Good for Balthazar for Getting Rid of its Bathroom Attendants

November 4, 2013November 4, 2013Danny Vinik Leave a comment

Henry Blodget caused a bit of a stir last week when he penned a diatribe against the bathroom attendants at the New York restaurant, Balthazar. Here’s a sample of it:

I always forget that Balthazar makes a guy stand in the tiny bathroom all day, so whenever I open the Balthazar bathroom door after breakfast, I am hit by the same series of unpleasant emotions: Annoyance, guilt, pity, uncomfortable invasion of personal space, and then… extortion.

…

I go through this internal dialogue and series of emotions every time I enter the Balthazar bathroom. And it makes me hate Balthazar and never want to come back. And then, over time, I forget the Balthazar bathroom experience, and remember only the dining room and meal. And then, eventually, I go back.

But this is a terrible practice — this “bathroom attendant” thing.

It is never helpful.

It is never anything other than uncomfortable and degrading.

It is never a “service” that I look forward to or enjoy.

So I am hereby appealing not just to the bosses at Balthazar, but to restaurateurs and hoteliers all over the world, to eliminate it.

Lo and behold, Balthazar took his advice. Owner Keith McNally announced today that he will be relieving the bathroom attendants of their duties over the next few weeks. In the end, he said, he agreed with Blodget so the bathroom attendants will be no more.

In finding this out, Blodget reacted on Twitter with remorse and wished that McNally had hired them as waiters instead. But this doesn’t make any sense. If McNally agrees with Blodget and does not see a purpose for the attendants, then he should get rid of them. If he has an opening on his wait staff, then he should fill it. But hiring extra waiters for the sake of hiring isn’t a good business strategy.

It’s certainly sad that those workers have lost their jobs, but our economy works best when companies take advice from their customers and make changes to their businesses accordingly. Capitalism dictates that companies have the ability to fire workers it deems expendable and workers can leave jobs for better ones. McNally made that decision. He should not feel compelled to continue employing them just because he eliminated their positions.

There is a larger point here as well. We’re into President Obama’s second term and the economy is still barely recovering. These firings wouldn’t be as painful if the workers knew they had a high chance of finding a new job in the near future. Unfortunately, our government (read: Republicans) has done everything in its power to lower those odds. Sequestration is a moronic policy that is significantly reducing growth. The government shutdown harmed the economy and fiscal brinksmanship does so well. Bipartisan agreement to let the payroll tax cut expire is holding back the economy too. These are just the ways Congress is actively harming the economy. It should be actively helping it by passing infrastructure bills and immigration reform. The Balthazar bathroom attendants would have a much greater chance of finding a new job if Congress wasn’t actively trying to stop them from doing so.

It’s a sad state of affairs that eliminating pointless jobs will cause such an uproar. These positions simply unnerved customers and guilt-tripped them into tipping. They should be eliminated, but the workers should also be able to find new employment in positions that use their skills better (anyone can turn on a faucet and hand out paper towels) and provide a greater benefit to society. The abomination here isn’t McNally eliminating those jobs or Blodget’s post that led him to do so. It’s the government’s inability to help Americans get back on their feet and recover from the Great Recession. Direct your anger there.

Mike Lee Is The Tea Party’s Resident Wonk

November 4, 2013Danny Vinik 8 Comments

Mike Lee speaks at Heritage.

Last week, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) delivered an address at the Heritage Foundation focused on the future of the Republican Party, on both political and policy grounds. What many people don’t realize is, he might just be that future.

Lee has played second fiddle to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) for much of his first term in Congress, but that is changing. Many political commentators have noted that disagreements within the Republican Party focus more on tactics than on policy. No one represents this divide better than Lee.

His tax plan is the most serious piece of Republican legislation that anyone in the party has proposed since Obama took office. He does away with the conservative dream of a flat tax and instead opts for a two bracket system, a 15% rate for individuals making less than $87,850 (double for married couples) and 35% for those making more. The focal point of the plan is a new $2,500 tax credit for every child a family has. Most importantly, the credit applies to both income and payroll taxes so that low-income families who don’t itemize can take advantage of it as well. Lee would also cap the mortgage interest deduction, create a new charitable deduction that’s available to all tax filers and gets rid of the deduction for state and local taxes. The plan aims to collect revenues equal to about 18-20% of GDP.

Wonks and political analysts all over the internet praised Lee’s proposal. but it has received limited attention on the national stage. Instead, Lee is most well-known for the government shutdown, of which he was a fierce supporter. The futile strategy has sent Lee’s approval rating plummeting, with many Utahns insisting that the senator become more willing to compromise. But Lee’s tax plan is a compromise. He doesn’t insist on absurdly low revenues or a huge tax cut for the rich. It’s unclear how progressive (or regressive) the plan is, but it’s a legitimate opening proposal. That’s exactly what Utahns want.

This is what makes Lee’s decision to become Ted Cruz’s sidekick all the more intriguing. Lee could become the face of a new, serious, policy oriented wing of the Republican Party, taking cues from conservative reformists such as Ross Douthat, Reihan Salam and others. Why become a wacko bird and build a reputation as a non-serious thinker? Few people outside of Utah and Washington know of Mike Lee and those who do don’t think of him as a wonk, but that’s exactly what he is.

At Heritage, Lee spoke in platitudes about the future of the Republican Party. More policy proposals will come in future speeches, but he did touch on a couple of other topics that are legitimate conservative ideas as well. He proposed reducing the gas tax over time, putting states in charge of the nation’s highways and mentioned that states could fund it with congestion pricing. In education, Lee wants to give states the right to determine accreditation for student aid. However, the main focus of the speech was pushing the party to adopt a new policy agenda:

By the time we reach November 2016, we will be as far away – chronologically speaking – from Reagan’s election as Reagan’s election was from D-Day. Yet, as the decades pass and a new generation of Americans faces a new generation of problems, the party establishment clings to its 1970s era agenda like a security blanket. The result is that to many Americans today, especially the underprivileged and middle class or those who have come of age or immigrated since Reagan left office, the Republican Party may not seem to have much of a relevant reform message at all. This is the reason the GOP can seem out of touch and it’s also the reason we find ourselves in such internal disarray. The gaping hole in the middle of the Republican Party today – the one that separates the grassroots from the establishment leaders – is precisely the size and shape of a new, unifying, conservative reform agenda. For years we’ve tried to bridge that goal with tactics and personalities and spin, but it doesn’t work. To revive and reunify our movement, we must fill the void with new and innovative policy ideas. Today, as it was a generation ago, the establishment will not produce that agenda and so once again, conservatives must. We must.

Lee’s new policy agenda should not stop at infrastructure and student aid though. He should continue his focus on smaller government by reforming our intellectual property laws so that they are fit for the modern world. This is an untapped area where conservatives can propose solutions that will restrict the size of government and have them gain mass appeal. Lee should jump on that opportunity. He should also implore states to reduce housing and occupational licensing restrictions, both of which will lead to increased economic growth. Farm subsidies and corporate welfare are also areas that he should attack.

However, proposing these ideas to a favorable crowd of D.C. insiders is not enough. To have any effect, Lee must make an impact on the Republican Party on a national scale. That’s his next challenge. How does he transition his image from one of reckless sidekick to thoughtful reformer? Doing so is not easy. But liberals should not take the difficulty of that as reason to ignore the young senator. Through his antics, Lee has earned the valuable support of the Tea Party. If he is able to earn national attention for his ideas, he’ll possess the dual credentials as radical Tea Partier and serious conservative policy wonk. That role was once misleadingly filled by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), who somehow managed to gain credibility as a serious thinker while proposing a budget so extreme that House Republicans couldn’t even pass the policies this summer. After Ryan’s defeat on the Romney ticket last year, that office is empty. Lee now has the opportunity to fill it.

This Time Is Special

November 2, 2013Danny Vinik Leave a comment

Boston sports has won eight titles in the past 12 years, lost another four times in the finals and lost another six times in the conference finals. Needless to say, this is a golden age for our teams. But Wednesday night, when the Red Sox defeated the St. Louis Cardinals 6-1 to capture their eighth World Series title, was different. It was special.

To understand why, you have to get inside the mind of a Bostonian, something that’s not easy to do. Boston isn’t the biggest city in the U.S., it’s not the most important economically and doesn’t have the best skyline. But almost everyone from Boston is loyal to the bone. If you’ve ever met someone from the city, you probably have seen them become fiercely defensive over any slight to it. Bostonians walk around with a chip on their shoulder and are always ready to prove their city’s worth.

That’s where sports come in.

Sports give Boston the chance to claim victory, to clearly defeat New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and every other city across this country. It’s the opportunity to stand up to the Evil Empire, point at the scoreboard and say, “We’re the best.” We can raise a banner, cheer on the duck boats and know that we are unequivocally better than everyone else in America at something. It’s a point of immense pride for Bostonians.

This is why Boston fans seem to be everywhere. It’s why 3.2 million people flooded the streets in 2004 to cheer on a bunch of idiots, and it’s why millions more will do so later today. It’s why 86 percent of televisions on in Boston on Wednesday were tuned to the game. Whether or not you agree with the meaning Bostonians place on their sports teams, that meaning is real.

This brings us to the 2013 Red Sox. More than any team in recent memory – including the 2004 Sox – this team encapsulated what it means to be a Bostonian. They connected with the community on a unique level. They were underdogs in the fullest sense of the word. Few writers chose the Sox to make the playoffs, much less win the AL East and the World Series. After a disastrous 2012 season that saw them finish in last place and trade away their high-priced free agent acquisitions, 2013 was shaping up to be more of a rebuilding year than one in which they would vie for a world championship.

On an individual level, the players on this team were scrappy, underdog overachievers as well. Nearly every single one has a story. There’s Daniel Nava who went undrafted, hit a grand slam on the first pitch he saw in the majors, and then wasn’t even invited to the major league camp in 2012. This year, he surprisingly made the roster and had a great season. John Lackey was the scapegoat for the Sox’s miserable 2011 campaign, underwent Tommy John surgery and came back to have a terrific year in 2013. Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz both had rocky, injury ridden seasons in 2012 to come back and pitch like aces this year. Pedroia tore a ligament in his thumb during the first game of the season and fought through it all year. Big Papi was written off in 2010, missed half of 2012 and came back to have one of the best World Series performances in history. Koji Uehara was never supposed to be this team’s closer and at 38-years-old, he pitched nearly perfectly in that role. Jonny Gomes is a career .244 hitter, but was the hero of game four. The list goes on.

This team wasn’t built around superstars. It was built around heart, will, toughness and perseverance. On paper, this isn’t the best team in baseball, but that’s why we play the game. This team played all year with a chip on its shoulder, with a point to prove and they came out every night ready to do whatever it took to win. That’s the reason this team built such a deep, personal connection with Red Sox Nation.

After the Boston Marathon bombings, the players on the team took it upon themselves to become a focal point in the community, but they didn’t want the media attention that came along with it. All they wanted to do was to help people heal. The team still had to earn back the trust of fans that it had lost the previous year, but the foundation of a deep connection between the city and its team began with the player’s commitment to be a force for good in the Boston community, on and off the field.

As this relationship grew stronger over the summer and into October, it was only fitting that the players would get to celebrate the pinnacle of the year with their fans. It was only fitting that this would be the first team to clinch the World Series in Fenway Park in 95 years. For Boston, this was a celebration decades in the making. It didn’t break any curses, but it represented everything that Bostonians see and believe in themselves. It was a moment for a team of dirt dogs to share with its resilient fans.

That’s why this title is so special.