Etiquette and manners
A Tale Of Two Hotels: Same Problem, Different Responses
A couple of weeks ago, I stayed at Atlanta’s sumptuous Lowe’s hotel downtown. I like the hotel a great deal, but room service at breakfast is ridiculous: essentially you might as well order the deluxe pig-out, which could feed a family of three. The way the menu is set up, you pay the over $25 for any other choice and get half as much food. This is primarily because a pot of coffee costs more than ten dollars, and only the deluxe breakfast has coffee included.
Even though all expenses were being paid by the client, I hate this, so I decided to order a couple of muffins (still about $15 without coffee, not counting tax and the automatic service charge) and tolerate the free instant coffee that is offered by the little single cup machines in the room. I was a good plan, but the damn thing wouldn’t work. The water didn’t heat. Annoyed (no coffee, 6 AM, brilliant money-saving scheme foiled), I called the front desk to complain. They sent up a young man—he arrived in about 15 minutes, after the continental breakfast—who fiddled with the coffee machine. It was obvious that he had never seen one before. Eventually he gave up, apologized, and left to get another one. By the time he returned, I had finished most of the muffins, but I made a cup of (lousy) coffee anyway.
Last night, I had to stay in a hotel to make sure that D.C.’s $%^&$#@! Rock and Roll Marathon didn’t stop me from getting to my early morning presentation to new D.C. bar members. The streets around the venue were blocked off, and weird traffic was expected; hard experience dictated the expense was the better part of valor. There was breakfast provided at the bar event, so all I needed was some coffee in my room to wake me up sufficiently so that I didn’t wander onto 14th street and die.
This time, the hotel was the J.W Marriott, and again the little one cup coffee machine didn’t work. Just like in Atlanta, I called the front desk, sounding even more annoyed about the inconvenience than the before. (This was unfair, of course; there is no reason the Marriott should inherit my upset with Lowe’s.) The response from the desk was identical after I described my plight: she would send someone up to my room to check on the machine. Great.
When the knock came and I opened the door, I was greeted by the head of guest services, in a uniform. He had a new coffee machine with him, and also handed me a bag containing two large cups of Starbuck’s coffee, ten creamers, napkins, utensils, and two hot pastries. He replaced the machine after confirming that it was broken, apologized profusely, and took his leave.
Wow.
Now that’s service.
Comment Of The Day : “Incident At Big Bowl”
John Billingsley has been participating here for less than two months, and this is his first Comment of the Day. He explores some of the broader labor, management and cultural issues behind the curtain in my rueful account of inept service at an airport fast food restaurant.
Here is John’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Incident at Big Bowl.”
I believe this is an issue that goes much deeper than it appears on the surface and Son of M and Tom M in their analyses have identified some of the issues at the root of the problem. Son of M said, “I don’t know that people at this level of employment have EVER cared or are ever going to.” There are some who care, and they can be identified when you are served by them, but I agree that most them appear not to. I think this is because our culture overall is not respectful of the people who do those jobs and so they have no reason to respect themselves as a person who performs that work.
I had the opportunity to live in Japan for about two years. That was over 40 years ago, and I still remember the complete professionalism of just about every service worker I encountered. Of course, it is a cultural thing. I wish people who provide services here could develop the attitude that it is not demeaning to be a service worker.
Tom asks, “Why is all of the blame on the employees?” Continue reading
Comment Of The Day: “Gee, Would It Really Have Been So Hard For Democrats And The News Media To Just …Wow.”
Spartan (“Sparty” to her friends) is a D.C. area lawyer and professional woman, was well as the mother of girls. Thus her observations on the travails of women in the Halls of Power have special interest.
Here is Spartan’s “Comment of the Day” on post, Gee, Would It Really Have Been So Hard For Democrats And The News Media To Just To Admit That Rep. Richmond’s ‘The President’s Female Counselor Looks Like She’s Used To Giving Blow-jobs’ Joke Was Wrong, Period? Apparently So. Wow:
I am going to criticize Ms. Conway for a minute, and I hope you all bear with me.
I am a career woman and, in fact, am the breadwinner for my family. Jack’s sister and I probably could exchange endless stories about the challenges of being a successful white collar female. I accept this as a fact in my life and recognize that I am held to a different standard without being bitter or loud about it. I did not wear red and stay home today despite the protest. In fact, I was supposed to be out of the office for meetings all day but deliberately came into the office so there would not be a presumption that I was taking part. I do not wear low cut dresses or stiletto heels. I do not sleep around the office — and never have. Continue reading
Gee, Would It Really Have Been So Hard For Democrats And The News Media To Just To Admit That Rep. Richmond’s ‘The President’s Female Counselor Looks Like She’s Used To Giving Blow-jobs’ Joke Was Wrong, Period? Apparently So. Wow.
Great apology there, Cedric. Ugh.
Why do I think this story is a big deal? I think it’s a big deal because it exposes–
…the white-hot hatred of Republicans by so much of the Left, on the level we have seen with Sarah Palin being attacked for running for office while being a mother, and Martin Bashir on MSNBC wishing that someone would defecate in her mouth, to the extent that they are literally willing to abandon and reject their own alleged core principles…
…calling into question whether they even are core principles, rather than calculated pandering to receptive groups, and thus..
…raising the specter of epic hypocrisy, which is a lack of integrity and honesty.
Then there is this: I have a brilliant younger sister. She is a lawyer, a litigator, a singer, and actress, the hardest working person I know, and someone who has always been able to match or surpass me in every field. Yet I have watched as her achievements have occurred in the teeth of a stiff wind of sexist bias, often making her unhappy, angry, resentful and stressed when she deserved so much better. Growing up with her, it never occurred to me that this kind of prejudice existed until I was the captain of the high school chess team, and saw how the other teams’ players—all male: our team had the only female players (3) in the Greater Boston chess league— were openly contemptuous that a “girl” would presume to challenge them. It was great: my sister slaughtered them. She is a merciless chess player, a killer, and didn’t merely beat her male opponents but humiliated them. She had the best record on the team. Yes, gender bias is personal with me. I hate it.
To briefly recap: Cedric Richmond, an African American Democratic Congressman, leeringly implied, as a speaker at an event, that KellyAnne Conway’s posture in a photo taken in the Oval Office, “really looked kind of familiar in that position there. Don’t answer — and I don’t want you to refer back to the 1990s.” It was a reference to fellatio, and the old, old slur against successful women that they “suck their way to the top.” This was obvious and blatant, and yet when conservatives and Republicans–and only conservatives and Republicans—protested, Richmond, incredibly, denied that his comments had any offensive content or intent. He is a liar.
Then, in the wake of stunning silence of any leader of the Democratic Party, major feminist, major news organizations and liberal pundits, CNN’s Jake Tapper pressed Rep. Richmond’s leader in the House, Nancy Pelosi, to condemn his remarks. She refused, and also lied. One prominent Democrat without portfolio or post, Chelsea Clinton, did condemn that “joke,” which hardly salvages the party’s integrity and honor. Her mother? Madeleine Albright? Elizabeth Warren? Donna Brazile? Michelle Obama? Senator Gillibrand? Maureen Dowd? Rachel Maddow? Anyone? Hello? Bueller?
Crickets. Yet it was undeniable, as one pundit noted, that a Republican who made such a comment about Valerie Jarret would have been “run out of town.” Wrote The Federalist’s Bethany Mandel yesterday,
This “on her knees” comment from a sitting Democratic lawmaker was largely ignored by the liberal media and those who consume it. This comment is just one of many recent incidents of sexism aimed in Conway’s direction, justified because she’s a traitor to her gender, as many feminists have claimed; a female Uncle Tom. Instead of being applauded for her groundbreaking work as a campaign manager on the biggest upset political campaign in American history, Conway is fodder for attacks on her looks and sexuality, often at the hands of individuals who claim to be feminists.Our president may have a history of misogyny, but it’s becoming increasingly clear many of those in the resistance against him are merely fair-weather feminists: happy to wage or at best ignore attacks on women based on their sex because they think it’s fair to attack the president at any cost.
Bingo.
Now comes the next chapter, as those who have exposed their deep hate and corrupting hypocrisy try to worm their way back into the public trust. Continue reading
Incident At Big Bowl
Am I the only one who has weird encounters every single time I travel? That can’t be. (Can it?)
This week, I had a quick trip to Boston (where my heart resides, so I have to visit it) to present a legal ethics program to recently minted lawyers. On the way, I tried to grab a meal at Reagan airport. The flight was at 6:30, and I wanted to eat before I had to get on the plane. I chose an allegedly fast food outpost near my gate, Big Bowl. It was not busy: maybe two people ahead of me, one behind. The order was simple: a “big bowl” of kung pao chicken with white rice, no drink. I paid, and got my slip with the number 555.
When they called 555, it wasn’t my order. They called 549 before that, and it wasn’t right either. All the numbers on all the orders were wrong, and the confusion added about 10 minutes to everyone’s wait, notably mine. Finally, they skipped the numbers entirely, and shouted out the contents of each order. My big bowl had been mislabeled 550, and for a while I had to argue with the customer who had the 550 ticket, until she realized she had ordered fried rice, not white rice.
Meanwhile the employees were just shrugging, giggling and smiling away. “You had the wrong number,” one said to me. “No, you had the wrong number on my order. Why?” She shrugged and smiled.
“That’s no answer, ” I said. “Do you have a system, or not? Can’t you tell me what happened? I was inconvenienced. Part of what I’m paying for is service. Why did this happen?”
Another shrug. No acceptance of responsibility. No apology or anything remotely sounding like one. At this point, a superannuated hippy who looked like she was ready to do a Joan Baez set intervened with a condescending, “They made a mistake. Mistakes happen.” Continue reading
From The “A Nation Of Assholes” Files: Misogyny Against Republican Women Is Justified…And Funny! [UPDATED]
Stay classy, Congressman!
Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-LA) was speaking at the Washington Press Club Foundation dinner, and made the following “joke” about the photo of Presidential adviser Kellyanne Conway kneeling on an Oval Office couch in order to take a photo of President Trump with the heads of the nation’s black colleges:
Directing his remarks to Republican Sen. Tim Scott, who was at the White House event and, speaking before Richmond, had previously alluded to the (stupid, but typical of the manufactured Trump “scandals” of late) controversy over Conway being too casual, or something, by kneeling on the Oval Office sofa by noting that “a whole lot worse” had occurred on that sofa when Clinton was in office, Richmond snickered,
“I really just want to know what was going on there, because, you know, I won’t tell anybody. And you can just explain to me that circumstance — because she really looked kind of familiar in that position there. Don’t answer — and I don’t want you to refer back to the 1990s.”
HAHAHAHA! That’s denigrating innuendo, clear as the prairie skies, suggesting that Conway, because she is a woman, routinely engages in fellatio. It’s a powerful male slut-shaming a professional woman, because Richmond doesn’t like her boss, so she deserves it. The “but don’t answer” makes the statement’s intent clear. This was as obviously an ugly, sexist, misogynist remark as Candidate Trump’s infamous, “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever” in reference to Fox anchor Megyn Kelly. It is another example of the rampant Asshole Virus that has infected, perhaps fatally, the Democratic party, its leaders, and its allies.
More proof of the scope of the epidemic is that no feminist activists, nor Elizabeth Warren, Nancy Pelosi, Kamala Harris or any prominent progressive women, reacted by condemning Richmond—but then he’s a black Democrat, so nobody on the Left will hold him accountable. That’s how they roll, now. It isn’t what you do, it’s who does it.
The Washington Post, which last year meticulously set out to demonstrate that Trump’s ridiculous contention that by “wherever” he meant Kelly’s nose (it was a menstrual joke), naturally glosses over what Richmond said, noting,
“But it seemed to some in the audience that he was making a reference to a sexual act.”
Oh did it? My, what dirty minds some have! It seemed to everyone but dim bulbs and those trying to cover for the smug, partyist, sexist pig (Ah, but a Democratic smug, partyist sexist pig!) that he was alluding to blow-jobs, because of course women with influence and power in a Republican administration could only acquire them by submitting to male dominance by servicing their baser needs. The Post (and its female reporter) disgraces and exposes itself by pretending Richmond could have meant anything else. Then it offers Richmond’s mind-meltingly dishonest explanation without providing a rebuttal or even a metaphorical arched eyebrow. Continue reading
A Very Brief Observation On “A Nation Of Assholes”
As those who have been reading Ethics Alarms over the past year know, I stated repeatedly that the greatest danger in electing Donald Trump President is that his boorishness, rudeness and vulgarity emitting from the very pinnacle of American leadership would coarsen the culture beyond repair, creating a nation of assholes for the foreseeable future. I did not expect the Democrats to get the jump on him, and to embrace asshole behavior as the norm for those who detest the President.
Yesterday, not one Democrat offered the President a hand to shake as he made his traditional way down the aisle in Congress to give his speech. Not one member of the opposition party possessed the courage, decency and respect to concede this minimum gesture of civilization in a televised event. Had Republicans treated Barack Obama like that, the entire party would have been condemned as racist. Well, it was anyway.
Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi had many of the female members dressed in Hillary white, a protest against the election. In Congress. During the equivalent of the State of the Union message. Four months after the election.
The Democratic Party has turned itself into the Asshole Party. Depressing. Disgusting. Despicable.
I’m rushing to a seminar.
More later.
Comment Of The Day I: “The “Transitioning” Female Wrestler: A Failure Of Ethics And Common Sense”
Jeff H, along with Tim LeVier and Glenn Logan, represents the longest commenting ethics observers on this site, their participation going back to the old Ethics Scoreboard. It is always a special pleasure to welcome one of them to a Comment of the Day honor, for, like all who venture into the comment wars, they have done a great deal to provide lively, perceptive and useful content here, and I am more grateful than I can express. (Jeff, a cartoonist, also contributed the drawing of Muhammad as cute Teddy Bear you will periodically see in the side header.
Here is Jeff H’s Comment of the Day on the post, “The “Transitioning” Female Wrestler: A Failure Of Ethics And Common Sense”:
OK. Here’s what I think:
I am the sort of person who thinks a person is whatever they feel they are inside. People like to talk about, ‘well, a transperson will never really be a woman” or whatever. I’ve not got much time for that. I ain’t got it in me to judge people for something like that. As I said to someone who was talking about the ‘perverts’ who dress like women, “Far as I care, I ain’t going to say you’re wrong. You are whatever you say you are. You say you’re a toaster, I’ll give you two pieces of bread.”
That also means that I think that a transperson should use the bathrooms they’re comfortable with. The notion that there are creeps purposely crossdressing to get into the ladies’ room seems basically fictitious. Even if it was true, unless it was to a gigantic density, I don’t see that as a legitimate reason to force them to use a bathroom they’re not comfortable with.
(It’s been going around, but there have been three Republican congressmen arrested for inappropriate conduct in men’s rooms, and they say no transpeople have been arrested for the same. I hope it doesn’t turn out that is HAS happened, but if it had… I think someone would have brought it up by now.)
So this is where I stand on the issue of the transgendered. I try to be as permissive and accepting as possible without being dismissively so. I’m not likely to budge on this, since most of the arguments against it seem similar to the anti-homosexual arguments most of us reject on sight.
Having said this… if Mack is really, in his heart of hearts, a male… then I don’t understand what possible pride he can take beating a bunch of girls at a sport when he’s ALSO taking performance-enhancing drugs. (Aside from everything else, I don’t really care if you have a legitimate reason to take steroids; I think you shouldn’t play competitive sports if you have to take them because they self-evidently give an unfair advantage.) Continue reading
2017 Oscar Ethics Post Mortem
There were more ethics-related events and issues at the last night’s Academy Awards than usual, and that’s an understatement;
1. Jimmy Kimmel, the Oscars’ designated Johnny Carson this time around, automatically gave the ceremonies the stench of ethics blindness by his very presence. Kimmel, as this site has documented, delights in provoking parents to be cruel to their young children so he can present YouTube videos of the kids’ despair for his audience’s amusement. Kimmel, of course, being bereft of shame or decency, was the perfect choice to execute the Academy’s second most important mission of the night, which was insulting the President of the United States in an international broadcast. He did not fail his dark masters. One well-publicized “quip”:
“Maybe this is not a popular thing to say, but I want to say thank you to President Trump. Remember last year when it seemed like the Oscars were racist? That’s gone, thanks to him.”
Actually, the Oscars are racist, or at least racially biased, as we shall see, and there is proof. I’d like Jimmy to show me the evidence that the President is racist, however, other than the “resistance” talking points he gets in his e-mail.
2. More Kimmel: in a typical Kimmel “human beings are just props to me!” bit, he arranged for a group of unsuspecting tourists to be taken on a Hollywood bus tour that ended up at the Oscars. The group was escorted through the back doors of the Kodak Theater with no idea what was in store, as Kimmel had the house lights turned down. When the tourists—Awww, ordinary slobs! Look, Meryl! The little people!”—opened the doors to the stage, the lights came up and all the stars shouted, “Mahershala!” The tourists’ shocked, ope mouthed expression were broadcast live to the world, as their Hollywood betters laughed.
This is called exploitation, and using unconsenting human beings as a means to an end. Jimmy thinks its funny. Kant didn’t. I think it’s sometimes funny, and always unethical. Candid Camera asked for written consent before broadcasting its victims’ amusing reactions to gags like this.
3. Mel Gibson, justly nominated for his direction of “Hacksaw Ridge,” which also was nominated as Best Picture, sat up front. The Daily Beast tweeted “For Shame!” when the film won a statuette for editing, which it deserved. Let’s see: the theory is that the talented film editor should be snubbed for his work because Mel Gibson is an anti-Semite? Yes, that’s the theory. The Beast’s Amy Zimmerman wrote a pre-Oscar hate piece on Gibson, which really and truly contained these two sentences:
Hacksaw tells the story of Desmond Doss, a conscientious objector who enlisted as a battlefield medic during World War II. Of course, any drama that Gibson directs pales in comparison to his own behind-the-scenes odyssey: the story of an odious individual who, after years on the outskirts of Hollywood, has somehow managed to fight his way back into the mainstream.
That’s right: Amy Zimmerman thinks that the story of a religious man who volunteered to serve as a combat medic despite refusing to carry a rifle and who saved 76 wounded soldiers by dragging them to safety under enemy fire by lowering them, one by one, on a rope device he improvised on the spot, thus winning the Medal of Honor, pales in comparison to Mel Gibson’s PR problems.
Have some damn respect for those who did risked their lives incredible things so hacks like you can write garbage like that and be paid for it, you stupid, stupid fool. Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 
It’s always satisfying to post a Comment of the Day from a new commenter on this forum, and such is the case with Mrs. Q. She, like Isaac before her, authored her response to the original post about Andrew Sullivan’s observations on “intersectionality” and its emergenec on the Left as virtual religion.
Here is Mrs. Q’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Catching Up On “Instersectionality,” And Finally Paying Attention”: