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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: August 9th, 2023

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  • “Jaywalking” is mostly a US thing made up by car companies to victim-blame pedestrians when they were killed by cars so they could avoid regulation themselves. Where I am we were taught very early in school how to safely cross a road safely, and pedestrians waiting to cross or already crossing a road generally have right of way even when no signals exist. It’s only an issue in backwards countries where cars have more rights than people and cities are designed for them instead.

    I cross without a signal daily because otherwise I’d have to walk all the way around the block to get to a crossing going the opposite direction from where I’d want to go then find a way to circle all the way back at other crossings. That would make leaving the house more than a little inconvenient, especially since everything I’d need is in walking distance so I rarely drive. To my knowledge I have not been killed by a car a single time.

    Edit: Thanks for the downvote, doesn’t change the facts.

    The very word jaywalk is an interesting—and not historically neutral—one. Originally an insult against bumptious “jays” from the country who ineptly gamboled on city sidewalks, it was taken up by a coalition of pro-automobile interests in the 1920s, notes historian Peter D. Norton in his book Fighting Traffic. “Before the American city could be physically reconstructed to accommodate automobiles, its streets had to be socially reconstructed as places where cars belong,” he writes. “Until then, streets were regarded as public spaces, where practices that endangered or obstructed others (including pedestrians) were disreputable. Motorists’ claim to street space was therefore fragile, subject to restrictions that threatened to negate the advantages of car ownership.” And so, where newspapers like the New York Times once condemned the “slaughter of pedestrians” by cars and defended the right to midblock crossings—and where cities like Cincinnati weighed imposing speed “governors” for cars—after a few decades, the focus of attention had shifted from marauding motorists onto the reckless “jaywalker.”

    Tom Vanderbilt, Slate.com





  • On your end there’s not much to consider here. You can let them know they refunded the entire order, chances are they’ll just write it off. If they ask you to send it back it should be entirely at their expense, do not pay to send it back.

    On their end there’s more going on. It sounds like they charged you for an item they knowingly did not ship then claimed the refund was already in progress when you complained. They also gave you a damaged item and claimed to be unable to refund that, which in most developed countries would be a breach of consumer regulations. This sounds an awful lot like that company is attempting to scam people.




  • Have you considered events from their perspective? From what you’ve described, they were told to wait until a notification was sent, then they were given a notification with the instruction “send this”. If it was me my first thought would absolutely be that that’s the notification to be sent, the only reason I’d hesitate is because those sort of communications are well outside my job description.

    The reason they sent the product afterwards is obvious; they were told to send them after the notification was sent, and they had sent the notification.

    From what you’ve described, you are communicating incredibly poorly then blaming your workers for misunderstanding.