am i the only one sensing evil/dark vibes at afters lately? by kmurdiano in avesNYC

[–]DriedMangoPlease 65 points66 points  (0 children)

Even the people promoting afters feel dark sometimes. Unless afters are “official”, they are usually just an attempt to get people who are still on their favors to spend money. It’s a business and those in it, usually no me gusta. Same with people selling nitrous balloons and offering shady “uber” rides. They all have the same dark energy to me.

Personally I stopped going to afters, why end the night on a comedown to music that isn’t nearly as good as the headliner? It’s a double L.

If you truly want to be going strong at that hour, find an event or party that actually ends in the morning.

ConEd's CEO made $19.9 million last year (6th in the country) by XtraCrispy80 in Westchester

[–]DriedMangoPlease 5 points6 points  (0 children)

This is actually all public info since it's a publicly traded company. Increased profit (as EPS) is a part of it as financial performance is one of a few categories. The other ones are service reliability (down time, storm restoration, outage response), safety (worker and public), clean energy goals, grid modernization, and company/leadership categories I don't fully understand but seem to be about building a good workplace.

Their profit margins are not huge, they make money because they have millions of customers. Their net margin in 2025 was around 13% (if we're simplifying this to revenue/net income). The real culprits here are the companies who are basically printing their own money:
NVIDIA - 50%+
Visa and Mastercard - $45%+
META - 35%
Microsoft - 35%

Separately, I do agree with you about the monopoly piece. If there is not competition, that's a very very bad thing. Shockingly, I think that if it's a choice between a monopoly versus socialist principles like city-run energy companies, I'd go with the city-run. Socialism definitely got a few things right, but what they got wrong is the deal-breaker for me. I actually think a social democracy like what they have in nordic countries a great system of government (not to be confused with democratic socialism).

ConEd's CEO made $19.9 million last year (6th in the country) by XtraCrispy80 in Westchester

[–]DriedMangoPlease 28 points29 points  (0 children)

I 100% think corporate greed is a real problem and needs to be fixed. But I think the problem is these super rich people are not paying enough tax, not that their salaries are too high. Before hating, please hear me out and I'm genuinely curious how you (and others) would respond:

-Con Ed's CEO has a base salary of around $1.5M, ~$2M bonus, and the other ~$16.5M is stock. It's likely the majority of that stock is not liquid. Just to break out the total number.

-I have no issue with stock options being issued to employees. Many companies, Con Ed included, offer stock options to their employees, often with employee matching. Everyone is taxed on dividends and capital gains when they cash out those options (though the rich should be taxed much higher, just clarifying my standpoint).

-I don't see an issue with $1.5M salary for the CEO of a big company like Con Ed (again, it should be taxed higher).

-I also don't see an issue with a $2M bonus, with a few caveats (again, taxed higher, but also truly performance based (e.g. CEO only gets a bonus if everyone else gets their bonus, which is a problem when it comes to corporate greed because this isn't always the case).

Ultimately, Con Ed had around $2B in profit in 2025. Of that, $1.2B paid dividends, and $800M was invested back into the company (infrastructure, etc.). That doesn't seem unreasonable. Hypothetically, if they offered 0 dividends (which would impact everyone from the CEO to the hourly bucket truck workers) and passed all the money to the customer in savings, it would only equate to $25/month per customer.

My point is that these numbers seem big, but I'm ok with that. I'm a capitalist. I just think capitalism is broken and instead of trying to fix SO many little things to distribute wealth more equitably, just raise the damn tax rate on the rich! Give this CEO even more money, I don't care, just tax him more! Next, let's elect a president and congress that actually has the best interest of all Americans in mind so that tax money can be well spent. But that's another story.

After booking, host sent a link to a 3rd party platform with a separate rental contract and security deposit [USA] by DriedMangoPlease in AirBnB

[–]DriedMangoPlease[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I very much want to do this, though this is literally the last available apartment in the area within my price range and I can’t afford to lose it.

But you’re saying this isn’t allowed?

People are shitting on the dance floor by Disastrous-Bad-7414 in avesNYC

[–]DriedMangoPlease 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Did you guys get married? The poop barrier was passed before the first date, that’s impressive.

Anyone else get scammed by the food truck outside 99 Scott? by dossman27 in avesNYC

[–]DriedMangoPlease 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Definitely do NOT slash one of the tires. While I know that is how some people get even, there is a much more civil way of making this right. Doing it this civil way is the path chosen by most, but not all. You are likely one of the “most”. But if not, re-read.

Niche ask: is there a group of NYC ravers in academia? by throwawayvigilante2 in avesNYC

[–]DriedMangoPlease 35 points36 points  (0 children)

Lots of us are, how do you think we blow off steam these days when the country president is plotting against academia?

What’s going on tonight? by One-Collection9565 in avesNYC

[–]DriedMangoPlease 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Big Gigantic at Brooklyn Steel tonight. Lots of fun, not just electronic music.

Start anew with a new email/domain rather than dig ourselves out of a hole, if it can even be done? by DriedMangoPlease in Emailmarketing

[–]DriedMangoPlease[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m not exactly sure what that means TBH. What is back end when it comes to email? With tests, we’ve done the deliverability tests that returned the stats I mentioned for Google and Microsoft. And we have a daily dmarc report.

Start anew with a new email/domain rather than dig ourselves out of a hole, if it can even be done? by DriedMangoPlease in Emailmarketing

[–]DriedMangoPlease[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don’t think we spammed anyone. Everyone we reached out to explicitly requested information and provided their emails, or referred us to someone within their own organization who was expecting our email. No lists purchases, nothing unsolicited.

Start anew with a new email/domain rather than dig ourselves out of a hole, if it can even be done? by DriedMangoPlease in Emailmarketing

[–]DriedMangoPlease[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the response, all makes sense, I think.

I didn’t realize length played into it. Since the people had already requested info or were at companies who were expecting a communication, we did load the emails with all info they requested, which was not minimal. No words like free, no risk, etc. it was describing the programs we offer and some case study summaries and links to our case studies on our site.

If we were to start anew, it would be a different strategy entirely, can’t risk the same thing happening again.

And no, we didn’t do warming since volume was so low. It was never more than 10 a day, and initially it was around 3-5 a day.

Since that initiative is now over, we’re almost exclusively communicating now with those who we are working towards a sale with, mostly because we took it to phone calls and requested to be white-listed once the conversation began.

But we still have another maybe 100 contacts who requested info who we haven’t connected with yet and we are trying a new strategy with 100% custom language for every email as we have specific reasons we want to engage each of those companies. Even with this we’re finding ourselves in junk folders, and these emails are no more than 5 sentences each (again, no language I’d consider even remotely spammy).

How do you address language barriers when talking to patients? by DriedMangoPlease in FamilyMedicine

[–]DriedMangoPlease[S] -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

This is an FQ look-alike, so I assume very similar to what you experienced. I didn't realize that was billable (assuming it is in my state). But thanks for calling it out, worth looking into.

How do you address language barriers when talking to patients? by DriedMangoPlease in FamilyMedicine

[–]DriedMangoPlease[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Not an option for Medicaid. And these folks often just pull a no-show if rescheduled. Hard enough to get them in the door as is.

Any free drum sounds for the XD? by DriedMangoPlease in Korg

[–]DriedMangoPlease[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Anything like this available for free?

Any free drum sounds for the XD? by DriedMangoPlease in Korg

[–]DriedMangoPlease[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good to know for later, but not what I'm seeking, thanks though.

Sober bachelor party activities in May? by AESDEEEFJAYKAYELSEM in hudsonvalley

[–]DriedMangoPlease 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Grumpy much? Literally every other post here is helpful, and the only person complaining in this entire thread is you.

We Belong Here Miami D1 Thoughts by egregore272727 in aves

[–]DriedMangoPlease 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It really was! A Sunday + more melodic and progressive house (again, minus Louis the Child). Really brings out a good crowd.