We spent Thanksgiving dinner with my Dad in Cherry Hill, NJ this year. Cherry Hill isn't the most exciting place on the planet, so we took the opportunity to spend a night in Philadelphia before heading back. Friday night, we had a great dinner at Dmitri's (23rd and Pine).
As usual, the conversation was thought provoking and wide ranging (more on that later). One of the people at the table was in an irritable mood, and lamented how the state of service in the US never ceases to find new lows: front desk clerks that are incapable of performing checkin or checkout without help, waiters and waitresses that consider glassware optional, taxi drivers that are amused by your troubles with heavy luggage, etc.
Then someone else at the table mentioned that we've become a nation of entitled citizens, demanding our handouts and special treats for every little thing, where we were once a nation of responsible citizens. She sees the pendulum swinging back towards an emphasis on civil responsibilities instead of civil rights.
I hope she's correct on that one.
As a semi-unrelated aside, I wish Microsoft would start living up to their corporate responsibilities and stop beating their hairy gorilla chest on how it is their corporate right to earn a profit. I'm getting exceedingly tired of having people's personal mail forwarded to me by some virus asking me for advice. If Microsoft did their job instead of focusing on how to extort money, I wouldn't have to be bothered with a mailbox full of viral spew.
