- I need to wriggle out of my T-Mobile contract. Well, one of them: I long ago escaped the one associated with my Sidekick, but I bought a separate number for DCist's LastCall service. LastCall's currently shut down due to some technical problems, and if I resurrect it I'd want to use a different SMS gateway. But I've still got over a year left on the contract.
Of course, there's a $200 early termination fee associated with quitting now. Bad. But T-Mobile has announced an SMS rate increase, which constitutes a contract change, which lets customers quit for free! Good! But I have unlimited SMS, so I don't qualify. Back to bad. Now I have to keep calling their CSRs until I get one that's especially sweet and/or confused.
I suppose I should feel guilty about my planned deceit, but I didn't get a handset when I signed up, and the ETF is largely in place to ensure that people don't get subsidized phones and then quit the service before the money's earned back. So my conscience is clear — it's just the sweet-talking that I'm dreading. Sage advice on this point would be appreciated.
- I'm with Julian on this: two dollars per cocktail seems very high. I am, I know, out of the mainstream when it comes to bar tipping: I've never really understood why bartenders are the best-compensated wait staff in a bar or restaurant when their jobs also seem to be the easiest and most fun. Besides, applying the same percentage (or higher) tip as when dining makes no sense: for drinks, the amount of effort the server has to invest in serving you is much smaller relative to the value of the total transaction (and therefore the tip) — the customer has to line up and wait to be served, there's generally no follow-up attention paid by the bartender, and less knowledge of the menu is required.
I suppose I feel this way because I prefer to drink cheap beer in dive bars. At Southwark a dollar tip per drink seems low — the gentleman on the other side of the bar prepared the beverage with such diligence, made such friendly, intelligent conversation and generally took such good care of me that it'd be incredibly crass not to tip generously in gratitude. But being expected to cough up a dollar per popped-top on $4 cans of Schlitz at DC9? I donno, man. Seems kinda dumb.
Comments
Did you get something other than a Sidekick? (If you blogged about it and I spaced, I'm sorry.)
I think $2/drink is too high and $1/drink is too low, so I usually go with $2 for the first drink and $1 thereafter. It ups the total for the bartender slightly and the $2 upfront ensures that they remember you kindly for the rest of the evening.
Well, I'm eyeing the Helio (it's out!). But that's not a problem -- I can leave my main T-Mobile number any time I want since I'm out of contract. I'm not going to do it just yet, though, because I want to use it as leverage for getting out of the other one.
The other line was just for LastCall, nothing else. I got a cracked-screen Nokia off ebay and a Sidekick data plan (I just needed something that would talk to my Linux box over a serial connection).
Oh, and I generally agree about front-loading your tipping, although I suspect my total is lower than yours. If I'm getting a single drink the bartender might end up with more than $1/per, but if I'm buying a round I'm never going to exceed $1/per (unless I'm in NY, I suppose) -- especially if it includes several non-draft beers, which it usually does. I just don't value retrieving and removing the cap from a bottle of beer at more than $1000/hr.
I'm with you, Tommy. I may be exposing my deep-seated hatred of the human race, but if I'm ordering bottled or canned beer, I just order two and tip $1 for the pair.
Couldn't agree more Tom. Precisely why I like to pay with a card -- I can evaluate the service at the end of the evening and tip an appropriate percentage.