Bad Tip in Dusty Wallet

Garry,
I liked "Tipping tips from the gratuity guru" published Friday, September 25, 2009 -- except for the Dusty Wallet tip at the end. I'm glad you consulted Stephen Dublanica and mentioned his book, Waiter Rant; which I read recently and enjoyed.

However, the Dusty Wallet tip about buying yourself gift cards to avoid tipping does a disservice to servers. I assume you intended it as a joke because it is obviously incorrect when you think about it, but unfortunately many people will not realize this because who has time to think these days? Why should servers not receive a tip on the portion of the bill paid by a gift card? "The food and service industry seems to have no mechanism yet for deducting a tip," does not mean the server does not deserve a tip nor that you do not owe one. The food and service industry doesn't (normally) automatically deduct a tip from cash payments of any kind, but you still tip. And if for some technical reason a tip can't be paid from your gift card, then give cash for the tip.

Regards,
David Ellis

Updated September 30, 2009
Received the following prompt reply from Gary Marr, the author of the "Tipping Tips" article:

Thanks for reading.
The Dusty Wallet is always a bit tongue-in-cheek. I was talking about Starbucks and places like that. I wasn’t condoning it but when you use your gift card there, there is no mechanism for a tip. For now.
The tipping topic has generated no end of comments. I wish I had the definitive answer on tipping! I don’t.
Cheers,
Garry

Perhaps I took the Dusty Wallet tip too seriously. I'm sure no harm was intended but I'm afraid many readers are all too ready to rationalize not tipping or tipping less than a fair amount. I wish the institution of tipping did not exist, because it confuses and embarrasses me. But because it does exist, service workers depend on tips to make a living wage.

Photoshop warnings mandatory?

France Set to Regulate Airbrushed Pics

Five Points About Jonah

1. The story of Jonah is "The only case of a prophet being sent to the heathen [i.e. non-Hebrew people]."

2. "Jonah was the only prophet in the Bible to REJECT God’s call."

3. A great fish swallowed Jonah, not a whale. Perhaps people called whales fish in those days. In his great novel Moby Dick, Hermann Melville writes, "In his System of Nature, AD 1776, Linnaeus declares, 'I hereby separate the whales from the fish.' [but goes on to declare] Be it known that, waiving all argument, I take the good old fashioned ground that the whale is a fish, and call upon holy Jonah to back me." (Moby Dick)

4. Why did Jonah disobey God at first and try to escape on a ship as far as possible in those days? We may assume he was afraid of getting a hostile reception in Nineveh, but this is not what Jonah says. Jonah says to God, after God has shown mercy on the people of Nineveh and thereby falsified Jonah's prophesy of doom, "O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. 3Now, O LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live." (Jonah 4:1) Jonah wanted to be right about the impending destruction of Nineveh. He would rather be dead than wrong.

5. The name 'Jonah' means 'dove' in Hebrew. Remember the first time Noah released a dove from the Ark to find dry land after the great flood? Finding no place to rest, the dove returned to the Ark. Throughout the story, Jonah resembles that dove in his constant search for someplace to rest, or to hide, or to take shelter within, or underneath.

Waiter Rant by Steve Dublanica

I liked the first few and the last couple of chapters the best so I can see why some reviewers say the book has too much filler. But this short book grabbed and held my attention from the first page to the last.

I don't mind the pensive parts where he tells us what he thinks about, and I don't mind that the stories the book tells include an account of why the author has worked so many years as a waiter in spite of his college education and higher aspirations.

Some people don't like that the author sometimes acts like a jerk as well as a hero. I think that anyone working long hours in a stressful job without enough sleep will find that they are not always on their best behavior. But he tries to do the right thing and his model is the fictional detective Philip Marlowe who, according to author Raymond Chandler, "... must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world." (http://www.thrillingdetective.com/trivia/chandler.html accessed on September 10, 2009 at 15:45)

Overall, I liked this short, informative and entertaining book a lot and hope the author continues to discover and explore his talents.

Steve Dublanica started a blog at http://waiterrant.net/ about his travails as a waiter but maintained his anonymity until well after his book appeared. Since then he has appeared on Oprah and several other television shows. Here is a link to an interview in the Los Angeles Times.

Bath Time In A Tough Neighborhood

Although I have never read any of Anthony Burgess' novels, I picked up the first volume of his memoirs for 50 cents at a book sale and found much to like. He grew up in northern England in the Lancashire region, which is where one of my grandfathers came from. Some of what he writes about the dialect, food and way of life remind me of things my father used to tell us. Here is one little anecdote I liked from page 23 of Little Wilson and Big God:

Lodge Street was a tough street in a tough area. I had moved a short way south from my birthplace to the northern segment of Miles Platting, with Collyhurst to the west, but the Queen's Road where my mother had shopped was the tram-clanging artery which fed all these districts. I was in an ugly world with ramshackle houses and foul back alleys, not a tree or a flower to be seen, though Queen's Park and a general cemetery were available to the north-west if a breath of green was required. If the beer-intake of an urban area is an index of its prosperity, then Miles Platting was not badly off, but heavy patronage of the Golden Eagle often meant neglect of domestic responsibilities. A husband came into the public bar one evening in need of his pint. He was shaken. His wife, dead out from a debauch with her cronies, had left the bathing of the children to him. He conscientiously suiced them all in a tin tub, dressed them for bed, then asked one girl: 'Where's your nightdress, love?' The girl said: 'I don't live here.'

Just read "When Wonder Replaces Hope" on The Rat Race Trap

When Wonder Replaces Hope is a great post about how letting go of our expectations and attachment to outcome empowers and liberates us to act more effectively, while "taking the pressure off the future."

I have one caveat and that is that sometimes we have to use the word 'hope' instead of 'wonder' to express our support for the fortunes of someone else. For example, if someone has an accident the least I can say to them is that I hope they're not hurt. Saying, "I wonder if you are OK?" doesn't manage to express the sympathy and concern I wish to convey. This is similar to the fact that we use words like 'happy' and 'sad' in at least two senses:

1.A public sense, to express our solidarity and support for someone's situation (I'm happy that his daughter won a scholarship and sorry that her grandmother died) and...

2.A private sense, as an expression of my personal feelings and mood (sometimes I'm happy, sometimes I'm blue).

HP says use QuickPlay for webcam. QuickPlay ignores webcam.

I reached this link by searching for the model number of my HP notebook computer, which is Model #G60-230CA. I wanted to test the built-in HP webcam-101 with Quickplay because the only HP Quickplay program I can find on this computer shows CD and DVD functions only.

The instructions on this page assume I have a Pavilion computer, which I do not. I keep searching for model # G60-230CA and keep getting instructions for the Pavilion computer which tell me to "Press the QuickPlay button (normally located near the display.) There appears to be no Quickplay button on this computer. The instructions suggest as an alternative that I click Start and type 'QuickPlay'. This tells me "no items match your search."

I can sometimes stumble upon an HP QuickPlay program on this computer (I don't remember how). But when I do start it I see no place for selecting video sources. The only source is the LightScribe DVD player. QuickPlay does not detect the webcam.

The instructions also say

If you change the operating system on your PC and the HP webcam no longer functions properly, then you will need to un-install the webcam drivers, and download and install the correct drivers for the operating system that you are using. Look on the HP Drivers and Downloads page for the specific model and operating system.

I don`t want to re-install drivers because I have not changed the operating system. This computer came from the store with Windows Vista Home Premium installed.