Memes

There was a burger place in my town that was owned and operated by a bunch of women who called themselves a lesbian collective. It was a great hang and the burgers were very, very good.

They basically operated on this sentiment. If you were a dick, you were out. If you thought they were being dicks, you either adjusted your attitude or went hungry. Dead simple, and it worked. They were thriving.

And I don't mean to make it sound like Patrick Swayze was working the door. It was the exact opposite. Good people running a good establishment serving good food who didn't take shit off assholes. It's surprising how much better a place feels for the customers when the employees get to have their dignity.

Unfortunately, they closed during COVID like most of the mom & pops around here. I miss it so much.

In modern America, smiling is normalised in a way that’s an outlier among human cultures. If someone in Russia smiled as much as the typical American, they’d be regarded as a simpleton, too feeble-minded to have an understanding of the world.

Let that sink in

When my family came to the USA from the Soviet Union, one of the weird things about the experience for us was how friendly American retail staff were. Brighton Beach in NYC is a neighborhood with a lot of Soviet immigrants, and you can still go there and experience retail staff glaring at you because you're creating more work for them by coming into the store.

Because they have the money that pays your salary.

Customer service was part of a social contract. “You make me feel important, and I will spend more money at your establishment.”

That contract was broken a long time ago and now it's overworked, underpaid staff picking up lettuce off the floor because they’ll get fired if they throw it out and Karen recording the new cashier because she miscounted her change.

--Average waiter/waitress in Europe

A good question