Am I a Cheap Bastard?

KSK is one of my favorite web sites to visit during the day, and waste my company’s valuable time. Of the outstanding posters there, IMO, Big Daddy Drew is the best, hands down. Yesterday he posted a rant about group dinners (linked of course), which summed up my feelings on the whole experience very well. When there is a post I particularly enjoy, I usually scan the comments, and sometimes even through in my 2 cents. But yesterday scanning the comments, I learned something about myself. I am a cheap bastard, or am I?

Somehow the commentators turned the discussion to that of tipping at a restaurant. My feelings on tipping have always been, you start at 15%. Do a good job and the percentage goes up. Hell, go above and beyond, which usually just means making sure my wife is happy, no easy feet, and I’ll really bump it up. But if you suck, I’ll leave something insulting. Disappear for long periods of time (don’t even come back smelling like smoke), let my drink go empty, completely fuck up the order, I’ll give you a buck on a $100 dollar tab.

Look, I’m not saying that I pull out the insulting tip card often. I worked in restaurants; I understand that dealing with customers, when 80% are assholes, sucks. So save me the sob story. I expect not to wait a half hour between sitting down and you taking a drink order, I expect you to stop by early and often to make sure that we have our drinks, our food is right, and I don’t want to wait another half hour from the time I complete my meal to when you show up with the check. This really isn’t asking too much. Honestly, I’m a pretty good customer, I order straight off the menu, I rarely complain about anything, and I get out when I’m done, freeing up the table for your next tipping customer.

Well reading through the comments, it seems that the general consensus is that you should be leaving a 20% tip, minimum. When did this happen? Look, I’m not sweating the extra Lincoln on a $100 meal; it’s not going to break me. But now I’m left to wonder if I have been perceived as a cheap bastard, when I thought I was giving a good tip.

Then I got to thinking about it. At the average place, your server is going to be handling 3-5 tables at a time. Depending on how many people are at the table, and how many drinks they have we’ll call the average tab 100 dollars. And most dinners take an hour. So the server should be pulling down 45-75 dollars an hour in tips. 45 dollars an hour, that’s not a bad wage for a job that requires no education and minimal skill.

Now I know its not actually 45 dollars an hour, most places the wait staff is suppose to tip out the bussers, hosts, and bartenders. But from my experience most of the wait staff are complete bastards when it comes to tipping out. In the restaurants I worked in there was some place where there were envelopes for each person who needed to be tipped out. The wait staff was on the honor system when it came to putting cash into those envelopes. Most of the time you were lucky to have $5 bucks per server put into your envelope.

So lets say you worked the prime dinner shift, 6-10, and pulled in $45 an hour over that period, then you tip out the 2 bussers, the hostest and give an extra Lincoln to each of the 3 bartenders. You still pulled in $145 dollars in tips for 4 hours of work, and you only have to claim 10% for taxes. That’s $130 dollars, or $32.50 an hour, of tax free money. Oh and that’s all at the low end. Chances are the server makes much more if they are at all competent. Hell, when I worked in an upscale restaurant I knew servers who were taking home $500 on a Friday or Saturday night, and the meals there cost half of what they do now.

Now at 20% the server would be looking at more like $46 dollars an hour. Like I said, the five bones ain’t going to break me, but what the fuck makes you think you deserve a $14 dollar an hour raise. You are a middleman between the people who do the actual work and me. You walk back and forth between the computer where you enter my order, the bar and the kitchen, sometimes carrying stuff. That’s it shit for brains. You want a raise get a real job. You’re in school, good I was in school once too, and worked some pretty shitty jobs. Things cost more now, well so does my dinner, meaning that the tab the tip is based on has gone up as well. You have a kid; well you should have used some of that tip money to buy some condoms until you could afford to have a kid.

So no, I’m not a cheap bastard, servers who expect 20% are morons, take the 15% and like it. The tip percentage shouldn’t go up do to the rising cost of living, the higher price of food and drink already took care of that. You want to make more money, get a real job, one that will pay you to write stupid shit on a blog for hours a day. That’s what I did.

Lowered expectations, at least I'm not a Chiefs fan

Whenever I start to bemoan the plight of the Raiders and their fans, I have to remind myself, it could be worse. I could be a Lions fan or a Cardinals fan, knowing that whatever moves my team makes; ultimately it will be the wrong one and whatever fleeting success we have will quickly disappear. With the Raiders struggles in recent years many are trying to shoehorn the Raiders into this clueless losser category.

“Al Davis has lost it, the team will never win as long as Al is in charge.”

Constant variations of this theme are printed in the media, and recited by message board posters. It would be enough to drive a fan insane. Between the reported Kiffen power struggle, the obscene amount of Money paid to has-been and never were free agents, and a WR who gets rolled in Vegas, it would seem like the Raiders have not yet hit rock bottom, but are continuing to spiral downward.

Well I’m not going to lie to you and claim that all is peachy in Raider land. There are issues, and some high priced gambles have been taken. But you can’t say that the team has thrown in the Towel, they are still doing everything they can to win, and win now.

Which brings us to the team in the AFC West who truly is slipping into Lion and Cardinal territory, The Kansas City Chiefs.

I can hear it now “But Brick, the Chiefs are rebuilding, and doing it the right way through the draft, and they just had what is widely regarded as the best 1st day draft of any team.“

Sorry Chief fans, but your team is not rebuilding, they are buying time by lowering expectations. In fact that should be the slogan that the Chiefs plaster all over Arrowhead, the way the Raiders plaster “Commitment to Excellence” and “Pride and Poise” around the Coliseum.

Kansas City Chiefs “Lowering Expectations Since 2003”

The Chiefs looked to be onto something just a few years back, Dick Vermeil was at the helm and the offense was explosive. But everyone knew the weakness was on the D, and the team went years without addressing it. They lead the league in points scored in 2002, but only finished 8-8, the next year they improved on their offense and went 13-3 winning the division for only the 2nd time since 1997. But they failed to force the Colts to punt once in their home playoff game, and the writing was on the Wall.

This aging team had one, maybe two years to take advantage of their aging vets on offense and make a real Super Bowl push. How did they respond, by throwing caution to the wind and going all out to get some defensive players? Nope, they hired Gunther Cunningham (loosing Greg Williams in the process).

At this point the white flag was pulled out of the pocket and kept ready. Keen observers of the Professional game knew this was not enough to get them over the hump. This was a lateral move at best meant to show the fans they were trying, but really doing nothing to improve.

Since that season, Kansas City has become the land of excuses and individual accomplishments. The Chiefs continually prop up their players as some of the best in the Game. Look at Gonzalez, Shields, and Johnson. They are some of the best in the game, and are putting up record performances for the Chiefs.

Hey we were only the 4th team to ever miss the postseason with a double-digit win total in 2005. (To which they responded, not by trying to improve their team, but by trying to change the playoffs).

It was after missing out on the 2006 playoffs following the 10 win 2005 season that the white flag was raised and waived furiously. How do we know that the Chiefs had given up, easy, they hired Herm.

Edwards is not so much a head coach, but rather a deflection machine. The Guy should run spin classes at Ballie’s, not press conferences. In Herm the Chiefs had the perfect figurehead to run their “rebuilding” process.

The Herm era got off to a ignominious start with Trent Green’s concussion week 1, and the season was truly an up and down affair with the players eventually overcoming Edwards inept coaching to make the postseason, where, unsurprisingly, they were eliminated in the 1st round.

So do the Chiefs try to build on the late season success that lead to an unlikely playoff berth? Nope, they jettison Trent Green, and start the Damon Huard/ Brody Croyle debacle. Essentially wasting the final seasons of Gonzalez’s, Shield’s and the prime of Johnson’s careers.

The Chiefs slogged through a brutal 2007 campaign, winning a total of 4 games, after which, the Chiefs proudly announced, “We are rebuilding”. Well if expectations are sufficiently lowered now, you are rebuilding and Herm Edwards is at the controls of your franchise, you are talking to one of those sycophant fans that believe that this year is the year, every year.

The 1st step of the Chief’s brilliant rebuilding Strategy, trading away their best player on defense, the 26-year-old Jared Allen. This is how you rebuild? Trading away your best defensive player as he enters the prime of his career? No, this is how you further lower fan expectations.

Next is the Draft, where the Chiefs select Glenn Dorsey, Branden Albert, and Brandon Flowers on the 1st day, causing Mel Kiper to cream his shorts. Sorry, but other than Branden Albert, this group does not impress me. Dorsey has no discipline; his technique sucks and showed no ability or desire to improve in his time at LSU. Flowers is physical and has good instincts, but he takes too many chances to excel at the cover 2 coverage that Herm loves.

So you give up your best defensive player, gain multiple picks, and get an offensive guard out of all your moves to rebuild. The other picks are lateral moves compared to existing players on the roster.

And how about the key player for any team looking to rebuild, the quarterback, the Chiefs stuck with Brody Croyle. With the plethora of draft picks at their disposal the Chiefs could have grabbed just about any QB in the draft other than Matt Ryan. Instead they choose to ignore arguably their biggest need. That is some rebuilding strategy.

The expectations for the Chiefs could not be much lower at this point. Going into the season you have to expect them to be among the early leaders in the 2009 #1 draft pick competition. But the Chiefs continue to deflect, with Herm complaining about players having deals in place before free agency opens (we lost Jeff Faine…WHAAAA). They ask you to look in the other direction and pay attention to standout sophomore Dwayne Bowe, while the rest of the offense falls apart.

And as a Raider fan looking in, I have to laugh, because as low as the expectations are, the Chiefs have set themselves up to lower them further. If Croyle performs as expected, the Chiefs will be looking for a QB next season. Herm’s job will be safe because everyone knew this was a rebuilding year. Next year they take their QB of the future in round 1. Which gives Herm another 2 years grace to develop his protégé.

You have now lowered expectations to the point of “We may be a playoff team in 4 years” in a league where seemingly every team has a realistic chance of making the playoffs if things fall right as the season opens, the Chiefs have set their expectations at, we could make the playoffs in 4 years if everything falls right.

Which means the Chiefs have set themselves up for three more years of Herm Edwards as coach, in a league where teams can turn things around in one or two season via free agency, the chiefs are working on a 5 year plan that won’t even start for another year.

A five year plan that will depend on the success of a top 5 pick on QB, a pick that has a 50% success rate. A plan that by the time it comes to fruition will require them to find another franchise back to replace Larry Johnson who is already falling apart. Will require them to replace Tony Gonzalez and a compliment Dwayne Bowe, oh and put together an entire defense.

So whenever I feel down about the prospects of my team as a Raider fan, I can always look in division and feel better that no matter how misguided my team may seem at time, at least the management isn’t working hard to lower our expectations of the team. The Raiders will do everything in their power to win games.

Have fun Chief fans; enjoy your lowered expectations and the Herm Edwards/Brody Croyle era.

Dressing for success

Ahhh, lunch, 3.2 minutes to do something other than work (or blog, which by doing at work I am getting paid for). So I check out the usual places on the internet as I leisurely eat a soba noodle salad and a 100 calorie pack of pretzels. Which is just how I eat, I’m not on a diet, diets take motivation, of which I have none.

So while eating this feast of epic proportions I click on CNN to see if any real news made the headlines, or if its all celebrity gossip today. I swear CNN is just TMZ light, actually I hate the fact that I even know what TMZ is, honestly I had avoided it, until I fell asleep on the couch a couple weeks ago and woke up during an episode. Who the fuck watches that shit, why would anyone care that much about Britney Spears? Anyway, back on topic.

So looking around CNN.com, I notice a little T-shirt icon, next to the video icon. Now I’m already annoyed with CNN since half of their content is now video’s, since people are too lazy to read. And since I’m at work, with a company who’s president believes that computers aren’t really necessary in today’s work environment, trying to look at an internet video causes my entire system to crash.

Back to the T-Shirt (damn, this is just one tangent after another, I must not have much real content today). I role my pointer over the Icon, thinking “What the fuck is that?” And the ever helpful description “T-Shirt” pops up. Thanks CNN, I had know Idea that that little Icon could be a T-shirt, short sleeves, no collar, not a whole lot of options left for what it could be.

So now I have a life changing decision to make, do I click on that little Icon and see where it takes me? My company’s web filtering system isn’t exactly logical, and if you hit too many sites that are blocked, you get to have a 1 on 1 with a VP. So I take a look at where the link sends me:
http://www.cnn.com/tshirt/?headline=nowIameditingthisebecausetheactuallinkis8lineslong

Well, its still CNN.com, so I feel pretty safe clicking on the Icon, and I take my chances (that’s right folks, I am a real risk taker).

So what opens up in my browser window? I can buy a T-shirt from CNN that says “Gas Scammers refill rentals with Water” with the subtext “I just saw it on CNN.com” than the date and time. No fuckin way, CNN is trying to sell T-Shirts with their headlines, and the date and time that you clicked on the headline. Not only that, but it is offered in 3 different colors (white, gray and black), men’s or women’s styles with your choice of size. Although CNN does warn you that “These shirts fit snugly. Size up for a looser fit.”. Which really means, you are fatter than you think you are, you need to go look in the mirror, looser. Thanks CNN, even you think I’m fat.

Why the hell would you want a T-shirt with a CNN headline, who the fuck is buying this shit? Why do they have the date and time on there, is their some kind of competition to get the earliest timestamp on your shirt? (edit: nope, its just the time the story was posted). Why can’t I get cool headlines on my shirt? I’d much rather have:

“Lawmakers vow to execute child rapists”
or
“Heather Locklear enters mental hospital”

Than
“Gas Scammers refill rentals with Water”

Why are child rapists and Heather Locklear treated differently than Gas Scammers? Its discrimination I tell you. And anyone who buys these T-shirts is an idiot. Seriously, why would you want to wear one of these things? Are you really so desperate to stick out in the crowd that you would wear a CNN T-shirt. Really can’t you find a better use of your $15 dollars than buying so stupid looking T-shirt. Are you really so into today’s headlines that you want to wear them?

If you want to buy one of these, you are probably one of those TMZ watching loosers who are too fat to wear a snug T-shirt anyway. Wearing this T-shirt isn’t going to make you any less the object of others scorn than you already are. We will still be laughing at you, not with you.

Honestly, if I see someone on the street wearing one of these, Its going to take all of my self restraint not to laugh in their face, hell If assault weren’t so frowned on I’d be justified to punch you in your face just for wearing one. Unfortunately, I’m guessing that at the next company outing at least one of the people I have to deal with on a daily basis will be wearing one, and I’ll be forced into some mind numbing discussion of how clever the T-shirt is.

Well at least I won’t have to hear about little Billy’s latest escapades for 5 minutes.