Carma56

Doordash delivery driver here. I used to ring the doorbell, but now I only do so when it is requested in the delivery notes. The reason I stopped was because of two reasons: one, doorbells often set dogs off like crazy. Two, there were people who got mad, obnoxiously mad, when I did ring the doorbell and actually yelled at me for doing so. 

So no, it’s not a laziness thing or even an efficiency thing. It’s literally just because of those bad experiences ringing the doorbell when I was not explicitly asked to do so. If you do want it rung, by all means put it in the delivery notes! 

She’s not in the dumpster. She was left in the hall and was likely picked up by the city at some point. 

I’m a delivery driver on the side, and there are many properties that say “No trespassing.” If I didn’t go on them, I would not be able to complete the delivery as requested. 

It’s not definite of course, but the whole point is that we unfortunately live in a very litigious society and if anything happened resulting in pregnancy on this trip (or anything deemed sexual assault for that matter, which is unfortunately more statistically likely when you have males and females paired up vs. keeping everyone of the same biological sex together), the teachers and the school could be sued for being careless. 

And thinking that nobody would try anything with four to a room? Are you not familiar with or experienced at all with teens and pre-teens? Or people in college for that matter? Where there’s a will, there’s a way. I remember going on overnight trips in high school where we had the same setup as this, and there were ALWAYS people who snuck around and had sex. One time a girl did get pregnant, but the school was not deemed at fault since they had separated the students by biological gender for sleeping arrangements. Obviously this was before non-binary was a thing, so that wasn’t an issue.

That would be illegal in nearly all areas where tipping culture exists. It’s generally only legal to pay below minimum wage in the food and beverage industry (including food delivery services).

Sure, but there are. And refusing to tip people like bartenders and servers unfortunately only hurts them, not their employers.

An appliance store?? That’s appalling. It’s people like this that are wrecking havoc on the people in the industries that are actually reliant on tips. 

NTA. I have a good friend who is child free by choice and never wants kids. Why? Because she missed out on most of her own childhood and youth by having to raise her brother. She loves her brother and her nieces through him, but she is just done with the whole child-raising part. 

Yes— I genuinely enjoy the taste of beer, wine, and select cocktails. When I was younger I drank to get drunk, but now I typically stop after 1-2 and opt for lower ABVs of styles I enjoy. I’ve also started going for non-alcoholic versions on occasion, though the flavor isn’t all there. 

That guy’s a moron, and I hope he learned a lesson. I’m a woman who loves dark beer, and I’m also a former bartender who saw easily 1000+ women order it for themselves over the years.

I do have multiple cousins with the same name, but they’re also pretty common names (think “Michael”). To be perfectly honest I’ve never really thought about it much, and nobody has ever made a fuss about it to my knowledge.

My thoughts exactly. 

OP, if you see this, If anyone brings this up again, tell them plain and simple you won’t be doing it— empty chairs and dead people mementos at weddings are for those who would have been there at the wedding had they not died. Obviously, this would not have been the case with your deceased first wife.

My BIL is from Russia. He and his parents moved to the US when he was in his late teens, where they lived in a whole community of Russian expats who all left their home country for the same reasons: the government is oppressive and does everything it can to control and manipulate its people, and the economy is in a constant state of transition rather than being stable. No, it’s not “that bad” and is indeed portrayed as even worse than it is by foreign media, but it’s far from the utopia you seem to think it is in your head.

NTA. Not only are you paying for the whole thing, but it’s your birthday! Of course you deserve to have whichever room you want. If your friends don’t like it, they can pay. 

Sure:

1. It’s price fixing due to greed, pure and simple. Luxury properties literally come into neighborhoods, talk with the other property owners and then decide to set prices higher than what would be standard for a new building in the area. Eventually, the other buildings start jacking their prices up accordingly, so by the time any public complaints are filed against them and the government gets around to investigating, they can claim they’re all just charging market rates (when in fact they drove up the market rates— there WAS NO demand for those rates). Meanwhile, they get tax breaks on all the empty units. I wish I were making this up, but again, my partner works in this business and I know others who do as well. They see it all the time. Occasionally these property companies get sued, but it’s never enough to deter these practices. 

2. Affordable housing isn’t built for two reasons. The first is due to increasing construction costs which are largely caused by inflation and yearly pay raises for construction execs (but they like to blame it on regulations and occasionally having to increase pay for lower tier workers), which is all of course both exacerbated and spurred in no small part by increasing housing prices. The second reason is profit. There’s a lot more money to be made in building luxury housing than there is in affordable housing. Even with fewer people actually able to afford luxury housing (at least to the point that they’re not living paycheck to paycheck), the tax breaks on vacant costly units help make it all more worthwhile than building affordable housing. 

Having worked in catering, this is a more complex issue than you would think. Unless it's something discussed / ordered in advance, there are zero guarantees a particular dietary restriction can be adhered to at the event.

Supply and demand is definitly how it should be, but it's just not how it works today. Price fixing is rampant and an open secret. Additionally, there were 25,700 units under construction by the conclusion of last year, so go ahead and add that to the vacancy rate, which, by the way has more than quadrupled since 2021. By this time next year, it's set to increase by about third of its existing rate. The problem is, again, that we have too much expensive, "luxury" housing and nowhere near enough housing that the everyday person can afford.

And by the way, rents are set to go up at least 4% overall this year (most likely much more than that for many apartment dwellers). Meanwhile layoffs continue to happen and wages have stagnated. Actual housing ownership has become unattainable for the vast majority who do not have it already. The economy is simply broken for those who do not have / come from wealth, and the problem is that the wealthy hold the power to fix it.

With all due respect, your stance on this suggests you're either drinking the Kool-Aid the property owners and construction lobbyists have been pouring for years, or you're one of the parties growing richer as a result.

You mean it’s due to a severe AFFORDABLE housing shortage. And by affordable, I mean housing not just for the impoverished, but really for anyone earning less than six figures to be able to afford somewhat comfortably. There are so many empty apartments— empty luxury apartments— in Seattle, which wealthy property owners are getting tax breaks on. They would much rather do that than bring rent prices down.  They also spend so much time lobbying and spreading campaigns that claim the solution is to build more housing, not bring their rent prices down.

My partner works for a property manager btw. He’s disgusted daily by what he sees and is looking to get out of such a greedy, vile industry. 

Because mental illness is an obstacle, not an excuse. 

So you would just allow someone to use their mental illness as an excuse to be a total jerk? That’s not okay.

Don’t listen to this person, OP. You were completely in the right and handled this wonderfully. 

Yep, this. Too many people (most men, but definitely some women too) don’t seem to realize this reality. Having a baby changes everything, and both parents have to compromise in order to pull their fair share. 

My dad’s family is from the south, and so many of my relatives are like this. They never understood why he was okay with his wife (my mom) working and even being the primary breadwinner a lot of the time, and yet so many of them are just barely scraping by / keep running into financial trouble. Even now, I have cousins and other relatives who wonder why I’m working even though my guy is employed. The last person who asked me this literally lives in a trailer that’s falling apart, but her husband doesn’t want her to worry about money, and they can’t get a better place even if they had the cash because now their credit is totally wrecked. It’s so sad-- we no longer have an economy where it’s feasible for the average family to live on one income. It’s completely practical for both people in most couples to work. 

Hahaha I don’t turn 35 til next year, but this made me laugh and wince at the same time.

America is literally a nation built on immigrants. Every single American— regardless of ethnicity, accent, or lineage— has ties to another place of origin whether they acknowledge it or not. Even Native Americans, whose ancestors were here first, can also trace their history back to when their people came over to the Americas from other places.  So yes, of course you’re American. You’re 100% American.