Sometimes it feels like you’re at war, you have to constantly keep an eye out that your kid isn’t hurting themself and/or destroying something. You have to keep everything potentially dangerous and/or fragile out of reach. And they will take any opportunity you have to get into trouble. It’s exhausting and leaves you frazzled. Fortunately, they grow up. But good grief.
Also, I was the primary diaper changer (especially for my second kid) so very little grosses me out anymore.
BTW, you might suggest to the Denny’s waitress that she read the notalwaysright.com site. It’s full of stories like this and others about horrible customers.
It naturally triggers a gag reflex because our brains are wired to equate feces with danger, and not without cause. Fecal matter is dangerous, potentially deadly. So the natural inclination is to avoid it. You just learn to get over that, take care of it quickly and efficiently (the 100th diaper is much easier than the first because you have experience) and just make sure to clean up thoroughly afterward.
It sounds corny but I think it made me a better person. Sometimes when I have to do something bad, I just remind myself at least I’m not trying to clean diarrhea off of a screaming, flailing animal that is trying to fight me the entire time.
(Seriously though, I developed a technique I called “Poodo”, rhymes with “Judo”, to manage to hold a kid’s arms and legs with one hand while I clean up with a second hand, which I think you only get once you fully level up your diaper-changing skill.)
Granted. Disgust about excrement is hard-wired in and for the good reasons you say. What I always found weak were the pwecious souls who could not overcome that hard-wiring when faced with a good reason to. Such as parenting your own child.
I’m far from fearless, either now as an old fart or back as a young buck. Fear is valuable stuff. By contrast, being unable to handle poop is … weak. IMO YMMV etc.
I’ve heard it said that bravery isn’t the lack of fear. The lack of fear is foolishness. Bravery is being afraid and acting in spite of that fear.
You could perhaps make an analog to being disgusted by things like feces and garbage, and handling it anyway (while never losing your disgust of it; after all, you don’t handle it unnecessarily and thoroughly clean up afterward).
Getting back to the subject of the thread, that’s why “shit jobs” like waiting tables have an inherent nobility to me. I learned early on to try to be a professional no matter what I did (and my first series of jobs were certainly not in esteemed positions), and I always admire people who act professionally even in a job that some judge to be contemptible. That’s probably why I tend to tip well. This is a person doing something I don’t want to do, they do it well, and they do it for my benefit. A decent person should be grateful.
This past weekend I was out camping with the Boy Scouts, and they were cleaning up in the morning in preparation for going home. We are based out of a cabin that has sinks but no running water, so KP can be a bit of a trial. We’re running late and I go in to check on the boys and they have the sink with a whole bunch of scrambled egg in the strainer. He’s poking at it with a spoon.
I “excuse me” and reach in to scoop up all of the egg with my hand and toss it in the trash. This 15yo boy just went wide eyed and said “Boy, you really want to get home!”
All I could think was “Man, wait till you have kids and have to clean up shit and vomit. A little scrambled egg is a treat.”
This. I changed plenty of poopy diapers. But i never lost my disgust for handling shit. You just have to coo at the child anyway and clean its bottom nicely so your child smells good again.
We had babies and small children in NYC. We took them out to restaurants from when they were literally still nursing babes. I only remember one time when a child cried and we had to take turns walking back and forth on the street while the other adult and the other child ate.
Our favorite restaurant had a staircase with the railing partway through it. We would get the table next to the stairs, the part outside the railing. And we’d let the kids climb the stairs (with supervision, of course). It was great, like a little private jungle gym for them while we waited for our food. We also gave them each one packet of sugar to eat while we waited, so they weren’t too hungry.
But even well behaved children make a mess when they eat, so we tipped as if they’d each bought an entree (when what we actually bought them was a glass of milk each and an order of fries to share. They ate that plus parts of our meals.) When they were particularly messy (one dropped a glass on the floor, and it broke, once) we’d tip extra, as compensation for the extra work the staff had to do to clean up.
By the time they were 3 and 5 they knew the ropes and were very well behaved in restaurants. People asked us why they behaved so well. I said, "the same reason adults are, they know that if the behave they’ll get food they like.
Anyway, maybe my kids were just really easy, but i have zero patience with parents who let their kids make noise or unnecessary mess in a restaurant.
A lot of people look down on Robert Heinlein for a lot of very good reasons , but I find it enlightening that his critique of the Competent Human starts out with "A human being should be able to change a diaper…”
Mr. Legend claims he learned from me that the main people you want to make friends with in any business are the secretaries and janitors. I suspect he would have done that anyway, because he’s a decent human being. He’s also always treated servers well; he would never have gotten that first date with me otherwise, since I was a waitress when we met.
I dated a waitress briefly, we met at her work. But I was always very careful with that sort of thing… People in the service industry, especially people who rely on tips for income, will be charming and attentive and complimentary because it’s their job to be. And I’ve always taken care not to take advantage of that fact and try to turn a situation where they have to be nice into a time where they have to awkwardly reject a flirtation or request for a date from someone they have to serve. Advice I heard from an acquaintance many years ago who was in that industry was, leave your server alone, they’re just trying to do their job. And chances are, they aren’t going to be flattered even if they act like they are, you’re probably just making a stressful job even more stressful.
That being said, as a young adult I went into a particular restaurant frequently with a couple of my friends. It was our usual hangout spot. We’d be there multiple times a week. And there was a particular waitress who waited on us often, and flirted, and it took me a while to realize she actually was interested in me, and I asked her out. It didn’t work out and we didn’t date very long because we were both too busy to spend a lot of time together (she was a single mom for one thing), but we did at least chat on the phone frequently, so it was positive. (This was the 90s so no computer chatting yet.) It turned out we were actually born in the exact same day; same year and date. And when we were kids we would get our allergy shots from the same hospital, so we might have even seen each other when really young.
But aside from that one unusual situation, I never hit on or asked out a waitress, saleswoman, flight attendant, hotel clerk, receptionist, retail worker, etc. at their job. (Well, unless she was a coworker, but that’s a whole other subject.)
Skater Show? Crater Crow? Freighter Slow? Slater’s Tow? Later, Bro? I can’t stand the uncertainty, what chain has a name that rhymes with Greater Dough?
Agree overall. That’s the right way to play that. The flirty playahs may get a lot more action, but they leave an awful lot more annoyance in their wake.
I once dated a waitress I met at her job. I was in grad school and working a side job until 10-11pm-ish a few days a week. I’d often stop at the Denny’s just before the freeway on-ramp (No La Quinta though ) for a late dinner. They were all that was open around there at that hour and stopping now would give dinner about 30 minutes to settle while I drove to my apartment & bed. Win win.
Anyhow, the place was usually all-but deserted, I always sat at the counter, & chatted with the cute young waitress while she did her side work. She was a couple years younger than 21yo me. I was friendly, not flirty. I was pretty clueless about the whole boys & girls thing at that age. Still am, truth be told.
After a couple / three weeks of this she just up and said, “So when will you invite me out on a date?”. Totally floored me; who knew?! I haltingly suggested “I’ll ask right now, what day in the next week works for you?”
We had a few nice dates, I met her Mom since they lived nearby, but it was never going to be a long-term thing. I often wondered what ever happened to her.
Here’s an old thread where long-gone doper tdn insisted that his flirting was welcomed by all waitresses, and got insulted that anyone suggested he couldn’t tell if the waitress was just going along with it to protect her tip.
I think we’ve had many threads over the years where people are SHOCKED that wait staff may be putting up with all manner of harassment (sexual and otherwise) because they live on tips.
Including people saying my sister/girlfriend/wife never complained about this in umpteen years of waitressing. Completely oblivious that people don’t complain to unsympathetic people who think that flirting is part of a waitresses job.
) for a late dinner. They were all that was open around there at that hour and stopping now would give dinner about 30 minutes to settle while I drove to my apartment & bed. Win win.