The library I interned at this past summer has Ace the Library Dog, who was introduced for a similar purpose, but he generally gets "checked out" by people who just want to spend time with a cute doggy in the library rather than necessarily read to them. :)
@Jessss, doesn't that kind of go back to shadowfirebird's original question? With the premise of unconditional love between mother and child: is unconditional love still unconditional when one party doesn't recognize it as so?
Personally, I never perceived that relationship as being regarded as reciprocal, anyway, i.e. a mother's love for her child is unconditional, not necessarily her child's love for her. (And where is fathers' unconditional love in all this, eh?)
Mitch, "If you fail to give the person who serves you the expected tip you are tricking them into serving you for free and cheating them, plain and simple."
No, they're doing the job they were hired to do and are expected to perform (and to perform well). And what about when they do that job exceedingly poorly? Should I still pay them because gosh darn it, at least they showed up to work, I guess? The tip is a bonus to be earned.
As for fair... well, why should the server get paid less by me because I only ordered a $10 salad while you were ordering a $30 steak? Same amount of effort and service on their part, but radically different tips. It's just a stupid system. (For the record, yes, I DO tip. I don't think I've ever not tipped anyone, and I'll even tip on take-out if I like the place/people. It's still kind of a stupid system that's been overly integrated into service transactions, and I disagree with how it's been elevated to a required obligation regardless of actual performance, at least to some people.)
Nobody, not even waiters, gets to earn less than minimum wage. If you don't get your tips, your employer is obligated to make up the difference until you reach minimum wage. (On a different note, if a customer does a dine-and-dash on you, your employer is not permitted to garnish your wages to make up for the cost of the meal.)
Tips should be given for good service-- exceeding minimum expectations. This attitude/expectation of deserving an extra tip just because you did your job...no. 15% for someone doing the minimum effort and has to be actively flagged down to get a refill on my water? Say hello to a 10% tip instead. I've even worked for tips before (ice cream store), and yes, they were nice when people were generous, but I also never felt like I deserved one for something so easy as serving a single cup of ice cream with no mix-ins.
Also, I could have sworn that 10% used to be norm for tipping before it was 15%-20%. Did I imagine that?
Peg, "front line staff members" -- Library clerks do a lot of hard work, but how much money should be given to people who work a job high schoolers could easily handle? Unless you were referring to the actual librarians... some of whom eventually go on to take directorships in their careers. Perhaps the directors don't need quite so much money, but they also bear a lot more responsibility for the library (sometimes multiple libraries, actually).
Happeh, "Do you know what they did with the half of the books that would not fit in the new library? They threw them out!"
What else would they have done with them? People get SO offended when books get thrown away (after "weeding" the shelves, aka deaccession) but where are they supposed to go? Books are thrown out when they haven't been circulated in years or are in poor condition or are hopelessly obsolete. Some are removed via book sales (and often come back in a donation a couple of years later), but then what?
As for the "art gallery" library... people don't see a lot of need for libraries these days, at least not in the traditional "book storage unit" sense. Do you want them to cling to the old ways and hemorrhage in gate counts? Several libraries I know have in recent times remodeled to add cafe areas, a lot more reading spots, better environment overall, etc, because that's what people tend to use them for. A dingy beige, metal-shelved library is NOT going to compete with a stylish Barnes & Noble that lets patrons still read for free and visit a Starbucks and use the wifi while they're there.
Which is not to say that the redesigned library is not a poor space. Politics and flashy design can affect libraries as much as any other institution. The public library in (I think) Seattle has an unusual spiraling ramp to take patrons through the Dewey numbers. Cool and different? Sure. Useless compared to a more usual layout? You bet.
I fail to see the significance of your inability to spell, choggie, in relation to fake butter. Are you implying it's so unnatural it...warps reality so that you can't even refer to the main post, in which it's correctly spelled multiple times? That eating margarine has stunted your linguistic skills? That it's fake butter and therefore a fake word? What?
Prairie Dog, as I understand it, "someone" suggests a singular entity, whereas "their" is a plural possessive. It'd be like saying, "He have the cheese."
However, I consciously choose to use that construct, because it's otherwise too clumsy to have "he or she" over and over. Or I just shorten it to "he" and trust that people can just get over the lack of the "she."
Personally, I never perceived that relationship as being regarded as reciprocal, anyway, i.e. a mother's love for her child is unconditional, not necessarily her child's love for her. (And where is fathers' unconditional love in all this, eh?)
No, they're doing the job they were hired to do and are expected to perform (and to perform well). And what about when they do that job exceedingly poorly? Should I still pay them because gosh darn it, at least they showed up to work, I guess? The tip is a bonus to be earned.
As for fair... well, why should the server get paid less by me because I only ordered a $10 salad while you were ordering a $30 steak? Same amount of effort and service on their part, but radically different tips. It's just a stupid system. (For the record, yes, I DO tip. I don't think I've ever not tipped anyone, and I'll even tip on take-out if I like the place/people. It's still kind of a stupid system that's been overly integrated into service transactions, and I disagree with how it's been elevated to a required obligation regardless of actual performance, at least to some people.)
Tips should be given for good service-- exceeding minimum expectations. This attitude/expectation of deserving an extra tip just because you did your job...no. 15% for someone doing the minimum effort and has to be actively flagged down to get a refill on my water? Say hello to a 10% tip instead. I've even worked for tips before (ice cream store), and yes, they were nice when people were generous, but I also never felt like I deserved one for something so easy as serving a single cup of ice cream with no mix-ins.
Also, I could have sworn that 10% used to be norm for tipping before it was 15%-20%. Did I imagine that?
Happeh, "Do you know what they did with the half of the books that would not fit in the new library? They threw them out!"
What else would they have done with them? People get SO offended when books get thrown away (after "weeding" the shelves, aka deaccession) but where are they supposed to go? Books are thrown out when they haven't been circulated in years or are in poor condition or are hopelessly obsolete. Some are removed via book sales (and often come back in a donation a couple of years later), but then what?
As for the "art gallery" library... people don't see a lot of need for libraries these days, at least not in the traditional "book storage unit" sense. Do you want them to cling to the old ways and hemorrhage in gate counts? Several libraries I know have in recent times remodeled to add cafe areas, a lot more reading spots, better environment overall, etc, because that's what people tend to use them for. A dingy beige, metal-shelved library is NOT going to compete with a stylish Barnes & Noble that lets patrons still read for free and visit a Starbucks and use the wifi while they're there.
Which is not to say that the redesigned library is not a poor space. Politics and flashy design can affect libraries as much as any other institution. The public library in (I think) Seattle has an unusual spiraling ramp to take patrons through the Dewey numbers. Cool and different? Sure. Useless compared to a more usual layout? You bet.
I fail to see the significance of your inability to spell, choggie, in relation to fake butter. Are you implying it's so unnatural it...warps reality so that you can't even refer to the main post, in which it's correctly spelled multiple times? That eating margarine has stunted your linguistic skills? That it's fake butter and therefore a fake word? What?
However, I consciously choose to use that construct, because it's otherwise too clumsy to have "he or she" over and over. Or I just shorten it to "he" and trust that people can just get over the lack of the "she."