TechDistortion

To Tip Or Not To Tip

It’s been nearly two decades since I was in the USA and understanding how and when to tip has evaporated from my memory. I do recall however that tipping used to be a bit less, perhaps 10% of the bill whereas this trip the helpful suggestions were starting about 20%. My understanding is that the minimum wage hasn’t kept up with inflation and as a result people are relying more on tips today in the USA than ever before.

Having said that, I was told that tipping through drive-through isn’t generally the done thing and whilst you are technically served by someone in Target, Best Buy or a goods purchasing store, tipping isn’t required in those instances as they have a higher hourly rate that factors the lack of tipping in.

The idea seems to be the more personal, face to face, “service industry” (which can be confusing since someone telling me about a product in Best Buy is still ‘serving’ me) this industry is where you’re expected to tip, proportional to the service that is offered by the staff.

Okay so far I’m wrapping my head back around it. Next problem: when I came to the USA previously there were two types of transactions in the majority: cash and credit card. Cash was easy - they give you the bill and you pay them that amount plus a bit extra for the tip. Then you can ask for a receipt if you like. Super simple.

With credit cards in a sit-down restaurant environment you’d be given a small folding wallet thing, with a bill in it and a slot for your card. You’d fill in the tip amount, insert your card in the wallet and hand it back. Then they would wander off with it and hopefully come back without skimming your card and you’d sign and you’re done. Although requiring some degree of trust that was also straight forward to me.

Where I got lost this time was the introduction of payment at the till using a credit card either inserted (chip), swiped or pay-wave. In these cases they’d show me the amount, I’d usually insert my credit card, they’d print a receipt then I’d sign it, add a tip, then total it, then hand it back to them. At that point what happens? I’m assuming the original transaction is re-run or something? It’s not clear how that authorisation happens but they all seemed to accept this. Oh well, hope that worked. In those cases sometimes they’d give me a second receipt that included the tip amount, other times they wouldn’t with some looking confused when I asked for a receipt since I was still holding a pre-tip-filled-in copy.

The final conundrum was when it wasn’t a seated meal in a restaurant, when you’re just getting takeaway but it’s not via a drive-through I was given conflicting advice on whether to tip. The most regular example of this was a Barista. I defaulted to a tip for them however in the end I did it because I didn’t want to upset anyone, rather than it being a reflection of service.

The problem is that if you don’t grow up in a tipping culture, there’s no accepted set of rules and a lot comes back to the potential to reward good service or if you’re confused about whether tipping is the right thing to do, you end up insulting someone that’s good at their job that probably deserved a tip, at least in their opinion or based on the rules they are told apply.

I was once lectured by someone that grew up in that culture after they visited my country and they were horrified by a bad experience in a hotel blaming it all on our country’s lack of tipping leading to poor customer service. That was 20 years ago mind you, but I’m not entirely sure it’s that simple.

Either way towards the end of my trip I was so confused about the tipping grey areas I realised I was developing a ’tipping anxiety’ where I was starting to avoid situations where it was unclear when I should or shouldn’t tip or how much to tip. Sigh.

Maybe I’ll do better next t(r)ip.

My Texas Driving Experience

When driving through Texas this past week I was greeted by those overhead digital signs that have an inspirational or perhaps cautionary message. Of the messages I saw, one in particular stuck out in my mind. Whilst I didn’t write down the exact wording the message in essence was 2,871 people had died on the roads in Texas in 2019 so far.

Given that the message was up the entire time I was there, I expect this was for January to October inclusive (about 300 days) which is 19 people killed every two days in Texas alone.

Okay, so Texas is a big state and has a big population, so what’s that equate to in terms of people killed per head of population? There are 28.7M living in Texas as of 2018 which isn’t that different from all of Australia (25M). So the current statistics in Australia from January to September 2019: 914 people killed (1,015 corrected over 10 months) for an average of 6.6 every two days, which means that in Texas there are 2.5-3 times as many people killed than in Australia.

In conjunction with this I’d like to point out a few other observations with comparisons to Australia:

• Speed Cameras: In the whole time I was driving in the USA this week I counted one speed camera - a roadside trailer mount unit. I never saw a speed camera on a traffic light, intersection, or mobile van. I’m sure they exist and maybe I missed them? In Australia scarcely a day passes when I’m driving when I don’t see at least one mobile unit, or trailer mounted unit and my commute takes me through one twice each day. In Australia the detractors would tell you they are merely revenue raising machines but the truth is they make a lot of people think twice about speeding.
• Speeding: In Australia I sit on the speed limit and on the freeway I’ll get overtaken maybe every 15-20th car at most, whereas in Houston and driving between Corpus Christie and Austin I was driving on the speed limit and was overtaken by almost every car! My best estimate was that most cars were driving 5-10mph over the speed limit. It was slightly scary.
• Dangerous Driving in Wet Weather: During the wet weather in Houston on Thursday I was tailgated, cut off multiple times and the other drivers seemed to not care that it was wet with many still speeding and overtaking as they had in the dry. The amount of risk taking was insane, and whilst I won’t pretend that Australian drivers are angels, there was far more respect, slower driving speeds and caution in the wet, especially heavy rain.
• Running Red Lights: On a typical commute in Brisbane I’ll see maybe one or two cars run a red light, however we have red light cameras fitted at many intersections so most of the time people don’t or won’t risk it. I lost count of how many cars blatantly ran red lights and honestly I began to pay additional attention to make sure everyone had stopped before I entered intersections, much to the annoyance of those behind me. Self-preservation y’all.

It’s likely that the high-density traffic in major cities is a focal point for accidents and it’s possible that due to large Texas cities having many freeways and congestion that this amplifies impatience and may go some way to explaining the tripling of the road toll compared to my home country.

In the end there’s probably a lot of complicated reasons why it’s so horrific but either way you slice it that’s a massive amount of bloodshed on the roads. There are other places in the world where people drive their cars just as much or even further on average, at or above those speed limits with significantly less fatalities. It can be better.

Anywhere you’re driving, drive safely. Please. Really, seriously please drive safely.

IndieWeb Meetup

Once I knew the conference dates in the States I realised that the IndieWeb meetup in Austin would be happening on the first Wednesday of the month, which was an evening when I would be in Houston. Noting it was a mere 2.5 hour drive (far closer than a 28 hour door to door flight) I decided to drop by.

I arrived at 6:30pm exactly, met a fellow geek who recognised my geekiness from my shirt and mentioned it was his first time coming to a meetup, not knowing what anyone looked like. Initially we didn’t see anyone else obvious so I ordered a coffee and then we checked again.

I recognised Manton immediately and we found a table to fit us all - seven in total. After introductions we talked about web development, the differences between ActivityPub and WebMention, different projects and sites we’re hosting and how, podcasts we’re involved with and lots and lots more.

It’s odd but for most of us being complete strangers it really felt quite comfortable and as I look back as I’m writing this I realise just how much I’ve missed out on not living in or near hubs where like minded software developers tend to live. Austin has become a focal point, San Francisco has been for some time as well whereas in Australia there aren’t really any I know of, perhaps Adelaide up to a point, certainly none near me.

As the evening was closing Manton walked through the upcoming IndieWebCamp which sounds really interesting so if you’re a developer in the area I’d check it out.

We talked for over 1.5 hours in total and I had a great time. If you’re in the Austin area and you’re interested in becoming or already are a web developer then I highly recommend dropping by to a meetup. The venue is usually Mozarts Coffee, which make great coffee and have a wonderful setup and no issue parking, though to be safe I’d follow Manton for announcements and updates.

Thanks to Manton Reece for organising it and to everyone else that attended and made me feel welcome.

USA Fast Food Part Two

As I’m now flying back home it’s time to recap my culinary experiences since my last post. Again the following aren’t in order of anything:

• Dunkin’ Donuts: Meal: Dinner (yeah I know keep that to yourself), Food: Chocolate Glazed, Maple Iced, Boston Creme, Mint Cookie and “GO TEXANS” special; My blood sugar was bottoming out and I needed sugar and since it was nearby I thought what the heck. Anyhow I actually found most of them to be quite dry. I liked the Maple, Boston Creme and Mint Cookie ones, but the others were quite forgettable.
• Toll House Cookies: Meal: Snack, Food: Chocolate Chip, Double-choc Chip, White Chocolate Chip and Macadamia, Mini-choc chip with frosting; Honestly I couldn’t find anything to complain about for any of these. They bore a very similar taste to a local chain in Australia called Mrs Fields. Very nice though.
• Aunty Mays: Meal: Snack, Food: Pretzel Dog; Grabbed this on a lark on the way to the gate to try it. Honestly thought it was pretty good though the “pretzel” was a bit doughy but then I suppose that’s intentional and/or inevitable.
• Popeyes: Meal: Lunch; Drink: Diet Coke, Food: Chicken Sandwich with Chips; Firstly I was really impressed by the chips, nice batter, crispy and yummy. The Burger was originally offered a few months ago and was considered by some food critics (yeah, actual food critics) to be better than Chick-Fil-A but as it was a “Limited Time” offer at that point, Popeyes withdrew it from sale, only to return it to their menu co-incidentally a week before I came to the USA. Hence I was advised to get one this time around, noting that someone had been stabbed in line waiting for one only a few days prior. Hmm, well the one I had was very nice for sure though nothing I’d stab anyone for and I still think the Chick-Fil-A Chicken Sandwich was nicer overall. That said, it’s probably a second ahead of KFC.
• Denny’s: Meal: Breakfast, Drink: Coffee, Food: The Grand Slamwich; Coffee was also surprisingly good given what it was, like IHOP before it just don’t add anything to the coffee and drink it black. The Slamwich was actually really nice but I had no idea what to make of the shredded style Hash Brown. The potato seemed undercooked and I suppose falling apart is supposed to be a feature but it wasn’t one I wanted.
• Cinnabon: Meal: Lunch, Food: Cinnamon Sticks and Classic Scroll; I found the sticks to be a bit average without the dipping cream/whip but the scroll was off the charts! I knew that Cinnabon were intending to open their first Australian stores in the next few months however they were next to me in the food court at the time so I had it anyway.
• Waffle House: Meal: Breakfast, Food: Original Waffle with a side of bacon; I was stunned how good the bacon was, but to be honest the Waffle was a bit tasteless, no matter how much whipped butter or syrup I added.
• Starbucks: Truth be told I drank the same drink multiple times during the week: Venti Latte with an extra shot. Despite what I’d heard, Starbucks in the USA wasn’t that different from Australia. And whilst I normally have my Venti’s with an extra shot I had to repeat that request almost every time to each barista - apparently that’s an odd request over here.
• McDonalds: Drink: Coffee; Having compared Starbucks coffee to Australia it wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t also compare McDonalds coffee as well. Unfortunately the USA version of McDonalds coffee was pretty bad compared to home. About 9 months ago at home McDonalds introduced their “New Blend” which was less over-roasted than their usual blend to that point and I’ve come to not mind it in a pinch whereas previously I’d only drink it if I was truly desperate. This tasted much like the over-roasted kind they used to sell back home, but it wasn’t that pleasant. The other item of note though: I asked for a large and OMG was it comically huge! It was at least 30% bigger than the same “large” in Australia. I wasn’t prepared for that and therefore couldn’t finish it - there was just too much.
• Mozarts Coffee (Austin): Meal: Dinner, Drink: Regular Latte, Food: Snickerdoodle Cookie; Okay I made the side trek to Austin to go to the IndieWeb meetup and meet Manton Reece of whom I’ve been a fan for years. Whilst there I had what was actually the only really nice quality coffee I had in the USA. That said, I never tracked down any specialty roasters in Houston and just tripped into Starbucks almost every time, which was easy since they were EVERYWHERE! Anyhow the cookie was a bit dry and crumbly but was quite tasty.

To reiterate the following notes once again:

• I am not a food critic
• Repeat: Not a food critic
• Your taste bud mileage will definitely vary and all tastes are very different
• There are many other options on menus but I can’t try them all in a week

In summary I’m really glad I tried this fast food. I almost sensed a bit of bewilderment from some of my friends. I got the feeling they thought I should be eating “better” options rather than the most popular Fast Food chains. Some suggested restaurants with award winning dishes and their personal niche chains for example.

I considered their suggestions seriously and decided the way to think about it was this…

The Fast Food chains I tried are a mixture of good marketing, good pricing, good food and overall popularity amongst a significant number of Americans. If I truly want to have the most representative American food experience then I should start with those restaurants and fast food outlets that the majority of Americans prefer. If they didn’t prefer them, they wouldn’t have succeeded in their business. Hence most of my choices.

Both of our countries have brought different culinary options to the table and the world is a better place for it. I’m grateful for the advice from my friends and family on what to try, and I regret nothing that I tried this trip. It was fun but I’m ready to get back eating healthier meals again now. My body is quite frankly done with junk food for a few weeks. (At least)

I look forward to returning to the USA again next year to sample some more.

Thank you America :)

(…until next time…)