- When you arrive at a fully-occupied lot, protocol dictates that you select one row in which to wait, one with at least one unoccupied entrance. If no such row exists, the parking lot can be effectively considered closed. Find another lot, or just continue floating around this one like a transient. Your choice.
- If vehicles are already parked at the end of both rows, there is no acceptable reason to enter it. No reconnaissance missions, either; even if the drivers of both vehicles had somehow both neglected an open spot, you are certainly not entitled to it.
- Once you have settled in the right lane at the entrance of one row, you are queued in that row. If there was already another vehicle waiting at the opposite end, you are queued second, and if not, you are queued first and are thereby entitled to the first space that becomes available in that row.
- If you leave the row after having been queued to pursue a newly-opened space in a different row, you forfeit your place in the queue.
- One's temporary proximity to a given space has no bearing on entitlement, and if, for instance, you are queued second in a row and a space five feet in front of you becomes available, it is your obligation to allow the other vehicle to park. Furthermore, if that vehicle is not signaling or otherwise indicating its intention to park—which should always be done in such situations to avoid unnecessary confusion—it is also your obligation to extend your hand out the window and invite them to park. If they then respond to this gesture by inviting you to park, then they have acknowledged the protocol and are for whatever reason giving you precedence, anyway—in this case, the space is yours.
- Friends don't let friends cut in the queue; the fact that the person leaving happened to be that guy whose stoichiometric equations you always ripped off freshman year endows neither of you the right to make some kind of transaction that transgresses the protocol. A sufficiently angry and observant person will forget neither of your license plate numbers.
- Obviously, during full-occupancy, even if one is temporarily granted through some double coincidence of luck the ability to “pull through,” this maneuver is strictly forbidden.
- No one is entitled to park and wait for spaces that lie off of the main thoroughfares of the lot; these spots are wild cards. If one should happen to open up during a period of full-occupancy, the vehicles that at the time happen to be traveling on said thoroughfare—not vehicles already waiting in a nearby lane—have first rights to it. Otherwise, the lots would frequently be subject to all kinds of ill-advised Dukes-of-Hazzard-style maneuvers.
- If someone elects not to follow these procedures, do not just overreact. If one space has opened, another is likely to follow. This also gives you an opportunity to pen an especially eloquent missive reminding them of their civic obligations that you can then place on their windshield. Be sure to write legibly.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Public Service Announcement
Have you ever been trying to park your vehicle in one of the campus parking lots, and somehow had a space you rightfully deserved stolen by someone who was ignorant of our wordlessly evolved protocol? Have you ever wondered exactly what the rules are? Here are some helpful tips:
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
"Does that look like spit to you?"
Of all our cultural folkways, the most awkward one might be that which dictates we must nestle even more of our hard-earned bills under our plate after we've already paid. How does such a practice begin? And ought we actually to feel any sense of prompting to follow it?
With only a bit of microeconomic conjecture, one can see not only how it came to be standard practice, but how it was entirely unavoidable that it did. Patient zero of the phenomenon—a tired Patriot at some bar in colonial Massachusetts, I prefer to imagine—probably had no idea exactly what he had started when he first flipped the barkeep a penny for his care. But once he began to tip, he could hardly just stop without an explanation, and moreover, likely had no reason to do so; words between the staff are always loose, and thus, chances are that he was always the first militiaman in all of Boston to get his beer. Customers were not the only ones who benefited from the practice, either, nor were they the only ones who noticed. Businesses, too, probably began to notice a sly opportunity to shift at least part of the business of wage negotiation to their servers, with social politesse serving as the arbitrator.
And why will it never, ever disappear? Label it typical American hubris if you must, but embedded in our claim to personal liberty is our need to have control over the economic incentives of our service providers; even if it didn't originate here, gratuity is paradigmatically American. And if we honestly wished to discourage the practice, how exactly would we proceed? Probably by creating some kind of wage structure that shifted some of the burden back onto the business owner, and minimized the role of customer gratuity, right? This would satisfy Mr. Pink, the character in Reservoir Dogs who, as it must be said, was not against tipping for the extraordinary but against tipping for the ordinary. Unfortunately, this creates a different problem of incentives; if tips constituted only a trivial portion of a server's income, that bottomless iced tea would suddenly effectively become a lot less bottomless. We are trapped between our desire for wage control and our abhorrence of wage responsibility.
But should we follow this practice, or do we have a principled responsibility to end it? Certainly, one should never say “tips” are “to insure prompt service;” not only does this false acronym confuse “insure” with “ensure,” it doesn't even seem to actually be the case. Gratuity does not any longer ensure speedy or careful service at all, but has rather become entirely absorbed as a necessary and expected portion of service sector wages. And it is often said—and not just by absurd characters in Tarantino movies—that we should “rebel” in response. But this maneuver is only wanton self-interest masquerading as some kind of civil disobedience. If someone makes the claim to have an ideological objection to gratuity, they've essentially asked to stop being taken seriously.
But there is, perhaps, also a more final and pragmatic reason to tip: to adopt the non-tipper's stance is only to be cavalier with the livelihood of those who behind closed doors prepare your food, and thus, to be cavalier to your own. (Throwing an economic tantrum might temporarily alleviate one's righteous indignation, but it certainly won't actually do you the slightest bit of good; for a broader discussion of this, just read Steve Dublanica's thoughtful and captivating weblog “Waiter Rant.”) Like our frightening discovery of microscopic bacteria in the nineteenth-century, the servers are our bosses and they always have been, rather than the other way around.
With only a bit of microeconomic conjecture, one can see not only how it came to be standard practice, but how it was entirely unavoidable that it did. Patient zero of the phenomenon—a tired Patriot at some bar in colonial Massachusetts, I prefer to imagine—probably had no idea exactly what he had started when he first flipped the barkeep a penny for his care. But once he began to tip, he could hardly just stop without an explanation, and moreover, likely had no reason to do so; words between the staff are always loose, and thus, chances are that he was always the first militiaman in all of Boston to get his beer. Customers were not the only ones who benefited from the practice, either, nor were they the only ones who noticed. Businesses, too, probably began to notice a sly opportunity to shift at least part of the business of wage negotiation to their servers, with social politesse serving as the arbitrator.
And why will it never, ever disappear? Label it typical American hubris if you must, but embedded in our claim to personal liberty is our need to have control over the economic incentives of our service providers; even if it didn't originate here, gratuity is paradigmatically American. And if we honestly wished to discourage the practice, how exactly would we proceed? Probably by creating some kind of wage structure that shifted some of the burden back onto the business owner, and minimized the role of customer gratuity, right? This would satisfy Mr. Pink, the character in Reservoir Dogs who, as it must be said, was not against tipping for the extraordinary but against tipping for the ordinary. Unfortunately, this creates a different problem of incentives; if tips constituted only a trivial portion of a server's income, that bottomless iced tea would suddenly effectively become a lot less bottomless. We are trapped between our desire for wage control and our abhorrence of wage responsibility.
But should we follow this practice, or do we have a principled responsibility to end it? Certainly, one should never say “tips” are “to insure prompt service;” not only does this false acronym confuse “insure” with “ensure,” it doesn't even seem to actually be the case. Gratuity does not any longer ensure speedy or careful service at all, but has rather become entirely absorbed as a necessary and expected portion of service sector wages. And it is often said—and not just by absurd characters in Tarantino movies—that we should “rebel” in response. But this maneuver is only wanton self-interest masquerading as some kind of civil disobedience. If someone makes the claim to have an ideological objection to gratuity, they've essentially asked to stop being taken seriously.
But there is, perhaps, also a more final and pragmatic reason to tip: to adopt the non-tipper's stance is only to be cavalier with the livelihood of those who behind closed doors prepare your food, and thus, to be cavalier to your own. (Throwing an economic tantrum might temporarily alleviate one's righteous indignation, but it certainly won't actually do you the slightest bit of good; for a broader discussion of this, just read Steve Dublanica's thoughtful and captivating weblog “Waiter Rant.”) Like our frightening discovery of microscopic bacteria in the nineteenth-century, the servers are our bosses and they always have been, rather than the other way around.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Why Vote?
As I completed my ballot last week—absentee from Leawood, mostly but not entirely for Democrats, with many minor elections left blank—I began to mull over whether I was fulfilling a genuine obligation or just engaging in a kind of civic masturbation. Do we, as responsible members of this republic, have a citizenly duty to vote? And if we do, on what grounds ought we to feel compelled to exercise it?
One justification often given by people of a vague righteousness is that we must “uphold the process.” Of course, this is strictly true; someone must vote, or the notion of functional democracy vanishes. But this isn't actually much of a systemic concern, because someone always does. In fact, certain constituencies (the financially interested, the policy wonks, and the culture warriors) always vote. And why wouldn't they? Their unique diligence usually allows them to have it their way. It's a curious idiosyncrasy of our collective political personality that we require prompting to act in our own self-interest.
But those notorious demons haunt us—especially those who find themselves electorally disenfranchised—with words of discouragement. “You have no voice, and you never will,” they whisper in our ears, or perhaps, “You're always voting for hegemony no matter which way you pull the lever.” (The latter, of course, is only the paranoid version of the omnipresent “write-in” crowd.) They dare us to eschew the long lines and the propaganda and the misery, and to allow history to wash over us as observers, rather than participants.
Unfortunately, although these aren't sufficient excuses to stay home, their rejection doesn't exactly provide moral impetus to vote, either. We have been bestowed the option—in financial market jargon, the right but not obligation—to voice our opinion, and such an option includes the privilege of silence. But while there might occasionally be good reasons to abstain, we mustn't forget that this decision is itself a rational choice for which we can be held accountable. It's a right every American is free to exercise, but one he shouldn't thoughtlessly, for if he does, he has forfeited not his right to be a pundit—anyone with a bit of wit and a winning smile can become such a creature, admits your columnist—he has forfeited the right for his commentary to be taken seriously, both by others and by himself. Joseph Schumpeter was fond of saying that the ballot is stronger than the bullet, but why the separation? History is overrun with examples of one being used as means to the other. To these designs, we owe if not the pull of the lever for one shill or another, then an abstention rooted in care and decisiveness rather than a yawning laziness and apathy.
But we should, further, positively desire to lend our voices to the chorus. We should never allow our faculties of opinion to atrophy. We should never allow the capricious cultural zeitgeist built on the shoulders of others to command our own whims. We should never stifle or mute our outrage and indignation at injustice. We should never tire of persecuting our leaders, holding them to the fire and enjoying watching them burn; it's good for us, but it's not bad for them, either. And perhaps most of all, we should never forget what it felt like to be without a voice, without the right to protest for one, and without the hope that we ever could.
These aren't the virtues of a contrarian; they're those of a democrat. Vote or don't—it won't be the worst reason you've ever skipped class—but do so not for the process, but for yourself.
One justification often given by people of a vague righteousness is that we must “uphold the process.” Of course, this is strictly true; someone must vote, or the notion of functional democracy vanishes. But this isn't actually much of a systemic concern, because someone always does. In fact, certain constituencies (the financially interested, the policy wonks, and the culture warriors) always vote. And why wouldn't they? Their unique diligence usually allows them to have it their way. It's a curious idiosyncrasy of our collective political personality that we require prompting to act in our own self-interest.
But those notorious demons haunt us—especially those who find themselves electorally disenfranchised—with words of discouragement. “You have no voice, and you never will,” they whisper in our ears, or perhaps, “You're always voting for hegemony no matter which way you pull the lever.” (The latter, of course, is only the paranoid version of the omnipresent “write-in” crowd.) They dare us to eschew the long lines and the propaganda and the misery, and to allow history to wash over us as observers, rather than participants.
Unfortunately, although these aren't sufficient excuses to stay home, their rejection doesn't exactly provide moral impetus to vote, either. We have been bestowed the option—in financial market jargon, the right but not obligation—to voice our opinion, and such an option includes the privilege of silence. But while there might occasionally be good reasons to abstain, we mustn't forget that this decision is itself a rational choice for which we can be held accountable. It's a right every American is free to exercise, but one he shouldn't thoughtlessly, for if he does, he has forfeited not his right to be a pundit—anyone with a bit of wit and a winning smile can become such a creature, admits your columnist—he has forfeited the right for his commentary to be taken seriously, both by others and by himself. Joseph Schumpeter was fond of saying that the ballot is stronger than the bullet, but why the separation? History is overrun with examples of one being used as means to the other. To these designs, we owe if not the pull of the lever for one shill or another, then an abstention rooted in care and decisiveness rather than a yawning laziness and apathy.
But we should, further, positively desire to lend our voices to the chorus. We should never allow our faculties of opinion to atrophy. We should never allow the capricious cultural zeitgeist built on the shoulders of others to command our own whims. We should never stifle or mute our outrage and indignation at injustice. We should never tire of persecuting our leaders, holding them to the fire and enjoying watching them burn; it's good for us, but it's not bad for them, either. And perhaps most of all, we should never forget what it felt like to be without a voice, without the right to protest for one, and without the hope that we ever could.
These aren't the virtues of a contrarian; they're those of a democrat. Vote or don't—it won't be the worst reason you've ever skipped class—but do so not for the process, but for yourself.
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