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Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Disaster Averted

Phew... The doormen of New York City, who actually have their own union, narrowly averted going on strike last night.  The NY Times tells us how bad the consequences of such a strike could have been:

"If the doormen and other service workers had gone on strike, residents of the affected buildings would have had to perform their own chores, like sorting mail, screening visitors, hauling garbage out to the curb and operating elevators."

NOOOOOOO!!!! THE HORRRRRROR!  Sorting mail?  Are you out of your mind?  OPERATING MY OWN ELEVATOR?!?!?!  DYKWTFIA?!?!?
I actually talked to a buddy of mine last night who told me about this potential strike.  He said "Dude - if the doormen strike there will be chaos - we'll have to haul our own trash to the curb."   

"Umm, bro,"  I responded, "hauling your trash to the curb isn't quite the definition of chaos."

Not to worry - there would have been rent-a-cop security in place, which is the only real concern.

There are some more gems in the article, like this:

"In the hours before the strike deadline, others were dreading a disruption in the don’t-do-it-yourself lifestyle of calling the super and ordering in Chinese that is particular to urban apartment dwellers. 

“It would definitely be a big inconvenience,” said Nicole Auerbach, 36, who lives on West End Avenue. “Our doormen told me probably 50 percent of the people in our building have takeout delivered on any given night.”"

oy vey.  Look - I'm fine with taking my trash to the curb and operating the elevator, but if you infringe upon my right to get Chinese takeout delivered, you will feel my wrath.  It is absolutely positively insane to think that the Chinese takeout man might have to call me from his cell phone from outside my building and that I might have to come down and get it at the curb from him.    Do we look like animals to you?  We are CIVILIZED human beings - and civilized human beings have their Chinese takeout delivered directly to their apartment doors.

-KD

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

KD - Honestly, having a doorman is a luxury most people can do without, but if you are paying a premium for said luxury in the form of higher rent/common charges (vs. living at a single unit or walk-up), you'd be pretty pissed if that luxury suddenly stopped coming to work. Just a thought.

Kid Dynamite said...

of course anon, but if that luxury stops coming to work, you don't pay them anymore!

oddlot said...

some of these buildings are not designed to operate well without a staff. our building, for instance, does not have enough elevators per apartment. if the garbage chute was out of service (as it would have been) and people didn't have to schedule use of elevators for moving, deliveries, or service (it is the staff that enforces these rules and levies fines) the elevator situation alone could get bad.

and no packages means no AMZN.

i would probably agree with you if i didn't live in one of these places.

Kid Dynamite said...

oddlot - i lived in a doorman building. and i'm quite certain that a doorman walkout wouldn't have caused chaos in my life. I can take my own trash out, i can come downstairs to meet the Chinese delivery guy, and I can pick my package out of the pile that the UPS guy leaves in the entry way.

but anyway - if you think you need your doorman, that's fine: are you willing to pay higher rent so that the doormen and their union can get the added salary/benefits that they are after? that's the real question.

if you think they are essential, you need to pay them... I think they are easily replaceable - but that's an entirely different subject, and one i intentionally avoided in the post.

Daniel said...

And I was beginning to think you were devoid of a sense of humor. Hmmm....

Kid Dynamite said...

come on daniel- you need to go back and read more of my posts! i'm a funny mofo...

Onlooker said...

Too funny KD. Oh the humanity! :-]

But I'm just a guy who lives out in the sticks and has to take his trash up the road to the highway to have it picked up; and to pick up our mail. It's hell out here, for sure.

Steve said...

Let's go full circle to Vegas doormen: in front of a hotel you often have a 15 minute queue of 100 people *and* a line of no less than 30 cabs. Plenty of simultaneous supply and demand. But they load the taxis one at a time, 1 or 2 per minute. I'm convinced the only reason is so that the doorman can receive his tip (at the airport they load 15 taxis at a time with no tips). If it weren't for the doorman tip we wouldn't have to wait 15 minutes. My tip is paying for substantially reduced service.