courgette

I "own" one of those. My previous employers went under. I asked them several times for a fedex label so I could return their stuff. They never did.

Yep, I got your point and I think you drove it home. I mistaken you for something else.

And I would reciprocate on that drink!

I live in New Orleans those days, social alcoholism is a lifestyle there! I haven't been in Spain in a solid decade. I miss traveling and living in europe. It's so pleasant.

To get back to the subject at hand, I think you gave enough context so I can understand your point. Thanks! It looks that the key is being ex-service industry, and now that you stated it... I do see that behavior of "service-industry hardcore solidarity thought tips" in friends here.

> usually people who work/worked as waiters, bartenders or taxi drivers in America tip much more than other people, because we understand how difficult the job is. But of course, you are not trying to buy love with money.

And I can sense the likability oozing out your messages.

Hi, I’m your neighbor from the other thread. Just above.

I think the issue in your approach is the transactional aspect of it.

“I payed more, now be more nice to me”

At their core, people don’t want to be owned this way.

Hi, I’m sure you would constitute a great bar neighbor :)

I just spend a few minute refining my thoughts on tipping outside the US : I would say it has to do with a relationship with money and the power emanating from it.

Tipping is not expected in most places; and doing it anyway clearly signal that you have some disposable wealth. You can afford to pay even more than the agreed upon price.

There is some “bling” and nouveau-riche aspect to it that will leave people a weird feeling.

For instance : Are you trying to bribe them? Do you think they are too poor to function without your patronage? Are the price/money here just a joke to you?

And then, it become your edge. You are the guy or gal that pay extra. As opposed to be the funny/sexy/mysterious/resourceful person. AKA : El gringo, l’américain, l’americano. ( I’m one of you now, so I can say it :p )

Being seen that way might be a way to attract the wrong kind of company.

I don’t know about casino and hazard games, my passion always has been the dives and the likes.

But you do say something important about establishing contact first.

That’s a great difference in my book.

I still maintain that waving money around FIRST won’t help on the long run. Establishing rapport and discretely paying extra might, sometime, with some people. But being nice and aware of your environment might do just the same.

It’s a US and Canada thing.

I’m 40ish and I gave a type twice in my life in France. Both were exceptional situations were I felt that the normal compensation was not enough and I felt bad for the worker.

And even then.. I might have been influenced in my reaction by a long period spend in the US.

Honest question : how do you think it works literally anywhere outside of Canada and the US?

We have bar and restaurants, too. People working there have kids, mortgage. I would even say that it’s more a “real” job than in the US.

“Real”, in the sense that, in the US, I’ve seen friends in their 40’s switching industry because they want to have kids. While for instance in France their is actual school you go to before become a waiter in the higher end places. Those are jobs were you are well compensated and that you can expect to keep for a while ( with a promotion path )

Where did you travel ?

I had the chance to move around a lot and my social alcoholism made my spend lot of time in seedy places where someone pour out booze.

In all those places, paying more money is just bad taste.

A way to get what you describe is ( in my personal experience )

- smile

- be young and / or attractive

- being visibly in distress

- being polite and patient in the face of another rude customer

- make some jokes, not in English but in the language people speak where you are

- have a dog / a kid

- show that you have some humors and are not an asshole.

With all due respect, paying more and displaying extra wealth is a good way to be classified in the easy to dupe category. In some language due to post WW2 wealth, some folks say “an American” like “do you think I’m American or what ?”

the tax being calculated separately seems suspiciously petty to my French ass.

I’m used to it now, but the only rational I could find by asking around “why is the tax not part of the final displayed price” were :

- “it depends from state to state.” Taxes are also different in Spain, France, Germany and Italy … we use the same currency and we don’t feel the urge to display our taxes by removing them from the displayed prices. Even in places like Andorra, where the tax on Tabacco is close to 0.

- a less common rationale; often find in the libertarian type of interlocutors. “It’s to show what the government is taking you”

Sadly; I think it’s the second one? I’ve ask that question a lot in the last 10 years. People just shrug it as un-important and we move on with the sale.

Or maybe nobody knows?

Thanks for sanity.

I do understand the specific of the US situation, I’ve leave there since the last decade. In a very touristy city to boot, so a large part of my social network rely on tips.

But the lack of awareness from our US friends to understand that they are the exception, not the norm in that particular regard is a bit disconcerting.

I live between France and the US. France has https://www.geoportail.gouv.fr/ and IGN topographic map of every square centimeter of the country. The US has... google map and you can also find some decent topographic map online. It's just way harder to find the paper version. ( must have in my book for hiking and such )

That article actually provide great resources to buy good topographic map of the US. It's been a struggle and a frustration for me.

When I enter a new state, a buy a road map of that state. Then I store it under a seat of my van. Phone battery die, cell signal can be weak. And I can scribble on the map.

It's just a better tool.

Good point. From my pov they can then shove their service up their ass but it’s a valid concern.

Good point. Maybe companies working together? Like teams in a larger corporation.

The inspiration for the coop in the mars trilogy actually exists in the real world.

I think it’s called the mondragon collective and it’s a meta-coop ?

Here is the wiki about it https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

I don’t have time to skim it now but it’s not small potatoes, it’s in the top ten of Spanish coorporation.

If it’s not in the Mars trilogy; it’s in another of Robinson book

Great idea

Alternative are cropping up. I've been testing out solutions with other nerds.

https://www.beeper.com/ is promising. It's set of matrix bridge over 15 chat network or so.

Neat.

As a long term foreigner in your country. Yes. Y'all are incredibly honest. You would NOT leave 20+ credit card under the supervision of an underpay bartender in France. Stuff would happen.

I've been living here 7 years now, I still have to get my credit card abused.

What I had in mind is situation where the bar tender has 20+ credit card behind the counters.

I spend 5 years in startup around 2008, last big recession if I'm correct. What I appreciated of that time is that the mood was considerably less gloom and doom that my peers in large company.

Also... I was under 30 and I was just ecstatic to have a position of most of my time was greenfield projects. ( as opposed to maintain legacy code for crappy clients because of the aforementioned gloom and doom )

I can see small structures with a purpose being a ok time to spend a recession.

Just as a aside : the US is the only country I’ve been where the relationship with credit card is so … relaxed.

My first week here, my conclusion was that people must be either really honest, and that you get refunded routinely.

Nothing to sneeze at, thanks for the feedback. That project and helium are the two crypto stuff I don’t find completely idiotic. ( or that is not finance, finance crypto “works”, too. But that idiotic too )

I’ve seen the market thing play out first hand : my former company was dominant in France ( in a tiny niche market )

But that was bringing just enough to get by. Then we expanded to Italy and Germany with great effort. Each country was a whole new market with different regulations, customer expectations and so on.

We ended up spreading ourself very thin.

In insight, we also made mistakes, but that was not helping that each next 500 deployment was a large, hard to quantify effort.

Very valid nickpick. Thanks, I had no idea.

It’s me freestyling English :)

Just to say that I probably wrong / not very informed.

I think you are correct :)

I work in startup on both side, it’s … different

France had more than ok software company.

Bull for instance. Ubisoft and a bazillion other video game company. Alcatel / Lucent / Thales for industrial stuff.

For the deepness of my ass I would say failure was tree fold :

- France like a good old top down approach. That … mostly don’t work for software.

- France decided to listen to our American friends and sell the familly heirloom to the market. ( I’m bitter on this one )

- France like to do it the “right” way, and that is, of course, the French way. That lead us to build our own internet in the 80’s ( see : minitel ) ( see : point 1 )

I worked for a startup that was based on the fact ( amongst other ) that Sony was making a good hardware product, but terrible software for it.

Mostly the UI, but also weird restrictions on the input / output while it was a 20k professional pieces of hardware in a highly normalized market. ( easy to see that Dolby was NOT restricting it for instance )

We had a good run. Thanks Sony.

Detail : the setup of that industry made it that Sony and other HAD to let some api open for us insects. That was our opening.

Strike. Those two particular issue are really core : election financing and parties creation.

The first one should be harshly reign in IMO. Having strict and enforced limitation on donations works. The proof : crooked politician try to get around it and are sometime getting caught. ( sarkozy, chirac )

Second one is more mechanical: having > 2 parties allow politics to happen.

How is storj going ?