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Donating forks to the dining hall

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Re: Donating forks to the dining hall

#81

Post by fragmede »

seoulmetro wrote: post #69
dag11 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wasn't being unnecessarily negative. And yet you ended up writing one of the most unnecessarily negative things I've read on here in a long time.

No I didn't. You're free to feel like I did though.

Yes you did. You may not have intended it that way, but that's how it comes across. You're free to feel like you didn't, but if you're looking to communicate effectively, and not just argue on the Internet, it would be worth your while to figure out why your comment comes across that way.

Re: Donating forks to the dining hall

#82

Post by throwanem »

seoulmetro wrote: post #68
fragmede wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This would be totally irrelevant if it weren't for social media status seeking. isn't being unnecessarily negative to you? It's a cute little story about dining hall forks, not a hot girl who just happens to be in a bikini shilling a business course or some crap on instagram for followers. It's on their personal blog, that I (unfortunately) will likely never read again, so the amount of "clout" they're receiving fr…

No? >Your comments starts off accusing them of faking the cute little story. No it didn't. I am saying that it reads like they might have thought up the idea as something to blog about before they executed the idea. For the sole purpose of appearing more interesting. Irrelevant here means just uninteresting enough that it wouldn't be brought up in conversation when people describe their life. >The fact that your comm…

> I am saying that it reads like they might have thought up the idea as something to blog about before they executed the idea. For the sole purpose of appearing more interesting.

Where I'm from we call this "telling on yourself."

It occurred to you to read the story this way, so reflexively that you never stopped to question the thought and indeed have resisted quite stubbornly all suggestions, no doubt soon including this one, that you should question it.

This sequence of events says nothing about the story. It says a good deal, none especially complimentary, about you.

Re: Donating forks to the dining hall

#83

Post by s1artibartfast »

eternauta3k wrote: post #76
kqr wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Similarly, if staplers and scissors always disappear from office cabinets, it's often because people know they disappear so they hold onto them to have them available. It's a self-reinforcing system. But if one buys a bunch of them, people start trusting that they will be available, and will hoard less!

I thought the solution to the tragedy of the commons was institutions: we need a 1000-year old socially-enforced tradition of shunning hoarders and assigning dishwasher duty. Your solution sounds easier, though.

It works if you can afford it, and avoid a runaway moral hazard. Pretty soon you will have tractor trailers filling up with staplers

Re: Donating forks to the dining hall

#84

Post by nomel »

dylan604 wrote: post #14
ggm wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your idea is good. Marking them in a non-intrusive (to function) way would serve to make it clear this is communal property. But, in essence we don't care, and I also think its not always wonton theft, I know I've shed spoons into the waste bin being uncareful.

It hasn't worked for banks and all the various ways they've tried to keep pens from walking off, nor gas station bathroom keys. In effort you expend is ultimately wasted, as someone that wants to take will take and someone that is unawares they accidentally disposed of the utensil will not be stopped by any of the attempts. However if it makes you feel good and you enjoy the time spend over a weekend doing it, by all…

No, there are effective methods. One is to attach a giant fake flower into it.

Re: Donating forks to the dining hall

#85

Post by frizzlebox »

bashtoni wrote: post #20

I love this story, despite it being the sort of thing I can imagine ending up on LinkedIn. Anyway, one question I did have which made me a little suspicious of the neat ending: why is the fork in the last picture obviously of a different type to that shown in the engraving picture? The order was 180 forks all of the same type. Maybe Henry bought his own forks to donate?

> why is the fork in the last picture obviously of a different type

I think that last bit is tongue-in-cheek. That’s my read, anyway.

Re: Donating forks to the dining hall

#87

Post by teekert »

roydivision wrote: post #86

"But I had to make sure that my altruism would be commemorated." That's not how altruism works.

It's tongue in cheek, it's fun, it's a nice experiment, everybody wins.

I don't like it how people suggest altruism should always amount to zero (or even negative!) benefit to the person doing all the giving of value. It's not how altruism should work.

Are you only a true altruist if you go to help some poor kids in some poor country and hate every second of it? If so, I'm against altruism, it's something for sociopaths then.

Re: Donating forks to the dining hall

#88

Post by TeMPOraL »

rob74 wrote: post #71
dexwiz wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many doors have a toggle on the face plate below or above the latch that changes auto lock behavior. But auto lock is good for security. I once had a friend move out of a place in part because he would often get locked out. I showed him how to change this at his move out party.

> auto lock is good for security Exactly... in the company where I work, propping open the door (maybe not so much the door to the building, but certainly the doors to our office) would be a sure way to get you into pretty serious trouble. Also, opening the door with your own access card for other people (although I occasionally do that for people I know).

Well, yes. Security tends to be opposed to everything that's good and nice about life. Sometimes it's worth it.

Re: Donating forks to the dining hall

#89

Post by Ekaros »

philwelch wrote: post #70
ilaksh wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I assume the manager was quite aware, but whenever he had previously asked for resources from his own boss before, they refused and implied that he needed to try to use even fewer resources. After your manager makes it clear multiple times that they do not want to spend any money, even on things that are important, many sane people will stop caring. He may have told the boss multiple times that they were…

Yeah, the idea that a college dining hall administrator is just sitting around desperately wishing he could spend more money but not knowing what on earth to spend it on unless he receives an email from a random student to whom he has zero accountability strikes me as far less likely than your theory.

Especially so in something that is certainly a cost centre. Not something marketable. I would expect something like cafeteria to be run on bare essentials, after the initial build phase. Spending money there is not marketable or rise profile of people involved.

Re: Donating forks to the dining hall

#90

Post by majkinetor »

martyvis wrote: post #57

This could have been a follow-up to "The case of the disappearing teaspoons: longitudinal cohort study of the displacement of teaspoons in an Australian research institute" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1322240/

Seems that the easiest solution to mentioned office problems would be to have a common plastic teaspoon printer.
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