I can’t believe so many people are advocating not tipping. The OP asked some questions, and the waitress answered them. The OP clearly had an ax to grind and was being intentionally provocative. Engaging the waitress in conflict by asking her if she drove to work or not is totally inappropriate, and much ruder than anything she did; she’s a waitress, not a servant that you’re free to question at will. Besides, it’s completely fallacious to posit that whether or not she drives to work has any bearing whatsoever on whether or not Coca-Cola is socially irresponsible. I have all the :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: in the world for this OP. Lame and intellectually dishonest.
So… why is Blue Sky Cola so special? How are they able to make a soft drink without polluting the atmosphere?
Seriously. Did the OP ask for Skittles in his omelette, too?
Nation of little sugar-addict children.
Yeah, because it’s not like orange juice has any sugar in it what-so-ever.
A sin of which I’m sure you’re totally innocent. Let’s see…
Yep, there it is.
I wasn’t there to hear her tone, which is so subjective and easily projected onto someone. But I am here reading yours, and you seem like you went on the offensive over a fucking can of soda. For saying “Blue Sky is more socially and environmentally responsible and it’s all natural…” well, that IS EXACTLY how the company describes itself. I’ve been to restaurants that carry Blue Sky instead of Coke and that’s always been the reason I’ve been given. Look on their website and write them a complaint if you disagree with them. That description not a lecture or a falsehood in response to a question of why a restaurant carries it and not Coke. You can take issue all you want with the veracity of Blue Sky’s claims, but the waitress was probably told by the store owner to say that when asked about Coke.
To the overly defensive with an axe to grind, an explanation can feel like a lecture. But it sounded like an explanation to me. “Harangue,” based on your OP, seems like hyperbole. It was 2 sentences. Please, lighten the hell up. She tried to explain it to you and she shouldn’t have, obviously. I’m sure she had no intention of making you feel bad.
People are awfully quick to find reasons to withhold a tip. At least you didn’t do that, which would have been excessively punitive for the crime of answering your questions and enduring your personal inquiries.
In general, I find it silly when people try to get all judgmental with regard to someone else’s environmental responsibility. Nine times out of 10, the judge hasn’t considered the big picture with respect to the judged behavior. So, unless someone is doing something flagrant, I try to reserve judgment.
Case in point, I’ve been criticized for my camping rig - a large pickup truck and a 28-foot travel trailer. People have told me that it’s irresponsible for me to consume so much fuel. What they haven’t considered is that when I’m living in the camper, I’m consuming so much less than I would be if I were at home. I’m consuming less water, using more efficient heating and cooling systems than the ones in my permanent home, I’m using much less electricity and generating less trash.
Yes, I do burn a disproportionately high share of fuel in getting the camper to wherever it’s going, but I’m paying $4 - $4.50 a gallon for it. And once I get where I’m going I’m pretty damned efficient and I pollute my environment a lot less.
My point is that even when you witness something that appears to be wasteful or environmentally irresponsible, you don’t know what else the person responsible is doing to minimize their impact. So don’t be so quick to judge.
I know exactly the kind of hippie elitist referred to in the OP, I can practically hear her greener-than-thou attitude leaping off the screen. I would like to add my own “fuck you” to her and her ilk. Take your “carbon footprint” dick-measuring contests and shove 'em up your ass!
I figured the OP wanted his morning caffeine in a form besides tea or coffee.
Ah, Ann Arbor. Our Student Body President’s crowning achievement was getting Coke banned from campus. Not because it wasn’t natural but because of all the shit going down with labor unions in South America. That Coke, the corporation, is responsible for the assassination of union organizers in South America is not, for me at least, an immediate conclusion, but even if it were I would be opposed to banning any product on those grounds. If I decide Coke is immoral, I chose not to drink Coke, but I resent them for taking that choice from me. At least, I WOULD resent them, if I thought the availability of sugar water on a random college campus was anything close to a worthwhile moral or political issue.
To the OP, I get that you’re fed up with sanctimonious twats like the waitress, but you’re coming off pretty strong against anyone who is trying to do anything environmentally conscious. We all do what we can. I re-use bags at the grocery store and use incandescent lightbulbs, but I have a long gas-wasting commute. I recycle but I take lots of baths. I could always be doing more, but I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with encouraging other people to try to do a little bit too. The current movement to ‘‘green’’ stuff seems to be based on economic more than social pressure, but social pressure is an effective medium for change and I support the use of it for something as important as the environment. That doesn’t make me a hypocrite, it makes me a person who is aware that small, gradual changes in lifestyle will eventually lead the way to changes in policy and development. The more people who are on board with doing their little bit, the better.
Well but so why do you go to these places then? I mean, you’re talking about an 8-table restaurant with people queuing up for breakfast food. Of course they are going to be smug, they are hip and in-demand and making money. I’d be smug too. They only question is what they are going to be smug about. And Google:“cliff cafe santa clara” lists scrambled tofu on hit #3, so the fact that they are snooty about their organic free-range soda pop isn’t exactly out of left field.
Or you cold counter one meaningless self-righteous standard with another: how does the ethinc diversity of Blue Sky’s workforce compare to Coke’s?
And a lot of eco-conscious bag-o-herbs business are small enough to avoid paying their half-dozen minimum wage slaves health benefits, so they don’t. “Hey, we’d go out of business if we did! But those trips to the Mexican Riviera are for our R&D!”
This thread has me thinking about all the Dairy Queen bulbs we have in the house - they’re lasting forever. Maybe you got some bum bulbs, Jackmanii.
And for the record, I think organic is one of the biggest scams going. Take that! 
At the three universities I’ve attended, you could only get soft drinks from a particular distributor. For example, here at UCI, all soft drinks are Pepsi products. It looks to me like universities draw up agreements with particular distributors to serve their products exclusively. If this is the case at Ann Arbor as well, then it wasn’t so much that Coke was banned as that they ended their agreement with Coke and went with some other distributor instead. And if I’m right about that, then you wouldn’t have had the choice to drink whatever you like in either case.
-FrL-
I get that it’s that way on other campuses, but Coke was actually banned from campus and the guy who ran for Student Body President used his participation in that movement as evidence of why we should vote for him. Until that point Coke was widely available on campus.
You know what, I think the whole situation didn’t become unreasonable and unpleasant until the OP decided to react in a hostile manner.
There’s nothing wrong with a merchant trying to educate customers regarding a pet issue and encourage the use of products that he or she prefers to peddle. It very well might be the case that wide-spread replacement of Coke with Blue Sky would change the lives all the babies and puppies in a positive way. That’s how social change happens.
Nobody forced you to do anything and it didn’t become an argument until you decided to make it one.
So instead of this:
Why not something like this:
I get that it’s that way on other campuses, but Coke was actually banned from campus and the guy who ran for Student Body President used his participation in that movement as evidence of why we should vote for him. Until that point Coke was widely available on campus.
On preview, I may have misunderstood your point, sorry. I can’t remember if Pepsi was widely available on campus at the same time as Coke, but I think that it was.
The overall thrust of the issue is that it struck me as a colossal waste of energy and resources. There were large protests about this, kids actually skipped class to go fight Coke (not that kids really need a compelling reason to skip class, but you know…)
ETA: Woah, sorry for the bizarre split double-post. I have no idea what happened there.
Both the OP and the waitress were wrong, seeming in a passive aggresive battle of wills. You asked for Coke, they didn’t have it. Now you could have taken a more diplomatic approach toward this seemingly incongruous peice of information, but instead you were kind of snotty. So they don’t serve Coke, order something else. Lots of places don’t have Coke. Minus one for you. But after you felt you had made your point you had edecided to order, then she decided to start phase 2 with her comment about polluting plants, so -1 point for her.
My neighbor’s three-year-old daughter is a genius.
One time, I was in the elevator with her and the little girl, making idle chit-chat. She was carrying a bag of groceries.
Her: “I got the organic milk, even though it’s a dollar more. I just feel better about it.”
At this point, she turned to her daughter and asked, “do you know what organic means, honey?”
Girl: Yes.
Her: What does it mean?
Girl: It means you paid too much for milk.
What many of you are missing is that this is not about the waitress. The OP is about people who claim to be saving the planet (but are not) and condemning others for what they are not doing.
I cited the waitress/cafe as an example. I had two similar incidents that morning and was sick of that attitude. This town is full of itself that way.
[sup]FTR, I ordered a Diet Coke. I was after caffeine not sugar.[/sup]
Bullshit. She didn’t say anything about you. She was just explaining why the swill they serve is so wonderful compared to the swill they don’t have, probably using the specific wording she was instructed to use by the manager. “We don’t have Coke,” period, makes them sound deficient. Adding “Instead we have this other crap that’s better, because it’s politically correct, nutritionally superior, and blessed by the pope” builds them up. There was no need for you to take it personally and start squabbling with a waitress.
ETA:
<Belushi>
No Coke, Pepsi!
</Belushi>