A must read…

Go read Voodoo Medicine Man’s post on the entitlement mentality

He got it in one, and said it MUCH better than I can.

Herding cats time…

Last night was one of those you had to be there situations…

A group of us went out to dinner at a Japanese (local not tourist) restaurant. They had the plastic presento food in the front window, with Kanji and prices only. The menu came, only Kanji, no English, no pictures…

So everybody either orders off their best guess or price (from the front window). Most of us ordered what are called sets (like prix fixe) but two guys got creative…

Soooo

The wait staff starts bringing out dishes, sets one in front of one of the ladies with 8 little plates, and motions around the table (can we say appetizer?), so she takes a little plate, one piece and around the table we go… The last guy, a PHD, says, “hey, this kinda looks like what I ordered for dinner”. Next they bring out a few bowls of rice, which get placed around the table and some of the group take them…

Again the last guy is left out… Now they bring out the rest of the meals, he now has nothing sitting in front of him, and he mumbles something about thinking he ordered a bowl of rice…

We end up getting the manager over to the table, and find out that we had, in fact, eaten his dinner AND his rice 🙂 So he orders again…

20 minutes later we are finished, and his second set of food finally gets to the table. We wait for him, then go up to pay. Now this is where it gets interesting…

They don’t speak English, we don’t speak Japanese, there is nothing on the bill indicating the prices, and the Mamasan is getting frustrated. So I go track down the manager and get a menu, we guesstimate how much we owe, and start going back and forth to the front window and pointing out what we had. The Mamasan totals it up, points to the register and that is what we pay…

Last guys gets up, points to his appetizer and rice (times 2), and she rings up about 4 times the value… Last guy gets frustrated (reminder: he’s a PHD and he doesn’t deal well with not getting his way) so I end up in the middle of it, and through pantomime, etc. we figure out she never charged us for any drinks, so tacked it all on his bill… We finally get enough yen together to pay the last part and leave…

We get outside, and of course, to add insult to injury, it is now pouring rain! Last guy decides to wait on a taxi, while the rest of us head back. About 30 minutes later, we’re at the bar having a nightcap or three, when he finally comes in; he walks over and tells us he needs yen to pay for his taxi!!! The idjit called a taxi for what was effectively a 4 block ride, which cost almost $10, and he didn’t even have the money to pay for it, and tried to pay with his credit card!!!!

So collection time again, including trading people dollars for yen to finally collect enough to pay his taxi fare, meanwhile he leaves and goes to bed!!! So I get stuck doing the go min esai dance with the taxi driver…

Note to self: DO NOT bring this guy next time… sigh…

Comments

A must read… — 8 Comments

  1. There are people who refer to my TriCare Health Insurance as an entitlement. I beg to differ.
    It was earned after a 20 year Naval Career. The deal was, when I initially enlisted in September of 1973 at the tender age of 19, I was told give 20 or more years and your country will take care of you. I held up my end of the deal, so now Uncle Sam is holding his end of the deal.
    And yes it was EARNED. Deployments at sea on the other side of the world in the days before email and cell phones, 127 day line periods, and the russki “trawler” and kashin destroyer/kresta cruiser on the horizon. And then there were the visits from the IL-38s and TU-95s.And every day being cyclic ops, launch, recover, respot ad infinitum.
    GM Cassel
    AMH1(AW)
    US Navy
    Retired

  2. Mr Cassel- I there with you. 22 years of work to earn mine. It sure as hell is NOT an entitlement… We were the lucky one, we made it home. I lot of our compatriots didn’t come back. Thanks for the comment!

  3. Entitlements? Inducements/lures were more like it. I joined at 17, did 23 and because of location of retirement home and difficulty of travel to a base I never used ANY of the EARNED entitlements since I retired in ’77. No Commissary, medical, NADA. And I’m not complaining, it is my choice not to use them. Besides I fell into a great business! When I retired, the expected life expectancy was (9)!! years! I screwed Uncle on that one! Hanging in there.