I've been in Seattle for over a year and a half now. During my time here I've observed certain behaviors of people here, each of which is insignificant, but taken together have lead me to this conclusion: People in Seattle are cheap. BTW, when I say "cheap," I don't mean thrifty. I mean definition number 7 on answers.com:
Cheap
adj., cheap·er, cheap·est.
7. Stingy; miserly.
What finally coalesced my thoughts on this, was that yesterday, I overhead some coworkers talking about how they should find a time to dumpster dive, discussing what the best places were to dumpster dive and how great dumpster diving is. Dumpster diving. Seriously? WTF?! Ok, usually, overhearing something like this wouldn't really make me draw any conclusions. I'd probably think, "Ok, that's... odd. But whatever floats your boat." The thing is, this isn't the first time I've heard Seattleites talk about the awesomeness of dumpster diving. The last instance, was during a work retreat, where a different person mentioned it. I remember being dumbfounded that I was the only person in the van who seemed to think dumpster diving was odd. Everyone else just accepted it as the most normal thing in the world.
I remember the very first incident that gave me the impression of Seattleites being cheap, was within the first couple of weeks of coming to Seattle. The person in charge of birthdays was collecting some money to get a gift for someone in the workplace. Well, the next day, I overheard (No, I don't intentionally eavesdrop. People just talk really f'n loudly) someone talking to the office manager, complaining about having to contribute $5 to everyone's birthday and that they really didn't want to do this anymore. After that, the policy of getting the birthday person a gift ends. I understand people might not be raking in the greenbacks. But come on, seriously? $5 for everyone in the office is $60 a year.
No comments:
Post a Comment