Musings About Chicago Diners

The first time I went to Deluxe Diner, I was impressed. It had received some bad reviews, so I didn't set my expectations too high. What I found was a classic Chicago diner with great diner food. Rather than having bad service, I had a perky, young waitress that was very on top of things. It quickly became a regular haunt.

Over time, the food remained the same, but the service wavered. We started going every weekend. One of our waiters was good, and for awhile he was always there, but that became less predictable. The perky waitress from our first visit began to seem moody and unhappy. For example, one time, she hastily doused my french toast with powdered sugar and slammed it on my table--not because I had said anything to offend her but because her replacement was ten minutes late and she was pissed that she had to stay late. We heard her blow up at some co-workers as well. On another occasion, she waited on us and was again cheerful and helpful. She did forget one of the items from my husband's order. It was a small item, so he didn't say anything. When it showed up on the bill, though, he pointed out that he hadn't received it. She fixed it, although she was very expressive in her frustration.

The next time we went in there, she was gone. We don't know if she quit or was fired, but we have not seen her since. We met her replacement, who was a nice enough fellow. He seemed very on top of things. We enjoyed our meal and the tip reflected that, as it generally does. That same day, I noticed that there were no women working. I went in to use the bathroom. It was...disgusting...as in, toilets used with no water in the toilet, stuff building up over what looked like a long span of time...type of disgusting. After throwing up in my mouth a little bit, I wondered if perhaps none of the males went on bathroom clean-up duty in the women's bathroom.

After that it was a few weeks before we went back. Initially, I thought, well, if that is what the bathroom is like, what is the kitchen like? Plus, the visual was hard to shake. I began to rationalize it, thinking, well, maybe it was a timing issue, maybe it was a bad day, I don't know that the kitchen is in bad shape and think about how many times I've eaten at Chicago diners only for them to get shut down by the health department. I've never heard of this place getting shut down by the health department, so it must be okay. Really, though, I just liked that it was close by and had good french toast. So, first, I went back but waited to use the bathroom until I was out of there. The time after that, I saw two waitresses, so I braved it (it appeared to be clean).

Yesterday, we were going to go, but it was unusually busy with techno blaring, so my husband and I decided to go elsewhere. We wanted to get our Deluxe fix, so we went by today. We had the same waiter that had been so nice when he first started there. Our order was taken promptly. Then, we waited. And waited. And waited. I looked over at the food pick-up area periodically. Mostly, he was back there hanging out. He never stopped by, never said anything to us about our food coming. My husband, usually more patient than I am on these matters (or is it less neurotic than I am? A little from Column A, a little from Column B?) also started to look antsy. Whenever we looked, though, our waiter wasn't doing anything and never came near our table. (There were two servers working and it wasn't particularly busy in there. It wasn't quite a lull, but was about five minutes away from being one.) Finally, the manager came by and asked if we were waiting on food. He went over to our waiter. A few minutes later, the manager came back and said our food would be right out. Five minutes later, the waiter came by and said, "it will just be a few more minutes." I asked very matter-of-factly if he'd forgotten to place our order. (A reasonable question, since it was going on forty minutes for a basic breakfast order, and neither my husband's order nor mine had come up in that time.) He denied that, but copped a bit of an attitude, and argued about why it shouldn't be a problem, before storming off. A more appropriate way to handle it would probably have been to ask me if I'd like to speak to a manager.


I looked on Yelp later. Over the past month, other people have complained about their orders being forgotten for long stretches of time until they reminded the server, only for the food to then be hastily prepared. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same server. When I see things like this happen, I always wonder if it's a problem with morale at that place or if it's a problem with youth and inexperience. This might be another "A little from Column A and a little from Column B" scenario. I do think that there are a lot of younger, less experienced servers but that might also be a by-product of it being an unpleasant place to work, since more seasoned servers would quickly move on to greener pastures. The less experienced servers probably stick around with the intention of building up experience, until the place starts to make them a little bit crazy. I'm not sure if it's a case of management greatly overworking the servers or if it's a case of there just not being a lot of money to be made due to all of the college students in the area. After all, the tipping system only works if most customers abide by it (See this guide to tipping). Whatever the case, there's something wrong there that makes the waitstaff become really reactive after awhile. I can't say I'll never go back (I really like their french toast) but I think we're going to take a break until at least the spring to try out some other places. Once I do, it will probably only be an occasional thing and not our default regular breakfast place.

The Latest in the Redbubble Saga

If you haven't already seen my other posts about my first experience with Redbubble go here and here.

So, it appears my t-shirts have, at long last, shipped. I received an email from Redbubble letting me know that they shipped today. (Technically, a UPS shipping label has been created and they will soon be on their way.) I'm going to wait until the items get here to make a final determination, at which point I'll do a follow-up post and link all the Redbubble posts to one another. Still, even if I love the shirts, I doubt I'll order from them again. Why? The unfortunate admixture of a questionable reputation with some objectionable policies.

One of the most anxiety-provoking things for me is having to fight my way through a bureaucratic mess for things that should go smoothly but don't. I hate knowing that something should be happening but dealing with people that have a pat response or standard rule book that gets cited mechanically. I hate having to fight through a dozen or so CSRs to get to a good one. I hate how when these things happen, I often have to wrangle with separate bureaucracies. I like when things run smoothly. If they can't run smoothly, then I want to at least know that the people I need to contact will be concerned, competent and helpful. If I can't count on the predictability of the interaction, if I can't count on things running smoothly and efficiently, I would rather get a lesser product or do without than risk getting embroiled in a huge hassle. Imagine if there were an ATM near your house that sometimes spit out the requested amount of money but sometimes didn't give you your money while charging your account. Perhaps you were able to get your money back, but only after a few long and annoying calls to all relevant parties. After one or two instances of this, you'd probably expend the effort to go to a less convenient but more reliable ATM, right? Well, that's how it is for me with online businesses. I'd rather a business that's more reliable but less convenient.

Now, you may be thinking "Sure, but it's Christmas. You have to expect this sort of thing to happen at Christmastime." That's just it, though. If I have to expect this sort of thing at Christmas, I simply won't buy from online stores at Christmas. Simple as that. This Christmas seemed to be particularly bad. I'm not sure why that is. I think a lot of businesses were having massive sales to compete with the larger chains and/or not hiring seasonal staff to help with the high volume of orders. Still, I heard more people complaining about their experience shopping online than I can recall ever hearing before. I know I had problems with two separate t-shirt companies, as well as an Amazon order with missing items. My husband also had to return one of my gifts, since the wrong item was sent. Additionally, I've heard a lot of people grumbling about even otherwise reputable companies taking a disconcertingly long times to ship items. Not only does this cause companies to miss an important window for attracting potential regular customers, but it may also make people less likely to shop online in future holiday seasons. After all, a big appeal of online shopping is the convenience and the corresponding reduced stress. If that's lost, what do you have?

Acrimony and Facebook

I'm not really the "go along to get along" type. I've always been someone that is passionately opinionated and, if I feel strongly, can be quite vocal about my views. As a teenager, my mom thought I should become an environmental lawyer due to both my strong convictions and my predilection for arguing. Still, I generally think there are certain rules that apply. You don't attack the person, nor do you attack whole groups of people/entire sets of beliefs. For example, suppose you oppose a certain practice (or practices) within the Catholic church. It's okay to critique these practices. It's not okay, however, to do a global trashing of Catholicism...and if you happen to be debating the subject with someone that is Catholic, you never, ever bash on them personally for believing what they do. This principle encompasses a wide range of things, from politics to differences in aesthetic judgment. Formulate a good but civil argument if you feel strongly about something. You can point out flaws in the argument, as long as it doesn't deteriorate into attacking the person. If you can't approach the person in the discussion with respect, that's a red flag that this is not a discussion you should be engaging in.

Still, I've noticed these basic rules of respectful engagement seem to be going out the window, particularly on Facebook. I guess it all started a couple of years ago. When Occupy Wall Street happened, it hit Facebook full force. People (for, against and somewhere in-between) were sharing news articles and photographs. Facebook had become political. This continued to build and seemed to really peak around the time of the election. News reports of mass unfriendings were all the rage. Everyone was talking politics on Facebook and people were dumping friends and relatives as a result.

People have always argued on the internet, but Facebook has been unique for two reasons (1)the boundaries between real life and the internet are more permeable than they have ever been and (2)American society* has entered a new era of intolerance. A decade ago, if a disagreement online got ugly, you had the advantage (in many cases) of the person being a user name and icon and little else. These days, though, the person insulting you may be someone you've known for years. They could be a co-worker. You could realize that the old college roommate thinks everyone with your spiritual beliefs(Christianity, Paganism, Atheism, etc) is morally and/or intellectually flawed. You can't not take it personally. There's no telling yourself that HotBabe39859394 is really probably a forty year old guy that works at 7-11 and lives in his mom's basement. This is someone that you've grabbed drinks with and talked about life with, and suddenly,they seem willing to trash this whole history because of a status update or shared link or blog post. Or you're ready to trash the whole history because you can't quite convince yourself that the insults they've heaped on you are based on this difference of opinion alone.

It may very well be the case that it really is just because of this one difference of opinion. If you follow the politics of the US, we have become very marginalized. Different viewpoints are no longer even tolerated. Whether those viewpoints are related to politics, art, music or spiritual beliefs doesn't matter. We've become very factionalized and the idea that you can value the person while respectfully disagreeing seems to have flown out the window. In a social situation, if it seems to be getting volatile, one might find a way to sidestep the discussion. On Facebook, though, others' opinions are up in your face pretty much constantly, both in terms of their posts and their responses to your posts. It has become a way for a factionalized culture to bring the conflict front and center.

I would never unfriend someone from Facebook because of their beliefs, although I would unfriend them if they persisted in disrespectful behavior. I'd let them know that they were crossing the line first and give them a chance to chill out, of course, but if they just ignored my concerns then I'd feel justified in removing them. To me, this only makes sense. If someone came over my house and started personally insulting me, spiritual beliefs or social skills they would be unlikely to be invited back. I see no reason why social media should be any different.



*My focus for this blog post is restricted to American society since that's my frame of reference. I'm not trying to overlook Facebook users from other countries, I just don't feel qualified to offer an analysis of social media in other cultures.

On Judgment

When one person makes judgment on another person's behavior,beliefs, attitudes, appearance or lifestyle, this usually falls into one of two categories.

I. Authentic Judgment

Authentic judgment here simply refers to the extent to which a person's actual emotions correspond to their expressed emotions. Within authentic judgment, there are two subcategories:

A)Enmeshed Judgment

This is probably the nicest kind of judgment insofar as the person's heart seems to be in the right place. This is the sort of judgment we make when we see someone is doing something bad for them, and, due to our intense involvement, make judgments about the behavior in the form of very strong opinions about what they should or should not be doing. For example, if we have a friend that is in an abusive or exploitative relationship, and we find that we can't not speak up, and maybe are even a little bit blunt about it, but it's done out of our deep concern and involvement with our friend's life, that's enmeshed judgment. It can be suffocating at times, and perhaps even a little bit co-dependent, but the person's heart is in the right place.

B)Value Judgment

Less generous, but still an authentic judgment, is when we judge others based on our own values. So, if we judge someone for giving up their pet because we believe that pet responsibilities are of vital importance, that's a value judgment. It can come off as a bit harsh at times. It is authentic because the person making it really feels that way.

II. Judgment As a Mask

This is when someone expresses a value judgment but the behavior is really eliciting some less socially acceptable emotion, such as self-interest or jealousy. For example, judging someone for a lifestyle choice can be a way of masking jealousy. Another example would be criticizing someone else's principled action as immoral or inappropriate not because the person really thinks this way but because the two parties are working at cross-purposes in some way. One instance of this might be a reporter who is discouraged from doing an expose on a corrupt practice (say,on the grounds that a lot of job loss will occur if they do) when, in fact, the editor has a family member involved in said practice.* They cannot simply say that they have a conflict of interest, so it gets couched in moral language to make the more idealistic person feel like they're the ones doing something immoral. The intent is to make the person stop doing the thing contrary to the other party's self interest through the instilling of guilt and self-doubt.

The really insidious thing about this is that the more idealistic you are, the more susceptible you'll be to this. People of a more cynical bent will be more attuned to motive, and to the possible disparity between spoken words and actual intent. To those who are more trusting, it can easily be mistaken for I-B.




*This may only happen in the movies, I'm not sure. I was trying to think of an example that would get the point across clearly without being self-referential. That was the best that I could come up with.

Apparently, I'm not the only person with Redbubble Problems...

So, after my last post about Redbubble, I decided to do some searching on the internet. I guess they have a reputation for screwing over artists as well as their customers. On a site called Complaint Board they get substantially more complaints than their competitors (even Cafepress. And no, the irony of that is not lost on me.)In fact, there is even a Facebook page dedicated to letting people know about Redbubble's questionable practices.

Now, the internet is a lot like gossip. One or two people, or a group of people that hang out together, and the information is questionable. However, a number of unrelated people all with similar complaints--extremely long wait times, poor product quality, deleting customer complaints on their feedback message board--and you have to start to wonder if maybe there's something to it. Additionally, a company that is committed to improving will often look themselves up online and find ways to improve service if the complaints point to something particularly egregious.

I finally did find where, in print, they state their cancellation policy. If you look on their page, under the art gallery, there is a banner to "like" the page. Under that, in small but bolded print, there are a number of links. Under that, next to the copyright, there is a small link that says "user agreement." If you click it, there's a lot of information pertinent to artists, but if you scroll about halfway down, there's information for consumers, in which they state a no-cancellation policy. A bit further down, there's a disclaimer where they may cancel for any reason. It's worth noting that, unlike some companies that don't charge you until your order is shipped, they actually do charge you as soon as you place your order. So, the cancellation policy is definitely one of those "hidden in small print" sort of things. Details may not be my strong suit, although thoroughly researching stuff generally is. In this case, I decided to trust the recommendation of someone I knew. As he tends to complain about businesses more than I do, I figured if he liked them, they were solid. Alas, their policies and the experience of others seem to suggest otherwise, so at this point, I'm pretty sure the only thing to do will be for me to wait a bit longer, and if it doesn't ship within a week* I'll call my bank to dispute the charges.

It does make me sad, though. Not just because I wanted the t-shirts, but because I had hoped that I'd truly found a more independent site where I could truly support artists. When a website like Redbubble does this, it makes it that much harder for solid, reputable businesses to establish themselves. If you get ripped off by a website, you're more likely to steer away from trying out new companies. Which means more money for companies like Amazon and Cafepress, because at least you know what you're getting. If my experience winds up paralleling the experience of so many other people, then in the future, I'll probably only buy from new sites if (a)they have some sort of certification (such as the A+ icon that the BBB gives out) or (b)if I can give them a test run with a very small order (as in $10 or less) first. I also won't let a recommendation from an acquaintance dissuade me from doing my due diligence in terms of research.

So, what will I do for t-shirts from now on? One idea is to learn to make them myself. I can exercise my creativity while truly supporting the arts through a class at my local art center.




*I was going to call on Monday, but have decided I'll probably have better luck if I wait until after Christmas, both because the call centers will be fully staffed and because it will be officially after the delivery window by then.

I Guess I Won't Be Buying From Redbubble Again...

So, a couple of weeks or so ago, I placed a t-shirt order to Cafepress. I buy a lot of t-shirts. I wear them around the house, as well as whenever I take an art class at Lillstreet or Evanston Art Center. When my order hadn't shipped after several days, I contacted them. I kept getting the run-around until, nine days later, I finally requested that my order be cancelled. They cancelled it right away. On a friend's recommendation, I tried Redbubble. They had a lot of shirts that I liked. I was hesitant because of my recent experience, but I decided to give them a shot.

Bad idea.

It's now been four days since I placed my order, so I was starting to worry. You can check your status, but it doesn't tell you much--just that it's "in manufacturing." They have a chat customer service option, so I opened up the chat window. After relaying my information, and waiting while the CSR looked up my order, I was told that it was currently in production, and would be shipping soon. As I had recently gone through hearing "soon" for several days from Cafepress, I was not satisfied with that. I explained my recent experience, and how I was trying them out on a friend's recommendation and was really hoping my first experience would be a smooth one. I asked for a specific time estimate. He told me "we have no way of talking to production to see where they are."

Huh.

You see, I used to work in customer service for a loan servicing company. Generally, there's no such thing as "not being able to contact another division." After all, you can always call or email a department, and have them look up the account. If for some really strange reason, you can't, then a supervisor certainly can. Now, a lot of CSRs get evaluated based on wait time and average call time, not customer satisfaction, so some may not be motivated to do so. When I was a CSR, if a customer had a problem (especially if the company was at fault) I was quick to go to bat for them. I would talk to my supervisor if the problem was big enough, other times, I would email the relevant department and take down the customer's number so I could call them back. I even had customers that learned my name and would only talk to me, since they knew I'd actually do something to help. A lot of CSRs did not, though. Their approach was that the sooner they got the person off the line, the less work for them and the better it looked on paper. So, when I hear things like "we can't contact production" I know it really means "I don't want to bother contacting production. It's taking awhile. Just deal with it."

So, recognizing the clear pat response I'd been given, I responded by asking if I could cancel if it wasn't shipped within 24 hours. After that, I was told "Since we have no way of knowing where they are in production, we can't cancel orders once production has started." What? Seriously? So, let me get this straight...you can't tell me how long it will take for my order to be made and I can't cancel because of this supposed impenetrable wall of silence between customer service and production?

I then informed him that I would give his company until Monday. If, by Monday, it was not shipped, I would be disputing the charge to my credit card and filing a complaint against the company with the Better Business Bureau. I additionally urged him to pass this information on to his supervisor, so they might contact production and expedite the order.

So, we'll see how this progresses. One thing is for sure: I won't be ordering from Redbubble again.

But Will It Work?

It usually takes a total of 0.34 seconds, following some sort of tragedy, for people to go from shock to blame. Of course, there's a lot of sentiment in there, some of which is authentic but much of which has a level of transience that, while expected from those who are so far removed from the actual event, can hardly rise to the intensity one truly feels when accurately describing the emotion as "grief." The flood of social media, paradoxically, desensitizes: after all, it's all politics and the sharing of other people's icons with very little digging into one's psyche for an unmediated reaction.

One question, predictably, has come out of the most recent school shooting. That question is: what is the future of guns? There seem to be two viewpoints, neither of which are all that tenable. The first is the pro-gun "if everyone had a gun, this wouldn't happen" viewpoint. I'm just going to dismiss that one outright, since it's so shortsighted it doesn't really warrant a response. The second viewpoint, which I wish to address, is the "if no one had guns, this wouldn't have happened" stance.

I don't like guns. It would freak me out a little to have one in the house. Once, when I was at summer camp, I tried to go to the rifle range. I was too freaked out to do much of anything, so they moved me to the archery range. Archery was better, although I was a lot more interested in the cute counselor instructing us and invariably broke the bow. So, yeah, weapons aren't my thing. I fared slightly better at pony riding. Oh, and D&D. Still, weapons aren't really my thing. So, what I'm about to say I say as someone that does not like guns, does not want a gun and does not want to think about what sort of life circumstances would have to occur for that to change.

Most current gun debates wind up being like most political debates: highly polarized and entrenched in dogma without much by way of intelligent discourse. Most of the time, unless I'm in the mood to play Devil's Advocate, I find myself woefully indifferent to the debate.

Still, the past couple of days got me wondering about this. One question that I keep coming back to is:but would banning guns do anything?* Okay, in theory, if no one had guns, certainly that would alleviate gun violence. However, what I'm curious about is whether this is actually something that can be realized.

The biggest argument against it, I think, is that there has never been a truly successful prohibition in this country. Perhaps this is my recent obsession with Boardwalk Empire talking but...really, has there been? I mean, has there been a prohibition in this country where the government manages to ban something and have the presence of that thing decrease? Most of the time, it seems to push it underground and worsen the problem. The war on drugs is another such example. Prostitution is yet another example. All of these are things where prohibitions have resulted in criminal suppliers with the associated increased crime.

The problem is, in large part, geographic. We're a huge country with huge land-based borders that are near-ideal for smuggling. There are major logistical problems in any attempts at prohibition. I don't see this as some sort of "if guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns" slogan. I'm honestly curious how one might go about doing this. It seems a lot like unleashing feral cats into the woods to deal with a rodent problem.

So how would we ensure this wouldn't be another case of simply pushing the problem underground, creating more problems south of the border and in the inner cities, while essentially scrubbing it off the face of suburbia? The first step would be to have some mechanism in place at the borders, but how do we do that without piggybacking some sort of oppressive immigration crackdown?

I recommend Mothra.



*There are moderate positions advocating control, rather than an outright ban. I believe the question I'm raising is relevant to that as well.