~~~SANDBOX 77~~~

Rark! Muffalo!

i know i'm being a fusspot but i would rather deal with the vagaries of checked luggage than go around town with dirt on my shoulder. xp

I will admit it's perhaps an uneven tradeoff *continues brushing dirt off*

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5d/Pig-pen_peanuts.PNG

urgent tipping question: some guys are coming in an hour to clean and fix the gutters on our roof. $260 for the job. should we tip and if so how much??

oh god really?

I know I can't believe I'm sullying the sandbox w/ a tipping question

I wouldn't if they were self-employed builders. If they're guys working for a wage, maybe round up to $300 if you can afford it, as it's Christmas.

Would you tip if you paid somebody to mow your lawn? Or to shovel snow/rake leaves?

I don't know the answers to any of those questions (renter for LIFE!), but they seem like a reasonable guide. I think cleaning gutters is more like cutting grass than, say, fixing your roof, which I would not think would necessitate tipping.

the payment is the tip for those first two cases

I think it's more about fixing the roof - nailing the gutters to the side of the house so it doesn't come loose in a windstorm. so maybe the tip is built into the $260

No tip.

that's the kind of affirmative response I'm looking for, thank you jeff

wouldn't hurt to throw a double fingerpoint at them though, *maybe* even with a wink

i don't know the answer, dayo.

what i do know is that a child in a village india is making microprocessors for satellites from scrap items he finds in his garden. sometimes you don't have to go to washington or beijing to find ideas that are transforming our ecenomy and our world.

was gonna use hand guns myself but duly noted

Thank god that's settled. I'm not joking. I was using some valuable mental bandwidth on the question.

My can driver is wearing a suit. A relatively nice one (idk from suits, but it's not crap) and a crisp shirt and nice looking tie.

*cab not can

-they showed up an hour late
-they want $40 extra for 'materials'

guess that solves the question

really they are being quite silly I think

Was that $40 materials fee or the possibility thereof in the original agreement? If not, that's BS.

I think the guys who did show up were subcontracted out by the company we called, and no I don't think it was in the original agreement, so yeah we're fighting them about this

"Materials"? What sorts of materials?

My cab driver took an "interesting" route, which added ~$5 to what I should have paid. Or maybe it was a surcharge for the suit.

Yo is there an effective way to call cab drivers out on shit like that?

Yes, but it's more than $5 worth of hassle.

when that happens I usually pee on the floor

(for anyone familiar w/ Chicago who cares, a normal route from my house to work would be Clark to LaSalle, to one of various Loop streets, to Peoria + Jackson. this guy took LSD to lower Randolph, which Google maps says added 1.9 miles)

that seems weird but aside from asking him to state his intended route before you enter traffic, what are you going to do, argue about it? probably not.

you could just give him what you think is the right price and leave

Usually I don't think they're hustling. They're either totally unfamiliar w/ the streets (no "Knowledge" tests here) or they think it's the best route.

I have spoken up before the driver got huffy and sort of argued (yeh yeh it's the same, the same) and I compensated for the difference by not tipping.

Today I just didn't have the energy, and honestly, the route he took was faster, despite being 2 miles longer.

cab drivers in beijing were pretty terrible - as soon as the cab started the driver would ask you what route you wanted to take, if you gave the wrong answer s/he would know you were not a local and would take you for a spin

my dad and the gutter guy have been arguing for nearly an hour now - I don't think this work is getting done

oh wait - he just took a new gutter off his trailer - we may have some action

http://soberingconclusion.com/movies/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/pcu.jpg

You know what I hate? Is when the cabbie gets patronizing and starts explaining why his fucked up route is correct. One cabbie who was routing us around his asshole to get to his elbow relented and took my route, but then he turned super (passive-aggressively) servile at me. Blech.

I would bet dollars to Ding Dongs that this sort of cabsplaining is far more common for lone female passengers.

Yes, but it's more than $5 worth of hassle.

OTM. I called to report a driver who ignored my requested route and went a totally fucked up way and when I got salty about it, yelled at me that it only added a few dollars to the fare. Asshole.

Anyway, you call 311 to register a complaint and then they send you paperwork to fill out and sign and by then I had cooled off and didn't care anymore.

That dude was easily the worst but as you (Jesse) know, my sense of direction is horrible so unless I am really familiar with a route, I'm pretty compliant w/ the driver's choice.

I do have unusually strong feelings about accessing LSD via Lower Wacker when coming from work, though.

Strong feelings for or against?

For. Mostly I hate the stop and go motion-sickness-factory that is LaSalle during rush hour so the sooner we're off, the better.

I wish there was a good way to complain about can drivers that ride the breaks. I guess I could just barf in their cabs.

Last taxi I got seemed to have rigged the meter. I noticed halfway home that it seemed to be going up faster than usual. The final price was about 1.5x the usual, and we'd gone a direct route with hardly any traffic.

I felt too timid to say anything when paying (it was a short trip so more of an annoyance than a big deal) but I have his numberplate in the "your car has arrived" text from the cab firm, so I should probably have reported him. Might still do, now this thread has reminded me.

can't you get a quote from the cab company? altho they might always try to screw you $40 for materials

heh that was a problem in china too. you'd get into a cab and there'd be wires hanging out of the meter and the interior would be stripped. xp

open question for people who have a different sandbox user name than their well-known user name on ILX and then force people to try to figure out the connection over the course of several weeks and refuse to confirm or deny the connection: why do you do this? it's not even a bad thing, i just can't understand.

not trying to call out anyone on this thread btw, mainly just thinking about nu-gabbneb

Hi!

oh, see now i'm noticing that he posted on this thread earlier! anyway, again i'm not trying to criticize, i'm just wondering why

lol xpost

WHY!?!

I wondered this too.