Agreed on all points. The work was hard, but there were a lot of parts of it I enjoyed. Helping to make someone's night out a nice experience is really rewarding, and when we were busy I was never bored. I actually served for about 6 months in a country where tipping isn't usual and I found knowing what I was going…

Yep, this is the bit that always infuriates me about the "Why should they be paid the same as me!" crowd. Firstly, why does it offend you to be hypothetically not paid a vast amount more than a burger flipper or a street cleaner? If you like your current job better than flipping burgers, that should be justification…

Maybe it's different for men, but I've always, always tipped my hairdresser, partly because I want to come back and have my hair cut nicely next time.

I've lived all but about 5 years of my life in such places. I grew up in a small town of 16,000 (cows didn't moo at the edge of my neighborhood- the challenge was to keep them from wandering into your front yard) and I've never seen so much petty social sniping and superiority since.

Same here. Also, can we somehow get sales tax pre-added to listed prices in stores etc? This is something I really miss about the UK.

I have known some people who made a lot of cash from serving. However, they either made that amount by working at a couple of different places simultaneously, getting paid off the books (nice when you're younger, but not so appealing as you get older), or working short stints during peak seasons/for special events. It…

Disagree. I've found that in bigger cities everyone assumes you're a server because you're in school/writing a book/do other freelance work. This, to be fair, is patronizing as hell, but not as bad as the places where working in service anytime past 30 makes you a loser or an object of pity because you clearly don't…

The service culture in America and Europe is different, true. However, I think a lot of Americans would probably prefer the European attitude, which IMO has always been perfectly civil and attentive without being almost aggressively over-enthusiastic.

I personally think it's a sequence thing. Christianity came from Judaism, and both religions believe in God, so it's as though current Jews are just not quite there yet (but they're on the right track, so to speak). Whereas from the Christian perspective Muhammad was automatically a false prophet and Islam is an…

I agree, and I think in the US being confrontational on an individual level might be a product of this more declarational approach to religion by many believers. In the UK there's no need to go around saying "I don't believe in God" all the time (though Dawkins etc. have a pretty good go at it), let alone defend your…

I think Atheism means something very different in America than in the UK. Generally, Americans are far more show-and-tell about their religion, which I still can't get used to, tbh. I think it's because there is no state religion, so maybe there's a sense that just getting on with it isn't enough? Atheism/Agnosticism…

It's not my particular style, but I'm not going to pretend that were I similarly loaded I wouldn't do pretty much the same thing. I would LOVE my own "sulking room" (which is the literal translation of boudoir) in which to try on different outfits, drink champagne, and look at coffee table books about theatrical…

Honestly, the takeaway I got from this story wasn't so much that she's especially frugal (the 50K seems to be a personal allowance on top of living expenses, and she admits she sometimes goes over it), but that she takes decent care of her money and seems to be shoring something away in case of hard times or if she…

As a joint property owner, I have to agree. Buying made sense for us due to a number of factors, but there are many, many situations in which it just doesn't. I think buying in big cities like London or NYC is something that very, very few people can do without getting into far more debt than it's worth, and it's…

I found a border collie wandering in the street once with a broken off run cable dangling from it's collar. It supposedly lived quite nearby, so I decided to walk it home. It took me an hour and a half to find the address given on the collar, and then no-one was home, so I had to walk him back to my house, which was…

I love this kind of work too. It's immensely satisfying turning chaos into order, you have concrete results at the end of the day, and it doesn't follow you home at night.

Yep, everyone's feeling the squeeze at every level. Entry-level jobs are now being done by people with master's degrees and years of experience, or are being replaced by internship positions (and yes, I know legally internships can't do real work, but that seems to be stopping exactly nobody). So everyone has to look…

I think it depends. What I've heard is that if you're keeping them outside, you need two (or one rabbit and one guinea pig!), but house rabbits can live singly as long as you're around for a decent part of the day.

It's terrible. If you lie on the floor he will climb onto your belly and go to sleep.

Yep, it's not like you can just leave them in their hutch for weeks at a time. I'm guessing she's getting someone to come in once a day to clean up, refill food bowls and let the little guy lope around for a while and then give him a cuddle. It's not exactly extreme behavior!