You Deserve It! Sunday musings…7/21/2024
1 Whelmed. When I say that something is underwhelming or overwhelming you know exactly what I mean. A bit too little, or a bit too much. What do we say when something is pretty much exactly as expected? Why don’t we react to such a thing by saying we were “whelmed”?
Should be a word.
2 Mompliment. When your mother gives you a compliment that’s almost backhanded because it comes along with a nudge to do something that SHE thinks you should do or should have done. HT Erica Rhodes.
Should be a word.
3 Tipping math. Man, is it just me or has the whole tipping thing gotten out of hand? You grabbed me a donut and maybe put a to-go cup under the coffee dispenser. Because you are behind the counter at some fancy coffee joint and not Burger King somehow this is “service” as if I sat at a white table cloth restaurant?
I was always taught that you tipped on the price of the service, that the taxes on the price were not to be included in your “tipable” event. And yet when the tablet is turned toward me, or the “gratuity included” is marked on the bill, all of the percent suggestions or disclosures are calculated against the included tax total. Should I be adding a tip for my accountant when they file my taxes?
Some kind of threshold was broken. Maybe when you got asked for a tip when the flight attendant sold you that weak sauce tiny bottle drink you needed to get through a flight that was delayed for 2 hours.
4 Sports Page. Dan Wolken of USA today wrote a column a few weeks ago about the U.S. Open in which he linked Rory McElroy’s U.S. Open to Greg Norman in the Master’s in 1996. Wolken’s piece is at best an example of journalistic overreach, more likely out and out journalistic malpractice. McElroy flamed out of the Open this weekend. No dishonor, that. 9 of the top 25 ranked pros did as well. Still, the bleating from the commentariat about the “effects” of letting the U.S. Open slip through his grasp continues to be a pebble in my golf shoe. Seriously, they are STILL equating it with Greg Norman’s Masters choke for the ages, and that just makes no sense at all. Let’s look at the numbers, shall we?
In the 1996 Masters Greg Norman went to bed on Saturday with a 6 stroke lead over Nick Faldo. Norman had made no secret that he dearly coveted a Master’s victory; surely this would be the year. There are many rumors about that Saturday night and how Norman spent it, but none of them have been confirmed by the parties that are co-named, so I shan’t tell stories. Suffice it to say that perhaps there were conflicting celebratory plans that may have had an effect on Norman’s pre-round preparations.
Norman and Faldo were in the final pairing that Sunday, Norman at -13 and Faldo at -7. In a round that included 4 bogies and an astonishing 5 double-bogies, Norman shot a 6 over par 78 to finish at -7 (281). Soon-to-be Sir Nick was 5 under to finish at -12 (276). In contradistinction to Norman/Faldo in ’96, McElroy began his 2024 U.S. Open final round 3 shots back of Bryson Dechambeau’s -7. It is true that Rory got it to -8 if I recall correctly, before carding a round of 1 under par, -5 for the tournament. Bryson hardly pulled a “Faldo” here. On the contrary, those thrilling putts he sank on 17 and 18 brought him home in 1 OVER par, -6 for the tournament. Yes, for sure, but for two missed but quite makable putts, Rory has another major on the mantle. But a Normanesqe choke job?
Please.
The need to collect “eyeballs”, views, and clicks is so out of control that pundits large and small resort to the kind of hyperbole that would get you an “F” in Journalism 101. Wolken took an 800 word cheap shot in which he showed little if any concern for historical fact, let alone any sense of perspective. McElroy had the tournament in hand and missed two putts down the stretch, either one of which puts him in a playoff. If Norman finishes -1 on Sunday as Rory did at the U.S. Open he wins by 2; 1-over like Bryson and it’s a playoff. Norman was playing for second place at the turn. It makes one wonder what it is about McElroy that Wolken finds disturbing enough to conjure up such an inept comparison. If he sinks the putts Rory is declared “back”. Does Wolken then write a story about how Bryson choked?
This is why no one tips sports columnists.
5 Deserving. What does it mean to deserve something? I mean, as opposed to earning something, of course. To earn is an easy concept for me, but to deserve is a bit more fraught, I think. The author Anne Patchett, one of Beth’s favorites, has some thoughts that are a nice place to start: “I’d been afraid I’d somehow been given a life I hadn’t deserved, but that’s ridiculous. We don’t deserve anything–not the suffering and not the golden light. It just comes.”
Ms. Patchett is clearly a woman who cares little about karma, at least in the non-fiction part of her life.
What about the rest of us? How often do we say or hear stuff like “Vacation? You deserve it”, or “s/he got what they deserved”? What does that mean? When we think about wealth, or hear people discuss wealth, I find myself hearing stuff like “nobody deserves $X”. Again, what does that mean? I definitely get the whole “nobody needs $X” thing, although it would certainly be fun to try to live like you needed to spend $1BB. For me the lessons likely lie somewhere near the intersection of earned and deserved. For example, one doesn’t deserve a tip, one earns it.
I admit to a little bit of unease with the starkness of Ms. Patchett’s take, though. Maybe it’s the residual Catholic in me or something like that. To deserve something in the purest sense is to have done something, to have behaved in a certain way that one might be rewarded. My understanding of karma in the formal sense is quite shallow, but in the vernacular if you will, I do like the simple (although probably totally made up) concept of the “karma bank”: one’s acts of kindness and generosity of all types become a kind of karmic deposit that will one day be returned to you in some fashion, perhaps with interest. “Do unto others…” and all. Of course, if we believe this we might need to believe that there is some reason all the lousy stuff happens to us, which would be a bummer.
Does it work that way? I dunno. Probably not. Ms. Patchett is probably more right than wrong. Her take inoculates us against the need to search for what it was we must have done to deserve something lousy, however much it robs us of the joy and happiness that something lovely might have come our way because we are nice people who do nice things. Perhaps the deposits in the “karma bank” are nothing but fool’s gold. Maybe we don’t deserve anything at all.
But wouldn’t it be lovely if “the golden light” was our tip when we choose to do what is right and what is kind and what is good?
I’ll see you next week…
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