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Messages - SnappyLT

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1
Life in General / Re: WHAT is that person doing?
« on: February 25, 2024, 04:41:38 pm »
This is a story from at least fifteen years ago, if not longer.

One day I was grocery shopping and came upon what I thought was a poor soul who was carrying on a conversation with herself. She was talking up a storm, all by herself in the canned good aisle. I was feeling sorry for her, thinking she was delusional or something like that.

I turned at the end of the aisle, though, glanced back, and saw that she had a white rectangular-shaped "thing" hanging out of one ear.

Before that day I had never seen a hands-free cell-phone device like that. Guess she was really carrying on a conversation with a real person after all.

2
Life in General / Re: WHAT is that person doing?
« on: February 25, 2024, 04:31:04 pm »
Quote from: Rose Red on January 27, 2024, 07:27:23 pm
Oh man. Since you asked for stories, here goes.

After my above post, I went to the library and saw a man sitting there reading a book and picking his nose. Not a quick scratch either. He was really going to town. He wasn't sitting in a corner, but was in the middle of a busy area.

All the librarians' desks and counters have a box of tissue and the bathroom had TP, so there was no reason to get so comfortable with that act. He seemed to be enjoying his book though, LOL.

Your story reminded me of when I taught fourth grade in the US for a few years several decades ago. I moved around my classroom a lot during lessons, so when I'd notice someone really picking at his nose it was easy for me to quietly take a box of Kleenex from my desk and offer it to the nose-picker without making a fuss.

3
Weddings / "Black Tie" wedding - question at the end
« on: November 24, 2023, 06:48:56 pm »
I've received a "save-the-date" announcement about a "black tie" wedding in my extended family coming up next July.

I was chatting with "George," an early-30s aged member of my extended family, after Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. He and his wife, too, have received the save-the-date announcement.

George told me he is annoyed about the "black tie" requirement for guests. He was saying that he feels that while the bride-to-be deserves to have whatever wedding she wants, he thinks that should not include telling her male guests that they have to go rent or buy a tuxedo just for one night. He said he is very tempted to just buy a nice black business suit and attend the wedding wearing a new black suit and bowtie. That way he can at least wear the black suit to work in his office sometimes as opposed to buying or renting a tuxedo he'd rarely ever use again.

I did not suggest to George what I thought he should do.

I told George that I could see his point of view. (I, too, am put off by the notion that the bride-to-be and her mother are presuming to tell me as a guest how to dress for a wedding.)

On the other hand, based upon past experiences, I predicted to George that the bride's mother might indeed be very upset with George if he attends in a black business suit instead of a tuxedo.

I told George that, for myself, if I decide to attend that wedding, I will send in my RSVP card promptly and I will reluctantly rent a tuxedo (even though I have a particularly handsome dark navy blue suit already in my closet that I'd rather wear).

What would you have told George if he had spoken to you?


4
Life in General / Re: Brimstoner's Ultimate Guide To Valet Parking For Beginners
« on: July 21, 2023, 01:34:40 pm »
I realize I am replying way too late to be helpful for this vacation, but I do have one suggestion for the future:

If you are leaving a rental car with a valet, check to be absolutely sure the car you get back when you leave is the same car you arrived in.

Some time ago, in pre-cellphone days, a relative of mine left her rental car with the valet at a well-known big-city restaurant while she had lunch. After lunch she got her car back and continued on to her next vacation destination, hundreds of miles away.

That is, she thought she got her rental car back. It was actually an identical car from the same car rental company, same make and color, that had been rented to another customer of the well-known restaurant.

My relative says she noticed that she needed to adjust the seat and the rear-view mirror, but she assumed the valet attendant had changed them. So, off she went for several hundred miles until she stopped for gasoline and decided to get something our of her suitcase in the trunk. There was someone else's suitcase in the trunk!

She called the restaurant from a pay phone. The other driver had realized the mistake immediately and had wanted to report his rental car stolen. He ended up agreeing to let the restaurant send an employee to take my relative's rental car to her at her destination that evening. The employee then drove the other driver's car back to him. So it all worked out in the end.

5
Life in General / Re: Drive thru window etiquette - from the passenger seat
« on: July 21, 2023, 01:06:31 pm »
I agree with Rose Red and TootsNYC that the employee was likely concerned about your safety. (I discussed this briefly with my wife just now, and that's what she thinks, too.)

6
Life in General / Re: What not to say when offering condolences: help me avoid pitfalls
« on: July 21, 2023, 01:01:03 pm »
"May her memory be a blessing."

TootsNYC, thank you.

I don't remember hearing that particular phrase before I read your comment. I think that is a very kind and thoughtful remark to make. I may use it myself in the future.

7
Life in General / Re: When two employees (instead of one, as is usual) do a job...
« on: November 27, 2022, 06:55:20 pm »
Quote from: Bada on November 26, 2022, 09:03:41 am


That's actually why I do grocery pickup instead of delivery.  I was told Walmart pickup employees aren't allowed to take tips, but if you do delivery that you're expected to tip. On a $200 order that adds a LOT to the cost, more than is worth the convenience of me staying home.

Snappy,  is this a small chain or a major one? I hope I haven't been stiffing people who work for (or expect) tips when I do my pickups.

Bada,

My event happened at a regional chain that is big in just one part of the US.

----

My wife uses the pickup service at Walmart sometimes. She was told by an employee that they are forbidden from accepting tips upon threat of being fired. That employee told my wife there were cameras focused on the pickup area of the parking lot, and there was a manager who sometimes watched to see if she could catch employees taking tips.

----

I don't know if I am tipping too much or just right. Honestly, during the first year of the pandemic, I didn't tip. Then I started feeling guilty, like maybe I should tip. That's when my wife told me she tipped when she picked up groceries at stores other than Walmart.

8
Life in General / Re: When two employees (instead of one, as is usual) do a job...
« on: November 27, 2022, 06:46:10 pm »

Quote from: Rose Red on November 24, 2022, 08:35:23 am
...
BTW, when I worked at a grocery store in the days of yore, we were not allowed to accept tips. I hated turning down tips when offered.

Your comment reminded me of an "odd job" I performed two summers during college, many decades ago. In between summer classes, I would help the summer conference organizer with whatever needed to be done for groups who'd rent campus buildings. If the guests were older folks (such as Elder Hostel), I'd be working for just above minimum wage carrying suitcases from the parking lot up to their dorm rooms.

My boss was very strict that I was NOT to accept any tips, so I didn't***.

Only about half of the visitors offered to tip, anyway.

***The only reason I put up with this were that while the suitcase-carrying was hot work, it was only for a few conferences each summer and just about all of the other conference jobs I did were easy tasks.

9
Life in General / When two employees (instead of one, as is usual) do a job...
« on: November 23, 2022, 11:28:55 pm »
I usually tip the lone employee who delivers groceries to my car for the parking lot grocery pick-up service US$5.

Yesterday two employees came out together instead of the usual one employee. All I had in my wallet was a lone $5 bill and a few $20 bills.

I thanked both boys and apologized, saying "This is for you two, but I only have the one bill. Could you please split it between you?" I gave the $5 bill to the closest boy.

They looked at each other, smiled, shrugged their shoulders, and both replied, "Thank you."

What do other people do in such a situation?

[By the way, it was a relatively small order. Usually just one employee would have come out with it.]

10
Etiquette Phrases and Tactics / Re: No, my DH is not lacking as a dad
« on: October 22, 2022, 06:14:17 pm »
pjeans, I know your OP was a long time ago.

I'm just curious to learn if you have any updates since your last reply. How has Walt been behaving more recently?

11
The Work Day / Re: Dealing with Reclusive Intern
« on: July 01, 2022, 06:48:58 pm »
Quote from: Victoria on July 01, 2022, 11:22:56 am
We have a summer intern named "Ralph," split between two legal department sections so that he can get a wide variety of experience. Ralph is the most reserved person anyone's ever worked with. He runs away from any kind of vaguely-social or networking opportunity, and unfortunately on top of that his work is also not great. It's not horrible, but it's not great either, and we had to show him some "remedial" things, like how to create a basic table within a Word document.

My department invited him to our monthly Friday lunch so he could get to know us better, and the date, time, and location was sent to him two weeks ago. When we went to tell him the new restaurant location in person (since apparently our old choice closed permanently last week!) Ralph said that he had a massive task from the other department with a tight deadline and couldn't make it. Of course, during that conversation he looked nothing short of relieved and happy, and apparently this is not the first time he's done this.  He does it to the other section and to every single person who's invited him to anything, saying that he'd "love to be there" and then pulling some urgent work reason he can't at the last minute.

I don't think Ralph's made many connections at our company who he could ask for a letter of recommendation, both because of his work and because he essentially acts like he doesn't want to deal with anyone. His work has been critiqued and corrected and people have been honest with him about that, but I don't think anyone's said anything to him about the importance of personal connections in our business. Is that something one should even say to an intern? I realize that if we wanted to "force" him we could say "Events like these are important for team-building purposes, in the future please let me know sooner so we can coordinate with the other section and make sure you can attend." I don't know if there's any point to doing that, or if it's just one of those things you should let go because (for instance) it had occurred to me that he might be neurodivergent, since I am and no one would know if I didn't tell people.

Victoria,

Several decades ago, I worked with college interns on the college side of things (as opposed to the employer side of things).

My ideas might be very out of date and might not apply to your intern's educational setting.

My own opinion is that it might be a great kindness to Ralph for one of his work supervisors to gently point out the importance of what you think he may be missing out on. (Years ago, that sort of learning about interpersonal skills was an important part of an internship, at least where I worked.)

Is Ralph earning academic credit for his internship? He might have a faculty sponsor and/or an internship coordinator at his university. Depending upon the personalities of those people (and depending upon how much things have changed over the years), they might agree with you and might be willing to  talk with Ralph directly about the interpersonal learning that can go along with an internship.


12
Family and Children / Re: Force Family Awkwardness
« on: January 03, 2022, 06:42:28 pm »
Despedina, how are things now? I'm wondering, now that the business has been sold and the holidays are over, how are people behaving toward one another?

13
Life in General / Re: Unidentified package - It's not rude to ask people if they ordered it for us, is it?
« on: December 11, 2021, 01:11:10 pm »
Thank you to everyone who replied.

The mystery was solved last night (before I took action) when a cousin emailed me that her Amazon account showed that the present she ordered for us had been delivered earlier in the day. My cousin said she wanted to be sure that we had found the package.

I replied with a nice thank you and told her I would have thanked her immediately, except that there was no indication who the sender was!



14
Life in General / Re: Gifting Money . . .
« on: December 09, 2021, 03:18:21 pm »
May I share a long story that shaped how I look upon money gifts?

Long background story: Decades ago my wife and I were newly married, living in a condo and saving money toward buying a house and starting a family.

One of my wife's aunts had just escaped (along with two young children) from a marriage to a violent husband. My wife's aunt had reason to fear that her ex-husband could show up at her door with a gun again, as he had in the past.

My wife thought that a burglar alarm and panic button would be a good idea for her aunt. Her aunt said she had already thought of that and had looked into it. Her aunt said she could afford the monthly alarm monitoring fee, but she just didn't have the cash to pay for the installation of the alarm system.

So my wife and I gave her aunt the money to have the burglar alarm and panic button installed. Her aunt agreed that she would pay the monthly monitoring fee.

A few months later my wife and I were invited to her aunt's home for supper. I looked around, curious to see the alarm system we had paid for, but it was not visible. So, I asked my wife's aunt.

My wife's aunt took me into her kitchen, pointed to her new dishwasher and thanked me for the money to buy the dishwasher. She explained that she had decided she needed a dishwasher more than she needed an alarm system.

I think my wife and I just said, "Oh!" (We didn't get upset but we also did NOT say "That's OK.")

We were newlyweds, we were saving for buying a house ourselves and starting a family ourselves. While we were happy to give her aunt money to use to protect herself and her children from the violent ex-husband, my wife and I would NOT have given her aunt money for a dishwasher!

What I learned: Once cash is out of my hands, I have no control over how it is spent. If I want to be sure money is used for a certain purpose, I need to send the money directly to where it needs to go.

For example, if we had realized that my wife's aunt would mislead us like that, we would have bought her aunt an alarm company gift certificate.

So, to answer the OP's question, if you really want to be sure the money is used for student loans, get the account number and send the payment in yourself, or give your daughter a check payable to the lender for your daughter to send in herself.

Personally, I think it is OK to give a restricted gift, especially if it is for something like paying down student loans or paying down a mortgage.

15
Life in General / Unidentified package - It's not rude to ask people if they ordered it for us, is it? Update #13
« on: December 09, 2021, 02:53:09 pm »
Very minor issue, but I'm curious to know what others think:

My wife and I received a package from Amazon today, addressed to "Snappy & Snappette LT" at our home address. It contains a nice holiday food gift. It does NOT contain a packing slip to say who it is from. (The shipping label, too, does NOT say who ordered the gift.)

I would like to send a thank you note - but to whom do I write?

I managed to get an Amazon employee to call me on the phone to discuss this. The employee at first flatly refused to say who had ordered the gift because Amazon policy does not allow him to reveal who orders gifts.

Then the employee's story changed. He used the tracking number from the package's label to look up the order and then he said the name of the sender was grayed out on his screen so he couldn't see it.

Then the employee's story changed again. He said it was not a gift and that nothing had been ordered to be sent to us and maybe it was all a mistake at their distribution center.

(The Amazon employee's words and his changing story weren't making much sense to me.)

How rude is it for me to contact some friends and relatives to ask if they sent us the holiday food gift?

If a particular relative did not order the gift, would my call asking about a gift lead him or her to think I was expecting a gift?

This is a very minor problem; I'm just curious what others think.



 

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