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Ma’am, Your Burger Has Been Paid For

nytimes.com

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Re: Ma’am, Your Burger Has Been Paid For

#91

Post by protomyth »

bsenftner wrote: post #45

I suspect a carefully coordinated PR campaign for Chick-fil-A, as I've noticed uncharacteristically, frequent positive references to them in unrelated news items lately. I consume a lot of news, and noticing "fake" planted positive references in tangentially related articles is par for the course for any company that stepped in deep shit like they did. I suspect at least one of these positive comments here to be a pl…

Really, that's what this article says to you?

Sometime folks look at others who are not doing so well and decide to pick up the tab, or just feel like doing it for a complete stranger. Some of its religion, some of it is just spreading the wealth. Sometime its just looking at others in bad situations. Sometimes its just to make themselves feel better.

I've done it a couple of times. I payed for a young lady at a McDonalds because their credit card machine was out and she didn't have cash and had a kid with her. No big deal for me, but I would imagine it helped her day. I've bought one of the pink coffee mugs (breast cancer awareness) and told the clerk to give it to the next lady who comes in. I got to see the reaction, but she never knew who bought it.

Spread a little joy, the world's a circle and it comes back to you.

"If you think this is paranoid, you don't know how our world works."

No, I just find it sad that you believe the dark corners of the world define the whole.

Re: Ma’am, Your Burger Has Been Paid For

#92

Post by gonnakillme »

yetanotherphd wrote: post #89
jbooth wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He didn't say anything about liberals, conservatives or Chick-fil-a's noxious gay marriage positions. Who's biased? The article mentions chick-fil-a by name 3 times in the text and at the bottom, it's one of 3 terms that you can sign up for email alerts about. This is right after they had a run of bad publicity (yes, caused by politics, but that's irrelevant). Seems to fit in the PR-created article category to me.

Actually he did refer to how Chick-fil-a "stepped in deep shit".

I took that as a statement of fact (akin to "Chick-fil-a faced a public relations disaster ...") rather than a value judgement.

Re: Ma’am, Your Burger Has Been Paid For

#93

Post by yetanotherphd »

gonnakillme wrote: post #92
yetanotherphd wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually he did refer to how Chick-fil-a "stepped in deep shit".

I took that as a statement of fact (akin to "Chick-fil-a faced a public relations disaster ...") rather than a value judgement.

Agreed, but I think it's indicative of a liberal bias, or at least living in a liberal bubble, to place so much weight on something that most people have long forgotten about (especially the kind of person who eats there).

And the post I was responding to claimed that these things weren't even mentioned by the top poster, which they clearly were.

Re: Ma’am, Your Burger Has Been Paid For

#94

Post by jbooth »

yetanotherphd wrote: post #93
gonnakillme wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took that as a statement of fact (akin to "Chick-fil-a faced a public relations disaster ...") rather than a value judgement.

Agreed, but I think it's indicative of a liberal bias, or at least living in a liberal bubble, to place so much weight on something that most people have long forgotten about (especially the kind of person who eats there). And the post I was responding to claimed that these things weren't even mentioned by the top poster, which they clearly were.

You mention "chick fil-a PR", and that's going to be the first thing that comes to mind. Total self-inflicted wound on their part, whatever your personal politics.

Re: Ma’am, Your Burger Has Been Paid For

#95

Post by nmcfarl »

_red wrote: post #46
vidarh wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The chains are peculiar yes, but not that peculiar: It's strongly ingrained in us to return favours, to the point that giving someone something is a brutally effective way of exploiting them by later asking for a bigger favour back (e.g. consider Hare Krishna, that tended to use flowers for this purpose). The effect is so strong that we often try to prevent receiving favours because we don't want to become indebted.…

Quite right. In fact the opposite works - and its known as the Ben Franklin Effect ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin_effect ). The idea is that if I ask a favor of you (to loan me a book, in Ben's case) - you are more likely to become friendly to me in the future. Its a curious extension of what you mentioned above, by asking you for a favor - which you then grant - you gain a sort of psychological 'credit'…

I use this occasionally for social, not professional, purposes and it seems to work quite well.

It’s sometimes a bit tricky to think up a favor the right size for the state of your relationship, but still useful enough to be real. Fake favors don’t work (and are frankly just weird).

Re: Ma’am, Your Burger Has Been Paid For

#96

Post by IvyMike »

ck2 wrote: post #84

How about paying for food for the homeless instead? Someone in a car at a fast food place is probably well off enough to afford the car, maintenance, gas, etc.

So the US is pretty demographically heterogeneous. Instead of a "we're all in this together" attitude like they have in (for example) Iceland, a lot of people here have a "us v. them" attitude. I think a lot of this is fueled by conscious or subconscious racism.

I believe this is why we have trouble passing a lot of social welfare programs, education reform, healthcare, etc. You hear a lot of complaints that boil down to "THEY will abuse the system" meaning whoever the speaker thinks is undesirable.

And that's why people like the "pay it forward in the drive-thru" style charity: the people you are helping are more likely to be just like you.

Re: Ma’am, Your Burger Has Been Paid For

#97

Post by IvyMike »

jmduke wrote: post #4
adamnemecek wrote: post #2

Wow, this almost makes Chick-fil-A seem like a non-bigoted 21th century hospitality establishment. Only almost though.

Chick-fil-A employees are the most polite out of all the fast-food establishments I've frequented. The tables are always spotless, and the food is (I'll concede, this is subjective) damn good. I don't think it's particularly difficult to separate a few bigoted executives from the totality of the company.

> Chick-fil-A employees are the most polite

Admittedly subjective, but the few times I've gone to Chickfila, the politeness had a Stepford Wives superficiality to it. "It has been my pleasure to serve you today sir". Who says that?

P.S. How I assuage my Chickfila guilt: http://chickfilaconfessional.com/

Re: Ma’am, Your Burger Has Been Paid For

#98

Post by Natsu »

bsenftner wrote: post #45

I suspect a carefully coordinated PR campaign for Chick-fil-A, as I've noticed uncharacteristically, frequent positive references to them in unrelated news items lately. I consume a lot of news, and noticing "fake" planted positive references in tangentially related articles is par for the course for any company that stepped in deep shit like they did. I suspect at least one of these positive comments here to be a pl…

The article mentions a dozen different restaurants. Why do you believe this was Chick-fil-a rather than one of the others?

Re: Ma’am, Your Burger Has Been Paid For

#99

Post by blahedo »

bambax wrote: post #62
hxa7241 wrote: post #30

This is quite pointless because it essentially cancels out. To get a cooperative structure you have to give away surplus -- that is, people with more have to give it to people with less. Yes, redistribution ! That seems a dirty idea in a substantial part of USA politics. So 'pay it forward' chains are a peculiar thing: they summon the feeling of cooperation, in an acceptable way, without actually being effectively co…

> it essentially cancels out If the person before me pays for my meal, I won't feel obliged to pay for the person after me. How does it even work anyway? How do you know how much the person after you owes? It may work at drive ins but it's certainly impossible at a normal queue -- except if people leave a "standard amount" regardless of what the next order actually is. And even at a drive-in where the amount of the n…

It's not a big hassle at all. The system is already managing payments as a queue, and once your meal is paid for (either because you paid it or because you were a beneficiary of someone else), the next one on the queue is the one immediately after you, which the cashier can then take your payment for and clear it out of the system.

Re: Ma’am, Your Burger Has Been Paid For

#100

Post by yetanotherphd »

jbooth wrote: post #94
yetanotherphd wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, but I think it's indicative of a liberal bias, or at least living in a liberal bubble, to place so much weight on something that most people have long forgotten about (especially the kind of person who eats there). And the post I was responding to claimed that these things weren't even mentioned by the top poster, which they clearly were.

You mention "chick fil-a PR", and that's going to be the first thing that comes to mind. Total self-inflicted wound on their part, whatever your personal politics.

I specifically address this point when I say that it's only a minority of people who would even remember that controversy. Would you care to address this line of argument?
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