Malfeasant

Have you ever tried catching flies? Vinegar works better than honey, after all, flies eat shit.

The hell I would...

Having worked both retail and call center, no, they're not in the same league. People can be assholes over the phone, absolutely, but it's quite different from face-to-face. Someone threatens to kill me over the phone, I can say "I'd like to see you try" and hang up, and the worst that happens is I get fired. In person, they can carry out the threat.

It's nice when you have a boss that has your back. I worked at RadioShack back in the day, and the manager of the store I stayed at the longest was like that. Of course we didn't have the whole x items or less, but we were in a busy college area, only on-street parking, so we'd get people running in and wanting to be served immediately regardless of how busy we were because they were double parked. The boss empowered us to tell them to fuck off, politely of course. "Come back when you have more time, we'll be happy to help". Also, we were next to a parking lot, it wasn't ours, though we did have a couple of spots that were clearly marked employee parking only. Few things gave the boss more pleasure than calling a tow truck... Literally rubbing his hands with glee on multiple occasions.

I never worked food service, but I did my time in retail... That "Well we're here now" just gave me a PTSD-like flashback...

Ok, there's a lot here so I'm going to try to address it all without losing my train of thought and going off on too many tangents...

For one, I don't think food pickiness translates at all to general adventurousness. Our daughter will try anything food-wise, but she's a chicken otherwise. Fortunately she's not quite as stubborn as our son, and she's also a show-off, so she'll overcome her fear if it gives her something to brag about.

I was a pretty picky eater as a child too, but I would also leave the house and do my own thing way past when I was expected to come home, much to the chagrin of whichever parent I was living with at the time. My dad would just send me to bed with no TV if I didn't eat what was presented, which was a pretty big motivator to me at the time, as well as trying to make me feel bad for insulting his ability to cook. I remember swordfish that was like leather, and scallops like rubber... I'll never try either of those things now. My mom on the other hand would go apeshit if I didn't eat her food, there were more than a few times she would force feed me, just one of many ways she illustrated the line between discipline and abuse by stepping over it ...

Anywho... We can't really do the whole "eat it or you go hungry" thing with our son because he was born with a heart defect that makes it hard for him to gain weight, and that's the one thing he needs to do to overcome it. He just turned 7, and while his height is about average, his weight is about that of a 5 year old. He's a noodle.

I don't think being forced to try new foods when you're young makes you more likely to try new foods as you get older, you just get more ok with trying new foods as you get older regardless.

To be super pedantic, no, ownership of your money never transfers to visa. When your card is swiped (tapped, whatever) visa (or mc or Amex or whoever else) facilitates communication between your bank and the merchant's bank, but no money moves yet. At the end of the day the merchant settles out those transactions, but that's still just data. The money moves typically a day or two later, and that is done directly between the customer and merchant's bank. Source: worked in credit card processing for ~9 years.

Oblige pickiness in boys? They'll be picky as men.

I feel like this isn't necessarily a bad thing... My son is super picky, and it's annoying for sure, but it doesn't deserve to be in the same list as dishonesty or aggression... It means he knows what he likes and won't let anyone push him into something he's not comfortable with. He'll try new things on occasion, but he has to be ready for it, if we push him he just digs in and refuses to budge. I've had the best results with "hey bud, want to try this? It's really good" and when he says no, "suit yourself, more for me." It doesn't work often, but when it does, it sticks. New food option unlocked. My wife will bargain with him, and she gets him to try stuff, but only to get what she's offering, even if he ends up liking it, he needs to keep up the appearance that he doesn't because it's been made into such a big deal...

Is -5 greater than -10? Yes it is.

If we're thinking about banging the green M&M, we're not thinking of her as tasty chocolate candy.

Hey, speak for yourself.

I feel like "chose to have" is a bit strong when "chose not to abort" might be more accurate...

They're safer than humans already. It's just you hear about every robocar crash because they're unusual, and every time one happens, the whole industry learns from it. With humans driving, it's doubtful the people involved learn from a crash, let alone anyone else, we just accept it as inevitable.