United States, I can't (or can) quit you!

January 20, 2013 5:14 PM

Love the United States? Want to share? Hate the United States? Want to share? Here's your two for one website!

Loveushateus.com allows individuals from around the world and the United States to drop a note on what they love and hate about the United States.

It seems to started during the Bush II era.

posted by Atreides (36 comments total)

I cannot understand why America, where we are egalitarian and respect workers and reject class and caste, has become the tipping capitol of the world. Foreigners find it awkward and bizarre, and surely many of us do, too. I would love simply to pay bills without wondering about how much to add--10% at breakfast? Many people, in other countries, find the idea of tips demeaning. Why don't we?

Because "workers" of that kind here are paid poorly and get no benefits, dumbass. We don't reject class and caste, we merely pretend they don't exist. Next.
posted by uosuaq at 5:25 PM on January 20 [28 favorites]

uosuaq: "Because "workers" of that kind here are paid poorly and get no benefits, dumbass. We don't reject class and caste, we merely pretend they don't exist. Next."

I came here to say the same thing.
posted by dunkadunc at 5:30 PM on January 20

I Love America because:
1. Anyone has availability to food, shelter, clothing and healthcare...no matter what
2. Free market and a democracy
3. Womens rights to show their faces
4. George W. Bush
5. Nice highway system
6. The invention of airplanes
7. Computers (if it wasn't for us, the haters wouldn't be able to leave messages like these. They would still be using a stick and dirt
8. Freedom!
9. Our military
10. It is nice to live in the most Powerful Country in the World and be a part of it all. God Bless the USA.

Can't tell if this one is a troll...
posted by sourwookie at 5:34 PM on January 20 [10 favorites]

I can't decide whether I love or hate the US coinage and banknotes. In a way they're frustrating to use, but also a wonderful holdover from the past and a good lesson to designers everywhere.
posted by Jehan at 5:36 PM on January 20 [1 favorite]

Because "workers" of that kind here are paid poorly and get no benefits, dumbass.

I think you have the causation backwards. They are paid poorly and get no benefits because they are claimed/assumed to get enough tips to make up the diff.
posted by DU at 5:38 PM on January 20 [2 favorites]

You're quite right, DU.
You *do* think that.
posted by uosuaq at 5:41 PM on January 20 [10 favorites]

cauck!
posted by Mblue at 6:07 PM on January 20

AAAAAA+++++ WOULD INHABIT COUNTRY AGAIN.
posted by GuyZero at 6:08 PM on January 20 [21 favorites]

Looks like alt.nuke.the.usa got a web interface.
posted by pompomtom at 6:09 PM on January 20 [1 favorite]

pro tip: hey RoW, use petitions.whitehouse.gov instead. There's no restriction on nationality! and you can pretend that something will happen with your suggestions if you hit the magic number with your huddled pals. and maybe also you get to trigger a flashing siren giant headline on Drudgereport.com
posted by Bwithh at 6:46 PM on January 20

holy shit i couldn't get out of there fast enough
posted by orme at 6:51 PM on January 20 [3 favorites]

My feelings about America are complicated, personal, and NSFW.
posted by louche mustachio at 6:57 PM on January 20 [5 favorites]

Ah you can't sort by rank, because it doesn't aggregate by # of scores, just the rating, so comments with 1 rating of 5 stars are at the top. Good job.
posted by hellojed at 6:59 PM on January 20 [1 favorite]

Because the world needs more places for people to say what they think.
posted by Red Loop at 7:03 PM on January 20 [3 favorites]

Americans are wonderful. That's why I live here...
Trevor, United Kingdom

Good one Trev.
posted by Jehan at 7:04 PM on January 20

(well, in many places they do, of course)
posted by Red Loop at 7:04 PM on January 20

You're quite right, DU.
You *do* think that.

So do the people who write the minimum wage legislation.
posted by Sys Rq at 7:18 PM on January 20

(Though those people tend to miss half the equation.)
posted by Sys Rq at 7:20 PM on January 20

I like the breakfast foods, dislike the nutty right wing politics.
posted by Artw at 7:33 PM on January 20 [2 favorites]

Canadians are always fascinated by Americans.
posted by ovvl at 7:56 PM on January 20

Yep, we wonder why you bother with sports other than hockey.

*ducks *
posted by arcticseal at 7:58 PM on January 20

I cannot understand why America, where we are egalitarian and respect workers and reject class and caste, has become the tipping capitol of the world. Foreigners find it awkward and bizarre, and surely many of us do, too. I would love simply to pay bills without wondering about how much to add--10% at breakfast? Many people, in other countries, find the idea of tips demeaning. Why don't we?

Honestly, I think it's a stupid cultural trend that got out of control. Tipping was once optional, like everywhere else. But then people started to do it more, until it became socially required. When that happened, restaurants and such figured out they could lower the pay of their servers and they'd keep working because they were making enough in tips to make it still worthwhile to do the job. Then, the public felt like they had to make up that pay cut by increasing the tip amount, which is how we got from 10% to 18-20%. The weird tax situation tips fall under, and the desire of restaurants to advertise lower prices (since tips don't show up the price) doesn't help.

It's a nasty situation, because it makes customers subconsciously think of servers as charity cases and servers think of customers as their inconsistent and vindictive bosses. This probably lowers the public opinion of servers to lower than it would otherwise be, and servers hate their customers more than any other field I've ever seen. However, I don't think there's any easy way for us to dig our way out from this at this point.
posted by Mitrovarr at 8:10 PM on January 20 [13 favorites]

*ducks*

Couldn't even make the playoffs, come-on.
posted by Winnemac at 8:14 PM on January 20 [2 favorites]

Ah you can't sort by rank, because it doesn't aggregate by # of scores, just the rating, so comments with 1 rating of 5 stars are at the top. Good job.

Yep. Broken. This is the type of math that allows the Tea Party, Intelligent Designers, Birthers, and Sandy Hook Truthers to gain "legitimacy". Weight their numbers to VOLUME rather than volume.
posted by sourwookie at 8:51 PM on January 20

I cannot understand why America, where we are egalitarian and respect workers and reject class and caste, has become the tipping capitol of the world. Foreigners find it awkward and bizarre, and surely many of us do, too. I would love simply to pay bills without wondering about how much to add--10% at breakfast? Many people, in other countries, find the idea of tips demeaning. Why don't we?

Because it leads to better service.
posted by John Cohen at 8:57 PM on January 20 [1 favorite]

Because it leads to better service.

Bingo.

Which is exactly why I slipped my surgeon a Benny on a handshake to "keep it smooth" right before I was put under.
posted by sourwookie at 9:06 PM on January 20 [6 favorites]

Tipping is odd. I've always though, probably wrongly, that servers in restaurants evolved from more general purpose do-stuff-and-fetch-stuff people that travelers relied in while away from home and away from their own serving staff. The servers worked for the diners, as stand ins for the diners' own staff, if only temporarily. That is my theory, anyone know the real history of how servers evolved?

It is not only servers who get tips. Other people who perform specific duties for a patron get tips as well, doormen, concierges, bellhops, hairdressers, barbers, bathroom attendants.They all perform a personal service for a client and all stand in for staff some sort of downton abbey era rich person would have. In theory, you are supposed to tip your dry cleaner and launderer, but I never have and I don't notice any worse service.

Some well to do people still throw money around like Victorian era lords. I worked with an executive that tipped every counter person at every store, and not just the ones with tip jars. He was treated extraordinarily well.
posted by Ad hominem at 9:27 PM on January 20 [1 favorite]

The "top comments' section is fucking depressing.
posted by maxwelton at 9:34 PM on January 20

Because it leads to better service.

Better than what?

Workers who just straight-up get paid for just straight-up putting in hours just straight-up do their jobs. The service you receive is perfectly adequate. If you want more than adequate, hire an escort or something; it's not the waitstaff's job to kiss your ass.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:50 PM on January 20 [1 favorite]

Speaking as a Canadian, I find the American take on tipping to be so many orders of magnitude less weird than the way Americans talk about gun control and health care that it barely makes it onto the radar.
posted by gompa at 9:50 PM on January 20 [4 favorites]

Workers who just straight-up get paid for just straight-up putting in hours just straight-up do their jobs. The service you receive is perfectly adequate. If you want more than adequate, hire an escort or something; it's not the waitstaff's job to kiss your ass.

There's a lot of people who believe otherwise.

(They can go fuck themselves.)
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:00 PM on January 20 [1 favorite]

I'll put my opinion here instead of there: There is lot to love and a lot to hate about the U.S.A. but, ultimately, I have to come down on the side of love. I just took a road trip through West Virginia, one of the poorest states we have, and it was just so damn beautiful with its mountains and history and culture and full of lovely, warm people - you can hate on our stupid policies and whatnot but I can't fathom hating on the actual land and the people who live here, unless you've never been.
posted by Jess the Mess at 10:26 AM on January 21

I, as foreigner who's lived twice in the US, love the country, its people and highways, but hate its foreign policy, and am mostly baffled by its gun control laws and voting patterns.
posted by signal at 1:12 PM on January 21

I Love America because:
1. Anyone has availability to food, shelter, clothing and healthcare...no matter what

Did he credit Obama with the increased availability of health care?

3. Womens rights to show their faces

Did he say anything about men's responsibility to leave women alone if they wanted it?

7. Computers (if it wasn't for us, the haters wouldn't be able to leave messages like these. They would still be using a stick and dirt

....Actually, Charles Babbage, Alan Turing, and Tim Berners-Lee were all English, not American, right? Maybe this guy is just confused and thinks we're still part of the British Empire.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:55 AM on January 22

Charles Babbage, Alan Turing, and Tim Berners-Lee were all English

So these guys are a big deal but Intel, Microsoft, Apple, HP, Dell, etc, etc are probably what he's talking about. The modern computer industry has two major poles: the US West Coast and Chinese & Taiwanese OEMs.
posted by GuyZero at 10:22 AM on January 22

Nah, GuyZero, I know; however, that underscores the universal contributions to computers today as opposed to computers being 100% from the "America Fuck Yeah" company.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:34 AM on January 22