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You reminded me of the great line from Dave Barry: A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person.

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This is a great line.

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I learned two things about people in my years working part-time in the service industry. One: 50% will tip and 50% will not and income level doesn't matter! The cheapos just don't believe in it no matter how much money they have. A good example is the current owner of Twitter. Two: you never know where that next tip is coming from so treat all customers the same. Again, it cuts across all income levels.....

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This is a sobering comment! Again: The things I don't know because I never worked in the industry!

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Thus the cynicism of "industry veterans."

To realize one day (often at a too young age) that roughly half the population was born with NO EMPATHY is a sobering.....

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.....thought. But Will, the industry, heck, the world needs people like you

.....

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thank you for another humane, lovely piece. Of course you would be a generous tipper.

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I wasn't always! I'm just *slightly* less stupid now.

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I'm sorry Will, that I sobered you. My 86 year old Mother called me tonight and requested that I not visit for Thanksgiving because my 84 year old Dad is suddenly dying so I should eat the non refundable $104 Greyhound bus tickets and I'll probably just get emotional and be in the way.

Now they have good reasons for this. My partner just died 2 months ago. Liver cancer, stage effing 17!

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I know this is controversial, but I think the real heros during the pandemic were the servers on every level. Uniformly they lost their jobs, not knowing if and when they would come back. I especially applaud those who did.

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I think there were a lot of heroes, more than we acknowledge, generally, all told. But I'm not sure I'd call them the ONLY ones!

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My parents were at this game. They had to get tickets in the UVA section because the Illinois section was basically sold out. It looked and sounded like SFC to be honest. UCLA looked cooked after the press started.

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We were pretty jacked up, for sure. It felt like postgame at Green Street afterwards ...

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Go Illini!

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It's going to be a very fun year.

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You’re a talented writer, Will. Keep up the strong work.

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Thanks!

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