The totally off-topic thread

[parsonstrish]

That's a good idea although I have stopped calling them as I don't use card overseas.

A $100 charge to Officeworks online followed by $50 charge on 22 March. Then they tried again on 24 March.

Filthy low lifes. Card is now cancelled.

P.S. What are they buying? E-gift cards to use elsewhere?

I've found Amex very quick also, it's the b nuisance of having card cancelled & having to notify all my direct debit banking.

 

[parsonstrish]

Watching hbo witness:South Sudan documentary featuring a French photo journalist. Interviews with people who were abducted by lra, etc. Keeping up to date with Brussels happening, US politics, Oz politics, I'm getting far too serious. Reminder to self balance, balance, balance.

 

[Quickstatus]

That's a good idea although I have stopped calling them as I don't use card overseas.

A $100 charge to Officeworks online followed by $50 charge on 22 March. Then they tried again on 24 March.

Filthy low lifes. Card is now cancelled.

P.S. What are they buying? E-gift cards to use elsewhere?

It will be Microsoft Windows download cards:
Gift Cards | Officeworks

you can get them online, then use them to download stuff without risking being caught by going into store and giving a delivery address.

 

[Foreigner]

Busted United pilot had business enterprise on the side in Houston:

http://viewfromthewing.boardingarea...houston/?_ga=1.200785515.419465546.1438591533

 

[TheRealTMA]

It's the death dish on Masterchef, but then they don't drink while they cook!

That's possibly the problem!
Last one photo

 

[love_the_life]

Busted United pilot had business enterprise on the side in Houston:

United Airlines Pilot Arrested for Running Brothels All Over Houston - View from the Wing

Well that's free enterprise for you :mrgreen:

 

[Foreigner]

Well that's free enterprise for you :mrgreen:

Yep. Won't impress his family friends and colleagues. Won't help pilot shortages in the US either.

 

[Bindibuys]

Love_the_life I was posting while waiting for dinner. The duck pizza & club sandwich went down a treat.
Thank you for joining us for drinks.

 

[QF WP]

This is an Air Show in Cameron, a small rural town in Missouri.
The pilots, bike and truck drivers, photographers and everyone involved, are 'nut cases'...!!
This doesn't border on crazy, it IS crazy!
This is much more than just your average airshow - they say no fatalities occurred.
Best viewed full screen….sound up.
Click below:

https://vimeo.com/1006702

 

[QF WP]

For all dog lovers out there - even if you haven’t got, or, had a dog!

NB: Do make sure you have 'Sound' on!!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/VDrabmm42

 

[amaroo]

This is feeling!

[video=youtube;VmO_0tIGo-4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmO_0tIGo-4[/video]

 

[Foreigner]

Housecleaning brought out invoice for my first purchase of computer equipment, in Melbourne, 1989:

XT Turbo system with 20mb hard disk
Thomson EGA colour monitor
Star NX1000 printer

$3,999 including $666 in sales tax

 

[Quickstatus]

I stil have my Tandy TRS-80 with 16Kb ram and cassette tape drive

 

[JohnK]

Another cryptic message.... Hm, you're in Thailand so..... he-she? :mrgreen:

That's an easy one to detect unless you are wasted.

What you see is not what you always get.

 

[Quickstatus]

Pre TFN....showing my age here, but in hospitality it was the boom times. When PK introduced the TFN system, overnight there was a huge shortage of waiters, chefs, kitchenhands etc.. Everyone went from working 2 or 3 jobs, back to 1. I can remember working with many a John Smith or Paul Brown. Probably more than were in the phone book. (again showing my age)

That, and the Paul Keating induced FBT that killed off all those long boozy lunches.

 

[flyingfan]

A bit of mainstream (The New Yorker via The Guardian) mention about mileage runs:
The Madness of Airline Élite Status - The New Yorker

He diagnosed himself with “Global Services maintenance anxiety disorder” – a compulsive effort not to lose his status, made worse by United’s refusal to reveal the basis on which it’s awarded. Among the symptoms: otherwise pointless “mileage runs”, flights made solely to gain the favour of the airline gods. Why not just relax and, if you lose your status, so be it? Apparently, that’s not an option.

 

[penegal]

rogerkambah, Quickstatus, Boca68 (RE: Tax)

Yes - by the letter of the law all tips should be declared as income (and therefore be taxed). In practice I am sure there are plenty "turning a blind eye" for cash tips. In the age of credit card tips, these are harder to hide these from the tax man.

During the end of the dinosaur era:

1. When I worked in a cafe we had a tip jar near the cash register. The cafe owner used the tip jar to balance the til. None of the employees ever saw any of the tips. This was back in less prosperous economic times, and tips were fairly rare, so I doubt the owner was skimming any meaningful amount off the top.
2. When I worked in a nightclub everyone kept their own tips from every transaction. We were a cash only venue (quite rare these days, but very common at the time). In the first hour you didn't make a cent. As the night wore on patrons would pay using a banknote, but not want any coins for change. This meant as a bartender you could wear a pair of jeans full of coins by the end of a shift. On a good night it wasn't uncommon to bring home ~$30-50 in shrapnel per shift. The irony of this system is that sometimes the bar manager got paid less than the bartenders.

I actually was discussing this, and other hospitality matters with the owner of a restaurant while waiting for QF WP to join me for a drink on Thursday afternoon. At this restaurant tips are put in a central tip jar and shared among employees per shift, and then paid weekly in arrears. Each employee gets an envelope of cash based on a spreadsheet of the shifts they worked and the tips collected. This means employees who work a function aren't advantaged or disadvantaged based on whether the function leaves a tip. e.g. Corporate functions never tip (how do you explain that to the accountants), while some birthday parties or engagement parties can leave generous tips ($100+).

 

[penegal]

Of course it isn't all smooth sailing - Hospitality is a tough business.

The restaurant in question has recently had a fairly big theft problem. Thankfully the perpetrators were a bit stupid. If a table paid cash one worker would just delete the table from the POS system and keep the cash. Given the POS system records everything it didn't take too long before this came under notice. The second problem was a happy hour with $5 drinks. Given the "round" amount, many customers would pay cash, and the banknote would go into a pocket rather than the til. The third problem is "friends" would come in for a free meal or drinks.

Of course it is a balancing act. Giving regular customers a free drink every now and then can breed a kind of loyalty worth tens or often hundreds of times the cost of the free drink. On the flip-side, staff giving freebies away to their mates is hugely costly to the business.

Even with high merchant fees, an entirely electronic business actually makes things easier for the proprietor to keep track of cash moving through the business. The owner of this restaurant actually likes that I pay with AmEx (I am the Local Champion), because he knows that my [often substantial] tab is always paid to the business and not into someone's pocket.

 

[coco50]

rogerkambah, Quickstatus, Boca68 (RE: Tax)

Yes - by the letter of the law all tips should be declared as income (and therefore be taxed). In practice I am sure there are plenty "turning a blind eye" for cash tips. In the age of credit card tips, these are harder to hide these from the tax man.

During the end of the dinosaur era:

1. When I worked in a cafe we had a tip jar near the cash register. The cafe owner used the tip jar to balance the til. None of the employees ever saw any of the tips. This was back in less prosperous economic times, and tips were fairly rare, so I doubt the owner was skimming any meaningful amount off the top.
2. When I worked in a nightclub everyone kept their own tips from every transaction. We were a cash only venue (quite rare these days, but very common at the time). In the first hour you didn't make a cent. As the night wore on patrons would pay using a banknote, but not want any coins for change. This meant as a bartender you could wear a pair of jeans full of coins by the end of a shift. On a good night it wasn't uncommon to bring home ~$30-50 in shrapnel per shift. The irony of this system is that sometimes the bar manager got paid less than the bartenders.

I actually was discussing this, and other hospitality matters with the owner of a restaurant while waiting for QF WP to join me for a drink on Thursday afternoon. At this restaurant tips are put in a central tip jar and shared among employees per shift, and then paid weekly in arrears. Each employee gets an envelope of cash based on a spreadsheet of the shifts they worked and the tips collected. This means employees who work a function aren't advantaged or disadvantaged based on whether the function leaves a tip. e.g. Corporate functions never tip (how do you explain that to the accountants), while some birthday parties or engagement parties can leave generous tips ($100+).

My daughter-in-law used to waitress in an upscale restaurant in LA. Some nights there would be a clientele that would look like the red carpet at the Oscars. One night Tom Hanks and party tipped her $US700 for her waitressing on their table. The best I ever did as a teacher was a nice bottle of red at the end of the year.

 

[penegal]

My daughter-in-law used to waitress in an upscale restaurant in LA. Some nights there would be a clientele that would look like the red carpet at the Oscars. One night Tom Hanks and party tipped her $US700 for her waitressing on their table. The best I ever did as a teacher was a nice bottle of red at the end of the year.

WOW. Tips definitely vary wildly between venues. Anything with alcohol tends to open the wallet a bit more. Also more upmarket venues tend to attract more tips.

In my short bar-tending career the best I made was about $100 AUD in tips in the nightclub on a public holiday eve when I was still at university. I was standing, and serving drinks for about 7.5 hours, so approx $13 an hour, which more than doubled my income.

Since starting professional work I have to be very careful with accepting any gift, gratuity or hospitality. Since the early 2000s gifts have become very rare for our industry. Occasionally you get some nice hospitality at a function, but even then the gift register rules are pretty tight, especially for anything which involves people outside the company. The last "gift" I received was a bottle of wine from my one-up manager when I was promoted in June 2012. I'm still not sure if she paid for it herself, or if it came out of her budget, but it was a nice touch.