2021
August
18
Wednesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

August 18, 2021
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Sometimes, lately, we are not ourselves.   

Angry Americans, we reported last week, are taking out their frustrations on servers, flight attendants, hotel clerks, and all kinds of frontline workers. 

Tammy Stirk Ramsey saw the face of rage on July 5 at the Union Bluff Hotel in York, Maine. After waiting more than an hour to be seated for dinner, a man blew up, swore at the host, and stomped out. 

But what he did next is noteworthy: He sent a letter of apology and included a $100 bill.

“I feel bad. This coming from a guy who tells people to be kind to service staff and tip big post-pandemic – how hypocritical,” he wrote, in part. “You never want to be ‘that guy’ and that day I was ‘that guy’ – sincerely sorry.”  Signed: “An embarrassed customer.”

Kudos to him for saying I had a bad day,” Ms. Ramsey told News Center Maine. 

She’s worked at the hotel for 25 years. She’s got a thick skin, she says. But this has been a difficult period. “I really just want people to know that we’re working our hardest, we’re working long hours, we’re understaffed,” Ms. Ramsey told WBZ-TV in Boston. For the first time during the busy summer months, the restaurant is closed Wednesday and Thursday nights this week to “give staff a break,” says manager Tracy Knowles.

Ms. Ramsey asks patrons: “Just be patient, be kind, be understanding, and smile.”

It doesn’t hurt to also be generous. Ms. Ramsey split the $100 with the servers at the hotel.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

U.S NAVY/Central Command Public Affairs/Sgt. Isaiah Campbell/Reuters
A Marine assigned to the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit escorts a State Department employee to be processed for evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport, in Kabul, Afghanistan, in this photo taken Aug. 15, 2021, and released by the U.S. Navy Aug. 18.
Doug Struck
These cloud seeders fly their planes close to thunderstorms to try to prompt precipitation. They're spending the summer near the airport in Bowman, North Dakota, ready to go aloft on short notice. Pilots Tyler Couch (left) and Alex Bestul (second from left) are training pilot interns Izzy Adams and Hanna Anderson (right).

Essay

Has Alexandra
In Los Angeles, "Immersive Van Gogh," a high-tech, multimedia celebration of the work of renowned post-impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh, takes place in the former home of the iconic Amoeba Music store on Sunset Boulevard.

The Monitor's View

Pajhwok Afghan News/Handout via REUTERS
People in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, carry Afghan flags as they take part in an anti-Taliban protest Aug.18, 2021.

A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

A message of love

Virginia Mayo/AP
Belgian British teenager Zara Rutherford speaks on the tarmac in front of her Shark Ultralight airplane prior to takeoff at the Kortrijk-Wevelgem airfield in Wevelgem, Belgium, Aug. 18, 2021. She hopes to become the youngest woman to fly around the world solo by breaking the record set in 2017 by American aviator Shaesta Waiz at the age 30.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte and Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Thanks for joining us. Come back tomorrow: We’re working on a story about a Louisiana pastor’s determination to hold a community together after a devastating storm.

More issues

2021
August
18
Wednesday
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