the original charge. Fucking crooks. 

There's plenty more. Delivery charges for takeout food...safe to say if you're charging me for delivery, I'm not tipping your driver more than $2, and that's just because I feel like a dick when I go to the door and don't give him anything. But to me the delivery charge is the tip. I don't feel so much as I'm being taken here, as this needs to get more publicity and become a social norm. I feel like not enough people pay attention to this. People, if you're charged a delivery charge, its the same thing as when a restaurant automatically includes 20% gratuity for large parties. You're under no obligation from that point forward.

Lets keep going. Meals tax on snacks. What the hell guys. If I buy a snickers bar downstairs at our cafe, I shouldn't be charged 6.25% more than if I buy it upstairs in the vending machine. Same goes for my Vitamin Water-Zero. This is just asinine. Same company, same building, different room, different charges. 

Rolling right along...Convenience charges when buying tickets online, when I PRINT THE TICKETS MYSELF...my ink, my paper, your convenience. I get it if I'm having them mailed to me, hell, I'd get it if I picked them up at the box office since that requires you have staff present. I will never for the life of me understand how the fuck these guys get away with charging me for printing my own tickets. This is the most confounding racket going today. And they get you both ways, coming and going! Because if you decide you're going to turn around sell your ticket, say on stub-hub, you get hit with a selling charge. A percentage of your profits...So not only did you pay above face value for your tickets, but now, when you go to sell them, you have virtually no chance of recouping your money, because even if you charge the $10 or so above face value that you paid for your tickets (because of the fucking inconvenience fee), you've still go to give back a portion of those profits for stub hub acting as your broker. IT'S ALL A SCAM...You cannot win when it comes to buying event tickets. 

That's all I got for now, but this could easily become a regular installment. Bottom line, all I want is for places to just start pricing things for what they actually cost, no more hidden fees, no more service charges after the fact, and make those goddamn convenience fees illegal. I'm not cheap, I'm perfectly happy paying what I owe, I just like to know what that is.

Tough Night In Canada for Baseball Umpires

In speaking with Lawrie after the game, Canadian Mounted Police were overheard saying "Eh, would you kindly take your temper tantrum elsewhere, eh? This is Canada, hoser."

But in all seriouness, for such an allegedly peaceful country,  what is with all the umpire hate?

Chances are that Canadian cop was more upset at the offender for wasting $8 worth of Labatt Blue than he was for striking the umpire. 

A Quick Rant on Team Building and Leadership Seminars

Yup, the dreaded "how to be an effective leader" class (or it's random variants, effective communication, team building, how to support your staff, yada, yada, yada). If you've ever worked in a middle management role or  above, chances are you've suffered through a few hours of this class...or as I like to call it, common sense. 

Look, we get it, you guys are former HR folks who decided to strike it out on your own and preach what you believe to be the tenets of management. You want us to believe that you've got it all figured out, and that if we just follow your overly corny and simplified advice, step by step, in any given situation, we'll all be the most loved CEO's of all time some day. Fluorescent lights projecting rainbows with pots of gold at the ends of them all over the office, and office water bubblers tasting like kool-aid, but without the diabetic results, and bathrooms with full length privacy stalls. It'll just be wonderful. Your employees won't care at all that they're tethered to their cubes for 40-50 hours a week doing mindless work.

What you don't seem to get is that random games like trust falls, two truths and a lie, a quick ice breaking game of telephone...all that *crap*, has no place in the real world. Ok? We've all been to college, we've all played these games at orientation. It was assumed that getting that piece of paper 4 years later on a 95 degree day after baking in my robe for 3 hours meant that I'd never have to go through another kumbaya session again. That was part of the deal going in, I'm pretty sure I signed a contract, I've got it somewhere in my trunk. 

Just show us your pie charts showing us what percentage of communication body language, tone, and speech make up (hint, speech is shockingly low! otherwise, why would we be having this class). Show us the slide show on how nice and happy co-workers interact with each other after their boss stopped crossing their arms when holding meetings, and don't forget to mention there are other ways to motivate employees in non-monetary fashions...because a nice pat on the back and an "atta-boy" always make up for delayed, denied, or ultimately puny raises. 

/End Rant.

Lebron Misses Not One, But Two Free Throws in the Clutch, My Reaction:

And CW's Reaction:

Anyone tells you Lebron choking can't make you happy? Look at Fucking smile on my face, ear to ear baby!

Good to see Bron-Bron up to his usual tricks.