Tipping Point

I live in New York. It's a strange and sometimes bewildering experience. One thing I still can't seem to work out it tipping. I and some friends went for lunch at a place across the way from Columbia the other day. We finished eating and left a tip that was double the tax, which is what I believe is generally acceptable. Not to the wait staff, apparently. They chased after us and said that they'd miscalculated the tax and wanted a bigger tip. Not something I think has ever happened to me before, but my more learned friends say that waiters basically don't get paid and have to get by on tips here. I would have thought that was illegal in several ways, but apparently not.

And tipping bar staff is something I feel to be rather nonsensical. After all, as I understand it a tip is for good service. A friendly and attentive waiter who brings you your food promptly and efficiently, well, fair enough - but there's really not all that much to go wrong with pouring a pint. And if, as it seems, it's obligatory if you don't want spit in your drink, it seems rather redundant. Might as well just add it on to the cost of the drink in the first place. Oh well. さすが異文化交流だね。

The whackjob next door is back in full swing again after an absence of a couple of months. CU public safety were called last night, for the third time. Talking to the officers who attended the call, I learn that he has had an episode like this in Butler Library (WTF??!!) in the last month, and moreover, and I quote, that "sometimes he forgets to take his medication".

Let me just pause for a moment or two to allow that statement to sink in.

I'm absolutely fucking furious about this. Housing and the University have done nothing about this guy despite repeated complaints. I am going over there to tear them a new arsehole, or possibly two, on Monday morning. I will point out that next time this happens, for my safety and that of others around me I will be calling not CU Public Safety but the nice gentlemen at the NYPD.

Something else which I find astonishing, as well. It may not have occurred to Columbia that, having been warned repeatedly about this guy by me and others and taken no action, if he does now hurt somebody, they will be liable for a massive lawsuit on the grounds of negligence. I don't know if it will come to that, but I doubt that the University wants to take that gamble.

It's even more ironic, I suppose, because on Wednesday I went to a "focus group" for the housing department and told them that the whole procedure for dealing with complaints of this nature was unclear and bureaucratic and that I thought the whole affair had been mishandled. Now I guess I have abundant proof of that.

I have rarely in all my adult life been this angry. Nobody should be expected to put up with this sort of shit, especially not at the end of term when I have final papers to write.

I'm here to kick ass and chew gum. And I'm all out of gum.