New to the Area

thanks for the info...i was hoping the key food on washington was decent...so much for that. i'll stick to fresh direct

Carnivore wrote: The Met Food on Vanderbilt is decent, overall probably better than the yuppie Key Food on Flatbush.

Totally agree. I go there sometimes. The prices are decent, and although they don't have much that Alice Waters would approve of, it's an OK neighborhood place. Regrettably, every time I go there I end up purchasing a big box of Pop Tarts. Heh heh.

Edited to add: OOPS, I thought you were referring to the Met Foods on Franklin. Never mind.

I like the Met on Vanderbilt for non-perishables. They have great 'ethnic' stuff. The Lebanese brands, Goya, and a bunch of other great stuff. And the guys are really friendly. They'll usually honor requests for particular products (like plain flour tortillas).

I'm also a member of the Prospect Heights CSA. Between the Met, CSA, Delicacies and the Farmer's Market, I've found no use for Fresh Direct or long trips to Fairway.

I also pledge my never ending love to Pintchik. My husband and I are forever indebted to their sincere and helpful staff. I know I'm overdoing it, but you have no idea what idiots we are when it comes to home improvement. We're making great progress. The staff will literally teach you how to do stuff, even if you're not purchasing much.

ana.log wrote: [quote=friendlypitbull]The reason why the service sucks at virtually ALL stores in NYC - chains and mom and pop - is b/c the quality of the employees is terrible. Rudeness and attitude is rampant and widespread. The retail employer can only be as good as the labor pool.

Man, is that the truth. I spent a good deal of time in upstate new york this year, and I was amazed how nice and helpful the staff was everywhere I went. I never had to ask for help - it was always offered, without attitude. People seemed to understand that that was their job. Seems obvious, but not something to take for granted here, for sure.

That's why I'm so freaked out by how nice the cashiers are at Trader Joe's. I randomly met someone who works there and I asked him if they require you be that perky, and he said no such policy existed. They're just really that excited to be ringing up your groceries.

Duane Reade used to be the pinnicle of bad service, but I've noticed they force the cashiers to ask you "Did you find everything you needed?" when you're checking out. Because they care, really.

doctorj wrote: Again I think this is missing the point of what happens when you have high population density, higher costs per retail sqft, higher cost of living, extremely competitive marketplace, but expect to pay the same price and the same minimum wage and get the same level of service. You end up with a business environment where high turnover is the compensation for higher operating costs, and the absolute minimum is spent on staff. And for consumers, the payoff is a greater range of choice and pricepoints than in the country. I can't blame someone for being comparatively rude and incompetant when their effective wage goes a fraction of the distance it would in the country while they're expected to handle twice as many customers. Why should they give a shit? I don't have to be polite back, but I can get in and out quickly because my time is money too.

As for New Yorkers being rude in general, I just don't buy it. What you do and don't find offensive depends on vague relative cultural standards and what you're used to. I was pleasantly surprised when I moved here how refreshingly frank people were and really impressed with some aspects of politeness and behavior in public compared with similarly dense cities elsewhere. One person's rudeness is another person's efficiency.

doctorj you make a good point, but that doesn't explain why the workers at the post office here in NY are so god-awful nasty. That's a decent blue-collar job with good federal benefits and job security. 8)

doctorj wrote: I can't blame someone for being comparatively rude and incompetant when their effective wage goes a fraction of the distance it would in the country while they're expected to handle twice as many customers. Why should they give a shit? I don't have to be polite back, but I can get in and out quickly because my time is money too.

Sorry but I dont see why having a low wage makes you rude. I can see how paying a low wage gets you incompetance but being rude really should have no correlation. I have never heard of a person becoming nicer b/c they got paid more. Do you honestly think that if you paid these retail employees $14 an hour (vs $7) they'd treat you the customer nicer - if you do then I suspect you really havent dealt with NYC retail personell that much.

Additionally since NYC has a relatively high unemployment rate compared to the rest of the country, the (relative) wage should be less relevant in terms of getting "good employees", unless as I suspect, NYC has an inordinate number of unskilled, unemployable individuals.

friendlypitbull wrote: [quote=doctorj] I can't blame someone for being comparatively rude and incompetant when their effective wage goes a fraction of the distance it would in the country while they're expected to handle twice as many customers. Why should they give a shit? I don't have to be polite back, but I can get in and out quickly because my time is money too.

Sorry but I dont see why having a low wage makes you rude. I can see how paying a low wage gets you incompetance but being rude really should have no correlation. I have never heard of a person becoming nicer b/c they got paid more. Do you honestly think that if you paid these retail employees $14 an hour (vs $7) they'd treat you the customer nicer - if you do then I suspect you really havent dealt with NYC retail personell that much.

Additionally since NYC has a relatively high unemployment rate compared to the rest of the country, the (relative) wage should be less relevant in terms of getting "good employees", unless as I suspect, NYC has an inordinate number of unskilled, unemployable individuals.

Need I even mention MTA token booth clerks? Average yearly salary $51K ("Current minimum salary is $15.4600 per hour, with increments to a
current maximum of $21.6425 per hour after three years."
according to Wikipedia) and they just can't be arsed. Can we fire them and bring in those nice Trader Joes people?

friendlypitbull wrote: Do you honestly think that if you paid these retail employees $14 an hour (vs $7) they'd treat you the customer nicer - if you do then I suspect you really havent dealt with NYC retail personell that much.

I am not saying that if you take a particular shop, double the wages, keep the staff:customer ratio the same, keep the same staff and the same prices, you'd achieve anything other than going out of business. Nor is doubling the minimum wage overnight going to change the culture; social capital takes time to accumulate.

But do I think if you go to a boutique where there are half as many customers, twice as many employees per customer, where each employee is paid twice as much and where you pay eight times the markup for approximately the same product with perhaps a fancy label or packaging, they're more likely to treat you nicely. In fact, there's barely an upper end to how much you can pay in this town if what you want is pampering.

The price and service is what the market will bear, and clearly most people prefer to shop at places where the workers are comparatively stressed, poorly remunerated and generally abused by wider Western standards, and the prices low. What's more, left to their own devices, consumers prefer to maintain a large undereducated poor population to provide substandard service for substandard wages to keep prices down; if they didn't, they'd shop more often at the polite boutique and demand a social democratic government. I think you will find this pattern whereever density is high, population large, land expensive, and market forces unbridled.

on grand between st marks and prospect.

laundry city.

live it, love it.

escap wrote: Doctorj I have to disagree with you in your dismissal of the role of culture, and your non-inclusion of training and company standards.

I hope you don't have to disagree with me because I agree with all you've said
Culture, and training and company standards are very important, though still susceptible to market forces over time.

Training: this I would lump with wages and health insurance as a benefit given to the employee and an investment by the employer. Depending on the company culture and business model, the rate of turnover of employees, and the price the market will bear for a level of goods and services, the company may or may not invest in training. If retail employees are undertrained in retailers in NY, a corollary is that consumers aren't voting with their feet and checkbooks, forcing employers to change their practices.

Again with corporate standards and service-mindedness: it's an investment, it takes time and effort to teach employees to be nice to people and take pride in the quality of the work (especially if you're working uphill against entrenched or historical class or ethnic tensions). If many retailers in NY lack that culture, and it really bugs consumers, why aren't they voting more with their feet and wallets to change the culture and favor firms that make the effort?

What I'm basically saying is:
1) On average, in such a large and competitve market as New York, we consumers are getting the service we deserve and are willing to pay for as a result of the past behavior of consumers.
2) If you don't like rudenses in a particular place, don't complain about service in general, shop somewhere else next time. There'll be exceptions, but be prepared to pay a little more on average at places which maintain high standards and invest in their employees. That's in a free-market with few standards mandated by unions or government (i.e. post-office and MTA monopolies don't count). Your choices shape the culture. And be prepared to pay more on average in the big city to get country-style hospitality.
3) Don't complain about a large, poor, undereducated undertrained wage-slave class working in retail unless you're avoiding those stores and you'd be willing to pay higher taxes to invest in the healthcare and education of those people so that there are more rungs in the ladder of opportunity for the next generation.

By the way friendlypitbull, I grant you that New York attracts more from the bottom of the socioeconomic heap, just as it does more from the top, compared with Buttfluff WY. And with 40% of residents born overseas, it's still the world's gateway to the US so a lot of people are making their first steps with a new culture and language. However, the unemployment rate in NYC as of 08/06 was 5.1% which is close to the national rate, and they've been close or identical for a number of years.

escap wrote:
On the note of culture, I lived in Japan for a number of years, and let me tell you that it is truly culture shock to return to NY after living there.

No doubt. And I've lived a place where there was less service culture than here because helping someone would be demeaning and imply a difference in status. I don't know much about Japan, but I wonder whether ethnicity makes a difference? I imagine you'd look like a rare Western guest; would you get the same treatment if you were Ainu or ethnic Korean? Also, Japan invests in its citizens' education and healthcare and environment, paid through taxation, in ways the US does not, which is in itself a playing-field levelling distortion from consumer-driven user-pays freemarketeering. Also, this is an ancient and deep monoculture where a feudal system persisted into relatively modern times, so I would understand some persistence of fealty, masters looking after servants and servants looking after masters. The American story is more one of owners and slaves; maximizing the rate and efficiency of exploitation of raw resources, labor included.

escap wrote: If consumers, employers, and the general culture demand good service, you will have it. If rudeness is seen as normal, then you will have that.

Agreed.

escap wrote:

The American story is more one of owners and slaves; maximizing the rate and efficiency of exploitation of raw resources, labor included.

Hmm, that's a pretty negative take--but I'd also say it's contradictory. It was the capitalistic rhetoric of efficiency that was used by the original Republican party in the northeast to criticize the inefficiency of slavery. The slogan was: "Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men", based on the notion that an employment relationship based on mutual consent would always be more productive. So America's story cannot simulateneously be one of owners and slaves and one that maximizes efficiency, as you seem to be suggesting.

I wonder if "more productive" depends on your time horizon; your willingness to invest and wait for a return vs. taking cashflow now. I can see that grabbing slaves from Africa or employing uneducated New Yorkers at $7/hour without training or benefits could allow you to open that plantation or discount store right away and turn a profit, whereas building up a skilled at-will workforce, while more efficient and productive in the long term, requires forethought, deeper pockets and an expectation of stability. So the contradiction here is the same contradiction between making a quick buck without considering social costs, and maintaining an efficient healthy skilled pool of labor.

escap wrote:
I'm not saying that large employers don't often have unfair leverage, but there's no equating the forced, violent conscription of a human being into complete servitude, subjugation and hard labor, with the employment of a voluntary applicant for that position at a wage equal to or higher than what that person could make anywhere else for comparable work. In fact, the comparison is so far-fetched as to be unworthy of someone who is clearly as well-educated as you are.

Fair enough, it's true that the downtrodden in this contemporary society have a greater range of options these days than their forebears. They also have prison and the military as genuine career options in addition to wage-slavery in retail. That wasn't the point of drawing an admittedly extreme comparison. The questions that interest me here are how long-term vs. short-term thinking affects treatment of employees in a fast-paced highly competitive high density environment. And why we have such a large and persistant underclass here working for so low wages, when for the most part comparable work in other first world countries is performed by healthier better educated people who get more purchasing power for their wages. This is the single most shocking thing about life in big American cities from the perspective of other Westerners.

escap wrote: Anyone who thinks that raising the minimum wage or imposing stifling rent regulations will help alleviate the city's entrenched poverty is just presenting the very type of short-term solutions that you are bemoaning. These types of measures will clearly only worsen the problem in the long run, yet that seems to be all I hear nowadays.

Rent regulations I'm 100% with you on; that's a short-term and blunt instrument if ever I saw one, guaranteed to assist and punish the wrong people.

What is it exactly you don't like about raising the minimum wage? There are countries with healthy and growing economies that have higher minimum wages in real terms than here, and below that, a wider safety net, such that subsistence level is guaranteed for all but it can still pay to work. I can see that an abrupt increase in the minimum wage would be inflationary and could also increase unemployment; the latter is less of a worry at the moment, and the cost to business could be offset by changes to the tax system. But one way or another, to raise the status of the working poor, it's going to cost money up front, and someone has to make the investment, either by raising or diverting tax revenue or via increased costs of goods and services.

The best thing I can think of for making a difference over the long term is to accept defeat for this generation, and invest in the education and health of the next generation, so that they have a fighting chance of doing better than their parents. Imagine how many more citizens lives would be protected for the same $$ spent on widening health coverage rather than invading yet another country. This is also business friendly, since everyone benefits if there's a healthier more skilled labor pool to draw from. It seems to me like the US currently relies a lot on the education and health systems of other countries, importing workers at both ends of the skills spectrum (including me) while Americans on the margins continue to languish generation after generation in poverty. And that has got to be inefficient, to say nothing about social justice.

escap wrote:
Where have the halcyon days of Clintonian centrism gone...?

Judging by the antics on Fox last week... "He's back, and he is NOT happy". We can always hope things will improve after '06 and '08.

cythren wrote:
[quote=doctorj]
Rent regulations I'm 100% with you on; that's a short-term and blunt instrument if ever I saw one, guaranteed to assist and punish the wrong people.

It has helped me and many people I know. We're not the wrong people.

How do you know whether you are the right or wrong people? If you were means tested and judged to be most in need of assistance for the duration of the period in which you have benefitted from artificially low rent, I agree you're exactly the right people. But if you have benefitted while someone in more need has had to pay an artificially high price instead or even go homeless as a result of market distortion, you are the wrong people. If you have benefitted over an extended period, and aren't on a fixed or dwindling income, chances are high that you will have become the wrong people even if you started out as the right people.

If you cannot state with certainty whether you're the wrong people or not, wouldn't you prefer a clearer system where the money only went to those in need, rather than the current lottery?

I've lived in a building full of the wrong people where the prices were fixed a very long time ago. We lived it up for years while those poorer or newly arrived suffered. Rent regulations helped me and in hindsight I was definitely one of the wrong people.

it's a nice enough place to live, but nightlife is absolutely awful in prospect heights. if you just want to grab a beer with a friend, sure, you can roll over to soda or sepia. but if you're looking for anything more than that, don't waste your time looking for it in the neighborhood (or park slope, carroll gardens or cobble hill).