This is a new one to me. Is using a knife considered bad etiquette when eating Chinese food?
What's worse my family are rednecks and we know better than to ask for knives before we are served.. And don't salt your food before you taste it...
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Yes, normally it is cut so you can eat it with chop sticks.
Chinese food is meant to be eaten with chopsticks, so it's generally cut into bite-sized pieces suitable for chopsticking. Asking for a knife before you've even received your food is basically saying you don't trust the chef to do his/her job right, and that's kind of a dick move in a proper restaurant. It's like if you went to a classy French restaurant and said, "I'd like the boeuf bourguignon, but please bring me some extra salt, I know your chef's not going to season it correctly."
I don't think the problem is cutting it further. After all, if you need the pieces to be smaller for any reason, then it's perfectly reasonable to cut them smaller with a knife. It's asking for a knife before you've even received your food that feels dickish, because it indicates you don't think the chef will cut the food properly.
Guest was upset because I authorized their card $450 for their $376 in (current) charges. I add an extra $50 onto authorizations on their last morning with us just in case they get breakfast. In the end the final total will replace the pending authorization on their card.
Now this guy has been a problem for a few reasons, but we initially authorized about $900 over the last few days because he was damaging and smoking in the room.
Before my shift today he came in and complained that he wasn't smoking in the room and that we authorized him too much and he was getting his account withdrawn. Okay. Well they called his bank, did some stuff, and all $900 of that authorization released. but we never RE-authorized for his current charges.
I come in on my shift and see that he's at a $376 bill with $0 authorized. That's when I authorized $450 to cover.
He comes in and tells me that we just over-authorized again, because the initial $900 in authorizations had not come off yet. This seemed odd but not unheard of. Basically just meant his bank had not received our release authorization yet.
So he gets on the phone with his bank, and the bank rep is communicating with me, and we discover that the $900 in authorizations is no longer on his account. They did indeed fall off.
HOWEVER, this gentleman is convinced they have not because he never received a refund for it. Both myself and the bank teller try to explain to him that's not how it works. That a "pending" charge just disappears if it hasn't been replaced with a formal charge. Your bank account would just reflect the removal of the pending charge.
Didn't matter how I explained it. I even went as far as showing him the math from his own bank account how everything added up correctly. He still was convinced that both myself and the bank rep were wrong.
And all it came down to was this guy just had less in his account than he thought he did.
Now this guy has been a problem for a few reasons, but we initially authorized about $900 over the last few days because he was damaging and smoking in the room.
Before my shift today he came in and complained that he wasn't smoking in the room and that we authorized him too much and he was getting his account withdrawn. Okay. Well they called his bank, did some stuff, and all $900 of that authorization released. but we never RE-authorized for his current charges.
I come in on my shift and see that he's at a $376 bill with $0 authorized. That's when I authorized $450 to cover.
He comes in and tells me that we just over-authorized again, because the initial $900 in authorizations had not come off yet. This seemed odd but not unheard of. Basically just meant his bank had not received our release authorization yet.
So he gets on the phone with his bank, and the bank rep is communicating with me, and we discover that the $900 in authorizations is no longer on his account. They did indeed fall off.
HOWEVER, this gentleman is convinced they have not because he never received a refund for it. Both myself and the bank teller try to explain to him that's not how it works. That a "pending" charge just disappears if it hasn't been replaced with a formal charge. Your bank account would just reflect the removal of the pending charge.
Didn't matter how I explained it. I even went as far as showing him the math from his own bank account how everything added up correctly. He still was convinced that both myself and the bank rep were wrong.
And all it came down to was this guy just had less in his account than he thought he did.
I don't want to quote you because I don't know if that will break someone making it anonymous for you (isn't there an anonymous button) but uh... just my advice.
Assuming the tumor isn't actively affecting her personality, which is a possibility depending on what parts of the brain it's pushing against, what you are seeing right now is how she acts when under stress in a bad situation. And hopefully the surgery is a success and she makes a full recovery, but life is full of stressful bad situations and the way she handles them won't change. If you are looking at this as a temporary thing, it isn't, and you have to weigh that in your decisions going forward.
I'm not saying you should dump someone you're engaged with just because they have a brain tumor. That's obviously pretty callous. I'm just saying, you know... consider things.
Assuming the tumor isn't actively affecting her personality, which is a possibility depending on what parts of the brain it's pushing against, what you are seeing right now is how she acts when under stress in a bad situation. And hopefully the surgery is a success and she makes a full recovery, but life is full of stressful bad situations and the way she handles them won't change. If you are looking at this as a temporary thing, it isn't, and you have to weigh that in your decisions going forward.
I'm not saying you should dump someone you're engaged with just because they have a brain tumor. That's obviously pretty callous. I'm just saying, you know... consider things.
GasBandit
Staff member
An anonymous poster said:
Admins: please make this anonymous. She doesn't post here but I just want to be sure.
I'm putting this in the "minor rant" section because I'm not the one with the condition. The fiancee has been dealing with headaches since late spring. The doctors recommended that she get an MRI but she put it off for a few months because she had always gotten migraines. The headaches got worse and she finally got seen. It turns out it's a brain tumor. It's benign and they're going to operate. In the meantime, she has grown extremely irritable AND she's a terrible patient.
First, the irritability. Before she left for her bachelorette party, she forgot tons of stuff. I didn't teach classes that day so she tasked me with finding all the items she'd left behind and bringing them with me when I picked her up for the airport. Not all of it was there and so she got mad at me. Just the other day I had barely walked in the door when she started harping on about how I wasn't dressed appropriately for cold weather. Ever since she got the diagnosis, and especially as her symptoms worsened, she started to pick fights with me. I know she's upset about other things than my wearing shorts or a loose sock on the laundry room floor. I know that she is living in a state of constant fear and worry right now. So I don't rise to the bait and instead do my part to support her. That somehow makes her even angrier.
And now the terrible patient part. She's from a small town in the Deep South and so she picked up some unhealthy habits regarding how seriously she takes professional medical advice. She put off the surgery until after Thanksgiving because family, family, family. All these family holidays are "SUPER important" to her and so she asked the surgeon to reschedule. I told her I'd be happy with just doing a Friendsgiving at home if it meant getting her surgery sooner but that didn't fly with her.
She met my parents last weekend and it was a good visit. My parents are aware of her medical situation and my Mom (former nurse) really likes her. But two days ago my Dad called and told me that it's not too late to pull out of the engagement if I so choose. He wanted to inform me that there is the possibility of marrying a long-term invalid, and that the sourpuss mood might stick around forever. What I'm thinking is the tumor removal will be a tremendous relief for her so we can go back to normal. At least that's my hope.
Admins: please make this anonymous. She doesn't post here but I just want to be sure.
I'm putting this in the "minor rant" section because I'm not the one with the condition. The fiancee has been dealing with headaches since late spring. The doctors recommended that she get an MRI but she put it off for a few months because she had always gotten migraines. The headaches got worse and she finally got seen. It turns out it's a brain tumor. It's benign and they're going to operate. In the meantime, she has grown extremely irritable AND she's a terrible patient.
First, the irritability. Before she left for her bachelorette party, she forgot tons of stuff. I didn't teach classes that day so she tasked me with finding all the items she'd left behind and bringing them with me when I picked her up for the airport. Not all of it was there and so she got mad at me. Just the other day I had barely walked in the door when she started harping on about how I wasn't dressed appropriately for cold weather. Ever since she got the diagnosis, and especially as her symptoms worsened, she started to pick fights with me. I know she's upset about other things than my wearing shorts or a loose sock on the laundry room floor. I know that she is living in a state of constant fear and worry right now. So I don't rise to the bait and instead do my part to support her. That somehow makes her even angrier.
And now the terrible patient part. She's from a small town in the Deep South and so she picked up some unhealthy habits regarding how seriously she takes professional medical advice. She put off the surgery until after Thanksgiving because family, family, family. All these family holidays are "SUPER important" to her and so she asked the surgeon to reschedule. I told her I'd be happy with just doing a Friendsgiving at home if it meant getting her surgery sooner but that didn't fly with her.
She met my parents last weekend and it was a good visit. My parents are aware of her medical situation and my Mom (former nurse) really likes her. But two days ago my Dad called and told me that it's not too late to pull out of the engagement if I so choose. He wanted to inform me that there is the possibility of marrying a long-term invalid, and that the sourpuss mood might stick around forever. What I'm thinking is the tumor removal will be a tremendous relief for her so we can go back to normal. At least that's my hope.
GasBandit
Staff member
Now my reply - This isn't the first outlandish fight you've had with this fiancee... isn't this the same one who lost her shit because you didn't want to spend your free time working on cars? Sounds like there's a lot of blue collar baggage going on in this girl's brain, even before there was a tumor.
I keep wanting to reply to this. 
Oh shit, I remember that. Coupled with the 'baggage concerning medical advice' this is... red flag city.
GasBandit
Staff member
ANONYMOUS replied:
She is better than most of her demographic when it comes to medical stuff. She still masks up even though she's fully vaccinated. She is usually pretty careful about social distancing and fastidiously washes her hands. Most people where she's from won't take their meds unless they want to, won't heed the doctor's advice when told to quit drinking or smoking, and think Fauci and the medical establishment are trying to wreck their way of life. She also realizes that she lives in the most diverse city in Texas and one of the most diverse in the country. She appreciates the cultural events that are commonplace here, and I've gotten her out of her comfort zone. She never wants to go back to small town life, ever. I think she KNOWS that her life is elevated with me, that she is going to become a professor's wife, and that we're only going onward and upward. But some habits and worldviews are hard to break.
But yeah, I will have to see what happens after the operation. My childhood was filled with verbal and emotional abuse, and I won't tolerate that in a marriage if it continues.
PS - Please keep this anonymous.
Yeah, that's the one. That fight happened soon after her headaches got worse. Come to think of it, this moodiness started around summer, right when the doctor recommended getting an MRI. I'm thinking this is caused by the tumor, and I hope things will return to normalcy once she gets it removed.
She is better than most of her demographic when it comes to medical stuff. She still masks up even though she's fully vaccinated. She is usually pretty careful about social distancing and fastidiously washes her hands. Most people where she's from won't take their meds unless they want to, won't heed the doctor's advice when told to quit drinking or smoking, and think Fauci and the medical establishment are trying to wreck their way of life. She also realizes that she lives in the most diverse city in Texas and one of the most diverse in the country. She appreciates the cultural events that are commonplace here, and I've gotten her out of her comfort zone. She never wants to go back to small town life, ever. I think she KNOWS that her life is elevated with me, that she is going to become a professor's wife, and that we're only going onward and upward. But some habits and worldviews are hard to break.
But yeah, I will have to see what happens after the operation. My childhood was filled with verbal and emotional abuse, and I won't tolerate that in a marriage if it continues.
PS - Please keep this anonymous.
Okay, looking at it now that came out way wrong. What I mean is that she can travel with me to international conferences and our family will be cosmopolitan and worldly. That's what life is like in academia. You meet people from all over the world and pretty much become a global citizen.
It's got nothing to do with economic class. My family didn't have much money when I was growing up. Instead my brother and I became well educated so we could rise beyond the cards we were dealt.
It's got nothing to do with economic class. My family didn't have much money when I was growing up. Instead my brother and I became well educated so we could rise beyond the cards we were dealt.
It's ok..coming from Pasadena, TX myself, I know exactly what you meant. A lot of these small Texas towns, the residents never leave...and at a certain point, leaving is no longer really an option for them. They're places you *escape* from.
There are some small towns like Hearne and Marlin that dot the highway between College Station and Waco. The only well-kept things in the whole town are two billboards. One is a recruitment board for the Marines or Army, and the other shows the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets. If I were a teenager living in those little hamlets I'd be itching to leave as soon as I graduated high school. And most of the kids do leave. They enlist and see the world. Or they go to A&M, UT, or Baylor and work in Dallas, Houston, Austin, or San Antonio after they earn their degree. They never come back to town except to visit.
It still sounds like you don't respect her, or people that come from small rural towns. That you view yourself as higher than her and you are in your own words 'elevating' her. It just... comes across real weird, man. At least to me.
Like I said, it came out wrong. I don't care where people come from originally. What I do care about is if they cultivate themselves. She became the first in her family to earn a college degree and got out. A lot of my students are first-generation. Some of them come from small towns or even unincorporated rural communities. The fact that they are in college means they are trying to better themselves, and that makes them all right in my book. Well, most of them. Some are just there for the MRS degree.
So people from small towns are fine, as long as they go to college and "get out" of those towns? People who don't go to college are worse (by virtue of not "bettering themselves"), and if they just want to get married and focus on family they're not "all right in your book"?
You keep saying that you're not expressing yourself well, but you also keep doubling down on the insistence that academics are better people with better lives than non-academics. Are you sure that isn't actually what you believe?
You make me sound like that law partner in Hillbilly Elegy.
I was just using college as one example. Learning a trade, enlisting in the military, or moving to the nearest city for work can be ways of bettering oneself. If somebody tries to make a life for themselves in a dying town, then I wish them well. But seriously, rural dysfunction is real. A lot of small towns around here look like they belong in a Stephen King novel. I've also gotten the "we don't like yer kind 'round here" treatment in some of them simply for having dark features and not being from the area.
I taught for a Title 1 rural district in East Texas. That meant many of the students were on free or reduced lunches. I had the early college and AP kids. They were bright, motivated, and generally a pleasure to teach. I asked them what they wanted to do after they graduated and their responses were invariably some form of "as soon as I graduate I am SO out of here." I keep in periodic touch with some of the teachers who are still there, and they say nearly all of my former students are now college sophomores in the DFW area and they are thriving. I am honored that I helped prepare them.
I was just using college as one example. Learning a trade, enlisting in the military, or moving to the nearest city for work can be ways of bettering oneself. If somebody tries to make a life for themselves in a dying town, then I wish them well. But seriously, rural dysfunction is real. A lot of small towns around here look like they belong in a Stephen King novel. I've also gotten the "we don't like yer kind 'round here" treatment in some of them simply for having dark features and not being from the area.
I taught for a Title 1 rural district in East Texas. That meant many of the students were on free or reduced lunches. I had the early college and AP kids. They were bright, motivated, and generally a pleasure to teach. I asked them what they wanted to do after they graduated and their responses were invariably some form of "as soon as I graduate I am SO out of here." I keep in periodic touch with some of the teachers who are still there, and they say nearly all of my former students are now college sophomores in the DFW area and they are thriving. I am honored that I helped prepare them.
Dave
Staff member
I’m from a small Iowa town and the “I’m a small town person so that makes me better!” attitude is real and extremely pervasive. In fact, if you leave and experience even a few states over let alone traveling the world, you’re just not as accepted any more. I almost 100% agree with @IronBrig4
It sounds like you guys have some contempt for people, for basically the same trait you are assigning to them - they live different. "I left my small town so that makes me better!" is just as real and just as invalid an attitude. People are just people, they all are worthy of dignity and respect. Yes, they make bad choices or judgments, some worse than others, but I promise you the variety of those choices is what's geographical, not the fact that they are from a particular place, or choose not to go to college, or choose to stay near what they know. No one is one thing.
In a city you might get folks who cross the street when people of a certain race are about, while in the country you get insular groups that are hostile to outsiders - both are bad. You just know how to react and deal with one type of bad better because you've been exposed to it more. The people are the same, they've just been given the opportunity to be jerks in their own special way. NB they have been given the opportunity to be kind and gracious in a different way, too. Small towns might fundraise for someone's cancer treatment because of a everyone-knows-everyone kind of vibe, while in the city you get someone who volunteers at a soup kitchen because there are so many strangers.
In a city you might get folks who cross the street when people of a certain race are about, while in the country you get insular groups that are hostile to outsiders - both are bad. You just know how to react and deal with one type of bad better because you've been exposed to it more. The people are the same, they've just been given the opportunity to be jerks in their own special way. NB they have been given the opportunity to be kind and gracious in a different way, too. Small towns might fundraise for someone's cancer treatment because of a everyone-knows-everyone kind of vibe, while in the city you get someone who volunteers at a soup kitchen because there are so many strangers.
Seriously? I return from my vacation and get hit by a 300€ electric bill AND my washingmachine breaks. What the heck?
I really struggle to understand why that’s necessary. It’s become super common though.
That was my life a few years ago. I was told I didn't have enough experience to work at the dollar store lol
I think that's part of the Great Recession's aftermath. Employers knew there were millions of skilled and experienced people out of work. Employers could afford to be extra picky, which it why they advertised entry-level positions that required fifteen years of experience, a master's degree, and a stellar credit rating.
If people could have told me what was wrong with me, I could have done something about it
