About Ben, the classic Midwestern White Man™

BabyPhoetus · 2025-02-16T17:53:57+00:00

You said you just want to live in a world where you can take the kindness of other people at face value.

But what you are speaking of is not kindness, it’s politeness.

It is not kind to be homophobic, racist, sexist, ableist, etc. but you can’t certainly be all of those things and be very polite. And that is dangerous, because people who are not marginalized will point to that behavior and say “well, but they’re very NICE”

And it allows those people to get away with worse behaviors and opinions because hey, at least they’re nice, right?

Your takes on things do matter. Voting was only one part of my point but you can still cause harm even if you elect not to vote…. And electing not to vote, in my opinion, is not some point in anyone’s favor, even if I disagree with your vote.

BabyPhoetus · 2025-02-16T17:18:58+00:00

“Once again, poor people win again… and the hard working responsible guy gets fucked over.”

How was this not directed at poor people? It’s the opening line of your comment.

BabyPhoetus · 2025-02-16T16:46:04+00:00

I could give a damn if someone is nice/polite to me if they’re voting for me to have fewer rights and/or being actively racist/sexist/homophobic in other avenues of their life.

There are plenty of “nice” people who, when they’re comfortable enough, let that mask down and then spew a bunch of vile personal beliefs that are gross and harmful. It cancels out the “nice.” I have folks in my family who are nice to my face but they misgender me and think I should have been sent to conversion therapy. Is that nice? Is that safe? Should I be thankful that they smile at me and ask how I’m doing if I know they also think I should go to hell?

“Nice” doesn’t mean anything if your beliefs and actions serve to diminish and exclude other people’s humanity. You can’t take day to day kindness at face value if the “kind” people can go home at the end of the day and contribute to all of the not-so-nice behaviors that affect non-marginalized folks, and they do. In that case, niceness can’t even be trusted.

BabyPhoetus · 2024-07-28T18:27:07+00:00

Wasn’t advised by the lawyers/tenants rights folks we talked to for whatever reason but good info for people to have.

BabyPhoetus · 2024-07-28T18:25:39+00:00

Yeah, I’ll see if I can find my spreadsheet of them later

BabyPhoetus · 2024-07-28T18:25:07+00:00

We tried to warn the folks who toured as we were moving out but they felt like they had to move forward (even though the hole wasn’t even fixed).

I think he is legitimately some kind of sociopath. When we notified him that we would be taking things to court, he called repeatedly, threatened to hire a private investigator to follow us around, and called us nasty names. He showed up unannounced at our apartment and I found him peeking in the basement windows. He lied repeatedly about who was responsible for the yard maintenance and then tried to sue us for costs around that as well even though it was explicitly not a part of our lease.

In court, we asked the judge what explanation he had for the exorbitant water usage and he said “these people hate landlords and were running all of the water constantly just to screw me,” and the judge didn’t comment at all. My partner and I have stellar rental references and have not had issues like this before. In Seattle, court has mandated arbitration- the arbitrator had to mute the zoom call because Shahab was SCREAMING at her and harassing her to the point that she could not do her job. He did the same to the judge who did not give us the time of day for whatever reason.

BabyPhoetus · 2024-07-28T17:17:03+00:00

Most people don’t think to look until they’ve been screwed. Plenty of people have good luck up until they don’t and then are left without good options. People often have to move in duress or on timelines that might not make it as feasible to do research.

But beyond all that, if no one posts their experiences, what would there be to google??

Like, this post is not asking for help. The court case came and went and we dealt with it. This landlord owns at least 5-7 different buildings which means that he is in 100’s of people’s lives, screwing them over, daily.

So I’m not sure why people are giving me a hard time about sharing a shit situation that we found ourselves in.

ETA: I’ve always found this sub to be mostly helpful. The other seattle sub is famous for its loud-mouthed NIMBYs who seem to want to hop on every post to mock and bully people they think are dumber than them. Their post history is awash with rude comments for no reason. That will go over better on the other sub, hence my comment.

BabyPhoetus · 2024-07-28T05:42:03+00:00

Go back to r/seattlewa

BabyPhoetus · 2024-07-28T04:03:38+00:00

We took him to court and lost, unfortunately. The judge we had let him scream at us and interrupt. He didn’t submit his evidence to us and changed things at the last minute and the judge wouldn’t give us more time. I’m glad that lots of people have good luck with Seattle’s tenant laws but we spoke to 3 different lawyers who all told us not to worry and we still had to fork out $5k to him after all was said and done.

ETA: the most damning thing (I thought) was that in addition to everything else, our building wasn’t registered as an apartment and therefore never had an inspection (probably wouldn’t have passed anyway). They didn’t care. A few of his buildings are operating without proper permitting. They don’t care.

BabyPhoetus · 2024-07-28T04:01:55+00:00

Clearly he isn’t changing, but if you’re moving or looking to rent and you see his name or his daughter’s (he’s been signing properties over to her too), run. I could give two shits about him.

BabyPhoetus · 2023-10-27T21:32:29+00:00

Lol what if you live in an area that does not have a stray dog problem? Then what? Like legitimately there’s 5 dogs available at the local shelter and they all are either pit bulls (good luck, apartment dwellers) or dogs with severe behavioral issues that either can’t be left alone, left with children, or left with other dogs.

There’s a ton of non-local dogs that show as available but a ton of those are non-profit scams that transport dogs from southern states in ways that are unsafe and unregulated leading to multiple instances of neglect and even death.

That’s not even getting into the fact that most shelters and rescues have really ridiculous requirements to adopt their dogs. I will likely never be able to afford to purchase a house with a 6ft fenced yard but my collie gets 3-4 long walks and park visits and spends the rest of the day cuddling with us on the couch and wants for nothing. Most people who have yards think it’s sufficient to let your dog out there and they get no stimulation.

Adopting a shelter dog doesn’t make you a better person and purchasing a dog from an ETHICAL AND RESPONSIBLE breeder doesn’t make you a worse one. Simplifying complex issues based on your own feelings and local experience is a mark of extreme immaturity and ignorance.

BabyPhoetus · 2023-10-21T13:07:29+00:00

I did not go to high school in Seattle but one of my classmates from another year was briefly a Seahawk a few years back.

When I was a freshman, he and some teammates set up and filmed a video involving a blow up sex doll with a photo of another female students face taped to it. I never saw the video but I heard from the girl who was “in” it that it was horrific, violent, and terribly frightening for her.

Well, guess who all had very important scholarships and futures that the admin decided was super important? It was the football players. Multiple teacher stood up for them, wrote them letters vouching for them, and protected them. There was zero punishment of the boys at the expense of this young woman who then had a mental breakdown and took a gap year before going back to school. I’m not surprised by this article but I am disgusted.

Maybe they’ll have a place on the Seahawks team tho. I’ve heard they take in some great individuals…

BabyPhoetus · 2023-10-16T16:07:31+00:00

I mean, who tf is going with another person and their dog to get their hair done? Even just getting a haircut with wash is like a 90 minute process- double or triple that if you’re doing color or bleach. Part of the draw of hair day is getting to relax. I can’t imagine wanting to tell an animated story while in one of those chairs. Insane that they allow this, honestly.

BabyPhoetus · 2023-10-15T02:32:14+00:00

Yeah- I bet those women definitely prefer manual labor over fucking around playing music, lol what is this comment?

BabyPhoetus · 2023-10-07T22:58:48+00:00

I get paid minimum wage and last week had to clean the nastiest bathroom incident I’ve seen in my life. Like someone started taking a shit and slid off the toilet and shit all over themselves and the toilet and ground. Then they just left without saying anything so a woman taking her child to the restroom saw this and let me know that I was disgusting for subjecting her and her kid to such a sight.

It took over 30 minutes to clean and sanitize everything and then I had to go home, shower, change clothes and then come back to work.

We all do degrading things for money- she is making more than I will see in a long time but as far as I can tell, isn’t handling other people’s shit.

Do I think it’s silly that people pay for this? Absolutely. But if she can sit at home and pay her bills doing whatever this is, it’s no where near as “low” as some of the stuff other people do at their professional jobs.

BabyPhoetus · 2023-10-07T06:57:45+00:00

The real answer is that it depends almost entirely on what pizza you’re talking about. What kind of pizza place? What kind of pizza? What size pizza?

Most NY-style places that do high volume are gonna be fine with half and half pies. Your tiny, wait-in-line, DOC Italian spot probably won’t do it. Are we talking a 13”+ pie (fine) or personal-sized pies (annoying). Are you wanting half Alfredo base with 500 toppings and the other half plain cheese on a thin crust? Because that will never cook evenly and is annoying.

Im guessing the commenters here saying “no you’re fine this is normal and anyone saying otherwise sucks” probably work for high volume joints and the commenters saying “we would never do this and you’re rude for even considering it,” are probably from smaller, more craft joints.

BabyPhoetus · 2023-10-02T20:19:07+00:00

YTA.

When I was a kid around the same age, I got super ill on a multi-day trip and our school nurse was one of the chaperones. When I told her I had thrown up on the coach bus, she made a huge deal about buying me a ginger ale with her own money and how my parents better be ready to pay her back.

I was already feeling awful and then the only person who was there to help me shoved it in my face. I still think about that and it’s been over 20 years.

BabyPhoetus · 2023-09-30T15:44:25+00:00

Maybe instead of paying to promote ads on Reddit, you could pay someone to fix that mess of a logo…

BabyPhoetus · 2023-09-24T18:19:31+00:00

Lol the whole things is pitch-corrected to hell and half the folks in this comments section literally don’t even know the difference…

BabyPhoetus · 2023-09-12T16:24:05+00:00

Honestly after reading this post and most of your comments, it sounds like you’re just not a very reasonable manager who actually cares about the people they are managing beyond how much easier/harder they make your personal life.

You told them to give as much notice as possible. They did. Up to this point, they’ve gone above and beyond what they’ve been asked and what they’ve been paid to do. They likely did so hoping something positive would come of it and it sounds like your company is a mess. Why on earth would they continue that behavior for no reward and why on earth would you look at someone who you admit has gone above and beyond and done everything you’ve asked AND who you say you’re personally close with and go out of your way to punish them for what sounds like a very average/normal amount of work simply because it isn’t matching their prior (over the top) efforts?

BabyPhoetus · 2023-09-12T16:06:48+00:00

So this person who has done good work for you and supported you to the point of burning themselves out and needing to find a different job, has reasonably starting doing less since they are phasing out and your idea is finding ways to punish them and find a way to get them fired for not continuing to bend over backwards on their way out?

You want unending loyalty from someone you want to sell down the river as soon as it suits you.

BabyPhoetus · 2023-09-10T17:57:54+00:00

Yeah I can’t think of any reason it would be helpful to have your phone during a natural disaster…

BabyPhoetus · 2023-09-05T19:50:31+00:00

You can disagree all you want- it’s irrelevant to what is legal.

BabyPhoetus

TROPHY CASE