If anything the prompt from your phone that your meter is expiring is a huge plus against forgetting about it and getting dinged with an outrageous parking ticket. I'd much rather go through the brief stress of that reminder than a ticket any day. A parking ticket will put me in a sour mood for the rest of the day easily.
The Doorman's Fallacy in action
41–50 of 326 posts
Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action
#42> But when 6 people simultaneously tried to pay their share of the bill, chaos ensued. I'm guessing the author has never worked as a server themselves... Is there any part of the world you can have a six top with individual checks when you didn't tell them up front to split the bill? As an American this just seems obvious to me but maybe the expectation is different in Dubai.
It's because we are Americans yes. When I was in Europe the server would give us the handheld payment device and we select which items we ordered and then they'd charge us. The author seems to not have this, the waiter should've gone through themselves. It was simply the wrong technology, not that technology was at fault.
Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action
#43What the article misses is that money is saved for the company by moving the work to the customer / end user. It's the same thing with sending parcels, where I must now sit on my computer at home filling in a complicated online form and printing out my own labels. This takes me like 30 minutes, but saves time and money for the Post Office (not for me!) There's no downside for the company here, especially when they ar…
Don't forget self check out at the grocery store. I don't mind personally (I find ways to make it worth my while..) but it's a version of the same thing. Shifting labor under the guise of convenience. Like all the other versions of this, the savings are absorbed by the company, not passed on to the consumer. It's rare that the opposite happens.
I love self checkout, let me scan what I want, not stand in a line with people who seemingly don't know what they're doing or don't have cash or their credit card declines etc.
Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action
#44People have now clung on to doorman's fallacy as a way to justify keeping outdated jobs around. There should be a new fallacy named for this phenomenon otherwise we would have people justifying having travel agents jobs and translator jobs being protected.
I absolutely love waiters in any decent restaurant.
You can ask they waiter what's good on the menu, or what's the restaurant specialty or just what was delivered in the day and thus fresh, and it's a completely different experience.
Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action
#45> But when 6 people simultaneously tried to pay their share of the bill, chaos ensued. I'm guessing the author has never worked as a server themselves... Is there any part of the world you can have a six top with individual checks when you didn't tell them up front to split the bill? As an American this just seems obvious to me but maybe the expectation is different in Dubai.
Europe. You just walk to the register and point out the items you want to pay for. I've never seen a place where paying for a group of 6 separately would be a problem, it's the default and expected.
Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action
#46Soul-less money-oriented behavior in Dubai? Color me shocked.
Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action
#47Why I prefer Asuncion to Dubai in a nutshell.
Chauffeur / Valet > parking apps
Maids > dishwashers, laundry, roomba, cooking
Fixers > everything else
Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
> that money is saved for the company by moving the work to the customer / end user. And somehow things are more expensive than ever. Self checkouts, order at the counter, bussing your own table, assembling your own furniture, filling out your or your pet’s medical history at a hospital, shipping labels (you mentioned this) and so much more. It’s a form of free labor that somehow society is okay with.
> It’s a form of free labor that somehow society is okay with. It's very popular to say this in some places, but wouldn't you expect that the money that businesses are saving when they do this is passed along to the customer in lower prices? Since they're competing with other businesses?
When your grocery store gets a self checkout, do you see your grocery bills go down? What ends up happening is that the grocery store makes more profit, the other stores notice and they too get rid of self checkouts. Your grocery bill remains the same, you are more inconvenienced but all of their profits go up.
Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action
#49> But when 6 people simultaneously tried to pay their share of the bill, chaos ensued. I'm guessing the author has never worked as a server themselves... Is there any part of the world you can have a six top with individual checks when you didn't tell them up front to split the bill? As an American this just seems obvious to me but maybe the expectation is different in Dubai.
> Is there any part of the world you can have a six top with individual checks when you didn't tell them up front to split the bill? Most restaurant point of sales systems in the US handle that pretty well. They put down what seat an item was ordered from, and it covers everything except shared items like appetizers. That's been pretty common for a couple decades, and not just at chains, also at local places (if they…
"They" being the waiter or waitress, of course. Good ones can navigate complex bill splitting arrangements and even better can manage awkward interactions like one person quietly paying for another's dessert or covering an appetizer for the table, know the menu not only by memory but also can recommend dishes that the guest may prefer, and generally make the dining and ordering and paying experience better.
Bad restaurants think they can replace those skills with a QR code on the table optimized for the lowest common denominator.
Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action
#50> But when 6 people simultaneously tried to pay their share of the bill, chaos ensued. I'm guessing the author has never worked as a server themselves... Is there any part of the world you can have a six top with individual checks when you didn't tell them up front to split the bill? As an American this just seems obvious to me but maybe the expectation is different in Dubai.
It's because we are Americans yes. When I was in Europe the server would give us the handheld payment device and we select which items we ordered and then they'd charge us. The author seems to not have this, the waiter should've gone through themselves. It was simply the wrong technology, not that technology was at fault.
the wrong technology was at fault.