DISCLAIMER: The questions I’m going to ask in this thread stem from things I’ve seen in TV shows. I’ve only spent a total of a few hours in NYC in the past two decades, so I have no actual basis of experience. I am not trying to offend.
First, I’ve noticed on a couple of NY-based sitcoms that employees address their bosses as “Sir.” Chandler (and possibly other characters) did it on Friends, and Timmy (and possibly other characters) do it on Rules of Engagement. I’ve had some self-important bosses in my day, but none of them have expected to be called “Sir” (or “Ma’am”). Is this a part of actual workplace culture in New York?
Second, there was a scene in Seindfeld where George wanted to get his car out of a car storage lot, and the lot attendant told him it wasn’t possible because it was blocked in. George protested that the point of having his car in storage was to be able to access it when he needed it. The attendant shrugged and said “Take it up with Consumer Affairs.” Fast foward to a recent episode of Louie. Louie is apartment-hunting, and falls victim to a bait and switch. Louie tells the broker, “This is a bait-and-switch; it’s illegal.” The broker shrugs and says “So call the police.”
Is this blatant disregard of the law (as regards consumer protection laws) also a part of New York (business) culture?
I would argue that both of the situations you describe: referring to your boss as “sir”, and shrugging off violations, are not experiential of NYC. There are more meme’s of working in large corporate environment with a distant boss related to the former and living in a large metropolitan environment related to the latter. The situations you described in television shows could have been set in Chicago, Atlanta, Denver etc. and they would apply.
I disagree about the “sir” thing. I live on the west coast, Washington State, and I can’t imagine ever calling my boss “sir”, and I’ve never seen it done in practice regardless of the size of the company. That’s simply something that does not happen here.
I think it’s more likely it doesn’t happen in New York companies, either, and sitcom writers simply don’t spend much time in traditional corporate environments. Or they just assume other corporate environments are more stodgy than their own. It’s not like they’re actually going bother with research.
For TV shows it might just be a short hand for establishing clearly a power structure that would otherwise need be explained. It is easier to say “will do, sir” than “will do, Greg, you who are my boss or otherwise superior to me here.”
Blatant disregard of the law is not particularly common in NY, but when it does happen , the response might be “so sue me” , or “call the police” in cases where there is really no means to get what you want , and that’s probably true everywhere. Louie could call the government agency that licensed the broker and the broker might get fined or lose his license- but Louie still won’t get the bait apartment.
The Seinfeld situation doesn’t even sound realistic - if the car is blocked in and the keys are left with the attendant , the attendant moves the cars that are blocking yours. If it’s a park and lock, the attendant *can’*t move the cars.
The only time I’ve ever used any kind of many-car parking garage in NYC, you parked it yourself, but gave the keys to the attendants so they could move the car if they needed to, and you retrieved your keys and got your own car when you came back. If you had been blocked in, they would have the keys to move the car that blocked you in. I’ve only been to NYC with a car a handful of times, though, so my experience may not have been representative.
I’ve never met anyone who called their boss Sir or Ma’am in the almost 5 years I’ve lived in NYC. I think this is just easy shorthand for TV writers.
As far as the car thing goes I will say that ignoring or purposely causing problems for the customer doesn’t happen often but it does happen on rare occasions. I can’t imagine that this is unique to NYC though.
Here near/in Boston, most garages will either have a sign posted or will tell you if your parking is ‘blocked’ or not. Even in a ‘blocked’ lot I’ve never heard of attendants refusing to move the cars around to free yours. Choosing between ‘blocked’ or ‘not’ lots is a matter of how fast you get your car back and whether or not you trust someone else with your keys.
I have also seen lots here where they have some machine where 1 car is actually parked above another, which is another form of blocking for the “upper” car.
Actually, IIRC the ‘blocked-in’ response was only an excuse the lot manager was using (‘Ideally’) - the real reason (in the plot) was that the vehicles were being rented out for prostitution (didn’t Susan find a used condom on the car floor when she and George were driving after he got the car back from the lot).
And the episode ended when Kramer, who started using the same lot for his car because it was cheap, got snagged by the police when trying to evict a prostitute from his car while wearing the Technicolor Dream coat and a big floppy hat he found (e.g. Pimp-style)?
At least since Giuliani started reforming things, the combination of Giuliani’s/Bloomberg’s shared goal of making N.Y. cleaner/safer/more “user friendly” (shown to yield great rewards in both attracting tourists and retaining high profile corporate jobs, retail, etc.), plus the generally interventionist nature of liberal-skewing big government in the Northeast, has resulted in what seem to be some fairly robust consumer-protection laws/regulations. You’ve read the stories about cops prosecuting “quality of life”/broken windows offenses, which in my visits, seems largely true (aggressive begging seems almost unheard of, e.g.).
In recent years I’ve seen stories too about the comprehensive resources they’ve thrown at their 311 program (basically, you dial 311 any time you have just about any problem with your neighborhood (potholes), non-emergency crime (squeegee men), a government agency, a vendor, etc.). Anecdotally, I hear it’s pretty responsive (I’ve had acquaintances variously report unlicensed vendors, illegally idling private buses spewing exhaust by residential areas, loud patrons spilling out of bars late at night, and bad restaurant experiences/health code issues, and in each case, they reported being fairly intelligently steered to a fairly responsive bureaucrat, and receiving follow-up with which they were satisfied). My one experience during a visit was in reporting a reckless, belligerent cabbie for talking on the cell phone illegally and yelling at me when I asked him to stop. I later got a follow-up e-mail from the taxi commission reporting that he’d been fined and had points attached to his hack license based on my report. Not bad.
Are some things tolerated that shouldn’t be? Yeah, I never saw cops busting the fake handbag dealers, which gets me mad, and it seems if you put a tallboy beer in a paper bag and are reasonably discreet walking around with it or bringing it on the train, that may get ignored, but that’s understandable if not right based on the notion that these are kind of remote, victimless “crimes.” My perception is that if someone who was, unlike African street vendors, “on the grid” (and landlords mostly are because of rent control, etc.) tried to screw you overtly, at least these days, they’d be taking a chance in blithely thinking they’d get away with it.
While the Seinfeld thing was played for laughs, there are parking lots where getting one’s car out is quite difficult, especially if you haven’t called in advance. From ones I’ve personally seen, the attendant would have to move, at a minimum, 4 cars to get to a particular car, which would have been on a raised parking platform. These lots are usually more for infrequent users, as even car owners in Manhattan get most places by foot/cab/public transportation. It really isn’t worth going the little bit one needs to go, then trying to find parking, then returning and trying to find parking, then worrying about alternate side parking, every time one needs to run an errand.
Personal anecdote, but when I got out of the Air Force, I was in the habit of calling my bosses “Sir”, and it stuck for awhile. Not my immediate supervisor, but those much higher in the food chain. As I got higher in the food chain and lost some of the military mannerisms, that diminished. However, I always would refer to my bosses in public (while working, as opposed to social gatherings) as Mr. or Ms. So-and-So, as a sign of respect.