You may have already seen the headlines, most of which were a variant on the following: MAN KILLS HIMSELF INSIDE VEGAS CASINO AFTER LIFETIME BUFFET PASS WAS REVOKED.
On Reddit’s charming FatPeopleHate subreddit, where a link to a story on the suicide garnered more than 450 upvotes, this became Fat fuck kills himself, blames it on the loss of free buffet for life.
“And nothing of value was lost,” quipped one Redditor. “Another proof that they live only for food,” added another. “Do these sound like the actions of a man who had ALL he could eat?” joked a third. You can find similarly sensitive remarks in the comments of sites ranging from Breitbart (” Please tell me this was Michael Moore!”) to the Las Vegas Sun (“Man that buffet must be to die for”).
But John Noble, who shot himself in the head at the M Resort buffet on Easter Sunday in front of a roomful of witnesses, wasn’t upset that the M Resort had taken away the free food he’d won in a raffle in 2010. He was upset that the casino, two years ago, had taken away his access to the female staffers he had been stalking.
We know this because, before he took his own life, Noble sent a box full of documents to the Las Vegas Review-Journal detailing his case against “the M Resort Spa Casino and [the] employees” he said had wronged him. As the newspaper reported:
Noble’s hand-bound stack of notes and documents stretches on for more than 270 pages and includes a table of contents, photographs and a two-hour DVD of him talking about his troubles.
The second-to-last page, titled “The Curse,” spells out all the harm he wishes on those he believed wronged him.
Included on the list are several women who worked at the buffet and who were showered with gifts and unwanted attention by Noble after he won meals for life there in September 2010.
Noble, who described himself in one Facebook posting as “just a lonely nice guy,” was a deeply troubled man reportedly suffering from depression; in 2013, when he lost his buffet privileges, he spent several days in the state psychiatric hospital after attempting suicide.
But it’s clear he was driven not only by despair but by anger — an anger obvious to everyone, it seems, but him. This anger seems to have played a large part in his choice of where and when to end his life: in front of hundreds of diners and staff on Easter Sunday. His actions, as he no doubt intended, horrified and terrified not only those who witnessed it directly — including a number of children — but those elsewhere in the casino who heard the gunshot.
Adding to the confusion and chaos: before shooting himself, Noble set his car on fire, closing down the parking garage for several hours and forcing many casino patrons to remain at the scene of his crime for hours.
I suppose we should be thankful that he didn’t decide to take anyone else with him.
Noble’s very public suicide shows once again the destructive power of aggrieved male entitlement.
Some people are puzzled, or profess to be puzzled, when someone like Noble — a sad and lonely man who saw himself as a victim — is described as “entitled.” But a deep sense of entitlement seems to have been at the heart of his anger and despair. It wasn’t just that he felt entitled to free food; he felt entitled to the attention of the women working at the buffet that he had become obsessed with.
It’s easy enough to see what worried the Casino staffers about him. In the alternately angry and self-pitying note he posted on Facebook after his 2013 suicide attempt, he recounted the numerous notes and gifts he’d given to various female staffers, and blamed them for “encouraging” him with hugs and smiles. Never mind that these were women whose jobs more or less required them to act friendly to customers, and that his acts of “generosity” towards them were impositions rather than gifts.
He claims to have been blindsided when security finally showed him the door, though it’s clear even from his self-serving account that he was given plenty of warnings first; if he was blindsided it was because he was willfully blind.
Another self-described “nice guy” who literally could not take no as an answer. Another “nice guy” who was anything but nice. In that 2013 rant, a lengthy list of grievances, he lashed out at everyone he feels has wronged him, posting an assortment of accusations, some petty, some serious, against an assortment of casino staff by name, raging from the hostess he was most obsessed with to the company CEO. His sense of victimhood was such that he turned his favorite hostess’ butterfly tattoo into yet another Exhibit in his case against her.
So she has a small Butterfly Tattoo on her leg in honor of her Mother, Which now everytime I see something with a Butterfly on it I think of [name redacted]. And if you ever been to Vegas there’s a lot of stuff with Butterfly’s the décor at Encore Casino, the Butterfly exhibit they had in the conservatory at Belagio, The Butterfly bench at Nathan Adelson Hospice (Which I think she would like) among plenty of others scattered thru the city.
Aggrieved entitlement doesn’t feel like entitlement; it feels like rejection, failure, emptiness, and even, as in Noble’s case, like betrayal. That’s what makes it so insidious — and so dangerous.
H/T — r/againstmensrights
Re: Jobs that require you to please the customer (mostly men)
I’ve worked for several employers whose dress code goes a little something like this*-
Men (and btw, most of the workers were women): make sure you don’t look like a slob.
Women: you must look pretty all the time; no plain-Janes allowed. But don’t look like a slut either, because reasons. Ok, you can look a little slutty-it’ll help business.
*And it’s disgusting. Double standard up the ass. My job, besides looking pretty 24/7, was to smile and make chit-chat…even with the lowest of dirty scum bag a-holes…and complete my service in a timely, efficient manner. And guys took it as flirting WAY too often, which I hated. But when I dialed it way back, I got a lecture from my boss. ugh.
Re: the suicide
This is only sort of related but the OP made me think of a guy in high school who committed suicide. He and I were friends, but not close. I always kept my distance a bit because I didn’t want him to think I was interested in dating him. After he died someone was nice enough to point out that he did, in fact, “like” me and that my not reciprocating was one of the reasons he killed himself. That still haunts me. 🙁
I used to work as a waitress in a restaurant in a casino, and our (thankfully) female supervisor had the same dresscode in place for both men and women: White shirts with collars, black pants, black shoes, black apron that was provided for you.
I worked during all the shifts at the restaurant in both dining floor positions (busperson and waitstaff), and luckily, I only have one horror story to tell about guys being too flirtatious:
I was working graveyard shift, where it’s super quiet, and most of the patrons were on their way home or to our hotel from the bar.
A group of four drunk men in my station constantly referred to me as “Blue Eyes” and were getting a little too friendly. Unfortunately, as with the expectation for service work, I just had to smile and nod along with them, no matter what they did. I tried to make myself look busy so I wouldn’t have to go and check on their table that often, even though they were the only occupied table in my station anyways.
As a “tip”, one guy left me his phone number on a napkin with “Blue Eyes” written on top. I tossed it out, after commenting on it to my openly gay male co-worker. He told me next time it happened, I should give him the phone number, and he’ll call them after our shift’s over (at six AM).
I think the biggest reasons we didn’t get harassed as many other waitresses do were that one, we had security on premises at all times (because the restaurant was in a casino), and the graveyard shift police came in to eat and have coffee every night around the same time because they were friends with the graveyard manager.
Nothing says “back up and treat the waitstaff nice” like security and police.
@because reasons:
Who the hell was the person pointing this out to you? Who says that? What the fuck?
Even if the person who killed themself did it in part because they liked you and you didn’t like them back, it was not your fault. He must have had a lot of other crap going on in his life to make him believe that suicide was a valid option. It must be horrible to think that you contributed in any way and I’m sorry that happened to you.
How awesome to have the same dress code for women and men! Good for your manager! I honestly don’t get how it’s ok for a company to say women have to wear makeup and heels, etc., while telling their male employees that as long as they don’t stink, they’re golden.
Speaking of organizations with deeply-embedded acceptance of sexual harassment and assault, my alma mater just suspended their (fairly successful) debate team for two years due to Title IX issues–sexual harassment, assault, etc. I don’t know the details, but this is after a temporary suspension back in 2013 that also lead to the coach being fired. So yeah.
I think the reasoning is “Let’s kill the current team and build it again in two years with a completely different culture.”
@Dawn
Thank you. I never actually felt responsible…but I was shocked and very upset that someone would say that to me. It did make me feel slightly guilty for a time, wishing he could have just talked to me about his feelings so I could have (maybe) helped…but like you said, he must have had a lot of other issues as well. I can’t remember what douche nozzle pointed this out to me after he died, but I’m guessing THEY felt that if he did have a crush on me, I was obliged to date him, and how DARE I not…and now he’s dead. Or something. How awful!
Reading all this makes me thankful I didn’t last long as a waitress (all of two lousy weeks!), for the simple reason that I’m a total introvert — terrible at faking smiles and pretending to flirt for the sake of tips. I was competent at serving, but not at pretend-servicing. What a mercy that I was let go from that shitty job — I shudder to think what kind of creepy crawlers I’d have been surrounded by if I’d sucked it up and stuck it out. That’s why my heart goes out to all those who ARE good at that job, because their livelihood depends on tips rather than decent wages.
And contrary to the stereotype that Canadians are lousy tippers, I’m not…because I spent two weeks in a hellhole seeing exactly what one has to do to make that money. I always add extra, because aching waitress feet need and deserve comfy shoes! And I’m ALWAYS polite to them, no matter how bad my own day has been, because I’m a fuckin’ Canadian and politeness is just how we roll.
I should add that I’m also a firm believer in living wages for all, and abolishing tipping, for this very reason. Tipping is basically legalized, mandatory sexual harassment if you’re a woman. And it also encourages all kinds of other shitty behavior — like the fundies who can afford the meal, but can’t seem to afford a tip other than religious pamphlets, say. There was a recent piece on Buzzfeed that was all horror stories from the waitstaff, and that was one of them. And Jezebel has a regular feature called Behind Closed Ovens that deals with crappy restaurant customers, too. Shitty wages + dependence on tips = sitting duck for abusive customers!
@Bina
This. This is one reason I never pulled in good tips. I worked in another service industry and got minimum wage for standing on my feet and dealing with dirty douche buckets, anal soccer moms, and bratty screaming children all day. So tips were very important. And because I suck at being fake and forcing small talk, I never got much. It’s total bullshit, because I was still extremely capable and talented at my actual job. So I second the no tipping, in favor of a decent living wage!
Sorry for everyone who dealt with horrible customers, I salute you. Espessically you because reasons, what a douche nozzle indeed, it’s not your fault.
I used to work at a restraunt and it was a nightmare (except I did make a couple of new friends so that’s awesome) I had customers who went to my boss because supposedly I got their orders wrong but they didn’t tell me specifically what they want in the first place, they interrupt me constantly when I ask them about what they want on their burgers and salads and told I had an attitude.
The other employees plus my bosses I thought were hyprocrites because they told my friend and me to not slack off but then they would look at pictures on their phones and talk while my friend and I worked.
When my friend was asking me for help the employees got onto me and told me that she isn’t stupid that she can figure it out for herself, I smiled and they were ticked off. My friend told me that if there is anything that she could do I should let her know. She’s a very good person.
A man came in, saw my hair and said to me “God favors women with long hair” and I replied “I don’t think a woman’s value should be determined by her hair” By the look on his face I guess he wasn’t expecting an answer from me.
And I’m not kidding I had a couple of customers come in threating to sue the restraunt because some of the seats were dirty.
Etc, etc, etc
Anyway, Im so happy that I don’t work there anymore and I’m glad I was friended by my new friend on facebook too. Also super cool that I got a lot of tips 🙂 a few people felt sorry for me for putting up with the other obnoxious customers.
OMG, you had a Fartiste! He and his crowd are always pulling that, too. Only in their case, switch out God for “evolution”. Good on you for talking back!
It’s always entertaining how many of these dudes will attribute their personal prejudices to supposedly undeniable outside “reasons”. Who died and made them the arbiters of these things?
Bina
“Good on you for talking back!”
http://i.giphy.com/AJUB4zXLWDkZy.gif
Just fighting the good fight for the Fempire.
Also I’m a Christian no where in the bible does it say about God favoring anybody. So I don’t know if this guy was some “Fartiste” or just a christian who had different teachings.
Wow, some of these stories make me so glad I never had a job as a waitress. Retail was bad enough.
What is made painfully obvious by this thread:
For men, “being nice” is taught as a means to an end… and not getting “what you deserve” for being nice is a great injustice.
For women, being nice is a requirement and if you aren’t nice, you pretty much deserve what you get. But don’t be too nice or you might send the wrong message… and well then you deserve what you get for leading them on.
Tessa
So everything a woman/girl does is wrong… Good to hear /s
Okay major TW in this entire comment for discussion of depression and suicide.
I can see how his having severe depression would have contributed to Noble’s belief he was entitled to things, or even people – that’s what depression does: it tells you all of the lies in the world to isolate you and make you feel worthless.
I don’t think it’s fair or realistic to say mental illness didn’t play a part in what happened.
But it doesn’t account for all of it, especially the way he targeted his suicide to affect and disturb the maximum number of people, taking steps to prevent them from leaving. That’s calculated, and most suicides are spur-of-the-moment decisions.
When I was very depressed, I was pretty entitled. What I thought I was entitled to was the average life that my peers had (at the time they were finishing university and beginning first real jobs) rather than the abject misery I was living in.
But when it came to suicide attempts, I knew one way which I was sure would work: step in front of a truck at the bottom of the huge hill coming into my town – a sixteen-wheeler going 80kph, no chance of survival. But I couldn’t do that, because I knew the truck would be driven by a person, and that person was probably a guy with a family who was just doing his job, and I would fuck him up for the rest of his life. He might need help he couldn’t afford, or never drive his truck again, and my hurt would be passed on to him and his wife and kids and the people around them.
My anger and pain and depression was really really bad. I lived in misery I can’t even understand anymore. And I still wasn’t willing to fuck up one person to make my pain stop – never mind a whole casino full, never mind killing a whole plane full.
So yeah, while there was definitely an element of mental illness involved in this horrible event, the way it happened was due to entitlement which continued right until the end – when he felt entitled to take revenge for the world not doing what he wanted out on a whole bunch of completely unrelated people.
My sympathies go out to everyone who’s had horrible experiences in the hospitality industry. Nobody deserves to have to tolerate all that aweful.
WeeBoy
I’m so sorry that you lived like that, hugs if you want them. We are angry that people are using mental illnesses and blaming women/girls to excuse these men’s actions instead of admitting that this is misogny/male entitlement that should be stopped.
Spindrift
Thanks
Ugh. Read the link about that dude going to prison because of his revenge porn site, the comments are full of douchebags going “well then never trust men with naked photos of yourself! Those girls were stupid!”
Never mind that some of those women were actually MARRIED to their men when the pic was taken, and some others…well if a guy is the type to upload revenge porn when jilted, I imagine he could well be the type to push and nag and coerce her for nudes in the first place.
While we are talking about bad social conditioning that leads some men to think that basic courtesy from a woman = she wants the D, I found this:
http://spcsnaptags.tumblr.com/post/115253287239/dude-social-fallacies
A list of other social fallacies that some men fall for and practice. The list is based on comments from a Captain Awkward post, and although it comes across as a bit generalising in tone, it’s otherwise good.
The author is looking for entries for a sequel to that post, so if anyone here can think of anything feel free to contact her. 🙂
sunnysombrera, I agree that the author does a lot of generalising although as a shorthand I think it works OK.
Caveat to “She should have known that a coffee is never just a coffee.”: unless she’s being cornered in a elevator at four in the morning, in which case a coffee is totally just a coffee and not sex, unless you’re into it?
re:sexual harassment and the service industry
A couple of jobs ago, my spouse was in retail management and somebody came to her with a sexual harassment complaint against one of their coworkers. When they set up a meeting with one of the witnesses, she said, “I heard that there’s been a sexual harassment problem in the kitchens lately, can you tell me what you’ve seen?” -and the witness told a story about a completely DIFFERENT sexual harassment complaint.
So they brought in another witness. And the same thing happened again.
Turns out the issue was that all of the perpetrators were either in supervisory positions or friends of people in supervisory positions and had been threatening to fire their victims if they spoke up. (Not a power they actually had, not that the victims knew that)
3 or 4 people ended up losing their jobs over it.
Sexual harassment was an issue with customers too but that location had 24 hour armed security so those incidents got squashed pretty quickly. Lots of people ended up getting court orders banning them from the property.
@embertine “Caveat to “She should have known that a coffee is never just a coffee.”: unless she’s being cornered in a elevator at four in the morning, in which case a coffee is totally just a coffee and not sex, unless you’re into it?”
That’s the fun thing about rape culture; it exploits the ambiguities of the culture at large to maintain it’s invisibility. Spontaneous gifts, smiling, hugging, etc. have MULTIPLE MEANINGS in our culture; they can be EITHER an expression of platonic love&caring OR an expression of romantic&sexual interest. (Don’t believe me? Read any guide to courtship, think back to the courtships of your own relationships, watch the courtships of other people, and count how many times both partners give each other small gifts or food to show interest.) The trick that rape culture plays is that it makes every answer that woman gives other than “yes, I’m interested, please sex me up now” wrong. If she refuses the gift (ie. coffee) then she’s rude, and probably lying. (Ie.”She’s giving token resistance.”) If she accepts the gift then she’s leading him on. If she heads off the possibility of the entire situation by saying “Look, I’m not interested in you” the second any guy steps in the elevator, then she’s presumptive and conceited.
There is literally no winning. Oh, rape culture, you asshole.
So given the fucked up culture, it’s no surprise that manipulative assholes take advantage and feel entitled. It’s also no surprise when some guys get confused, when communication will breaks down, when wires get crossed, because the culture discourages brutal honesty as “being rude” and not every guy will be an expert at reading social situations. And it’s no surprise when sometimes a guy is both an as hole and confused, because people are complex.
RE: customer service experiences
I used to work the graveyard shift in the front of the house in a bad area so I’ve met my fair share of assholes. The thing that gets me about the stories shared is that while I received lots of angry abuse I can’t ever remember being hit on. Difference is that every place I’ve ever worked had a very strict policy against taking gifts and tips from customers for this very reasons. As others mentioned, the whole “tipping” system invites abuse.
You know, I’m not making this up out of hand, but for the life of me I can’t remember where I’ve read it, and so far Google isn’t being as good as a friend as I had hoped.
Regardless, here is a tumblr on the issue; take whatever you may from it.
” Pierre Bourdieu writes in one of his essays on the gift that “Generosity is possessive, and perhaps all the more so when, as in affective exchanges (between parents and children, or even between lovers), it is and appears most sincerely generous,” which is to say any act of giving has the potential to create both a sense of ownership and social hierarchy. This is one of the most elegant formulations of the insights of the whole discourse around gift giving that has occurred since the publication of Marcel Mauss’ Essay on the Gift in 1909. Another way to state the question of the gift, as Mauss does at the very beginning of his work is: why do we feel obligated to give, accept, and reciprocate in turn? (The question of why and how does reciprocation occur being the most difficult to answer.) I think these questions are interesting enough on their own, but I was struck by this thread about rape culture that came up on my news feed and about the many possible similarities between gift culture and rape culture that may elaborate upon some of the social factors that motivate the kind of men who engage in rape culture.
The kind of men I have in mind are those so-called “nice guys,” perfectly exemplified in the NiceGuysofOKCupid, who from their perspective give their time, energy, affection, and even money or other things of value to a woman in the expectation that she is obligated to reciprocate in the right way, ie. have sex with them. The question in this particular case then is, why do these men think women are required to reciprocate and why is the reciprocation so narrowly thought of as sexual relations? As Mauss and Bourdieu show in any act of giving there is a certain kind of social aggression where the recipient, who is often forced to accept, comes under the sphere of influence of the original giver. This is often because the recipient now owes an obligation to the original giver, often a moral one but in many cases it could also be financial debts. Bourdieu goes as far as to identify this obligation as already a kind of symbolic violence that occurs when overt violence is no longer socially viable. In these cases where reciprocation is possible it occurs as a way to pay off debts and maintain the recipients social autonomy; they would no longer be in the sphere of the original giver’s influence and could even make them subservient through an extravagant enough return.
Given that framework let us map the social relation that often occurs in rape culture on to it. The Nice Guy often gives the girl he is targeting some thing, whether that be his time, energy, physical gifts, or other actions that signal value. From his perspective (and we’ll assume the most innocent of intentions though this is also debateable) he is merely trying to show his affections towards the girl. However, inscribed in every giving action is also the idea that the girl has to acknowledge and reciprocate. For her to refuse would be to refuse the giving relationship all together. Similar to how in many places to refuse a gift is the same as rejecting the giver or even declaring war on them, the Nice Guy will then think that this girl is a terrible person, probably a “slut” or something else derogatory, and maybe even try to socially ostracize her or, in the worst case, engage in overt violence. From the girl’s perspective we can see why it is perfectly sensible for her to reject the giver’s actions; to even accept would place her in a subservient position where it is unclear if reciprocation would allow her to maintain her social autonomy.
This points to one of the main factors that probably influences the Nice Guy’s thinking in this case as to why the girl must reciprocate: the presumption under patriarchy that every woman is already accessible to the guy. This would not be the kind of case then often assumed by people like Mauss and Bourdieu where two (men) come together as social equals to engage in exchange and where it is possible through reciprocation for both actors to maintain their social autonomy. Under patriarchy a woman’s autonomy is already under question where any thing she does cannot guarantee her full person hood. …”
“To return back to the question of rape culture though, a Nice Guy could easily respond “but how else but through giving am I suppose to show how I like a girl?” The most basic reply would be to think carefully about what your “giving” may signal, what you expect from it, allow room for the woman to respectfully decline, and leave the relationship at that. …”
Read the rest.
@mrex OK, that makes sense, even if you can’t find the attribution. (Argh! MRAs would say the same about posts on their site.) All I can say s that it makes sense with my life experience, which they could say about the opposite.
Same here, only in my case, it was trains. I actually felt a kind of magnetic tug pulling me in the direction of the tracks when my illness was at its absolute worst. And it horrified me, because I didn’t want to DIE, I just wanted the damn pain to stop. And so it was a real battle with myself if I happened to be near a level crossing just as the freight (I nearly wrote “fright”, which is appropriate) was rolling by. I felt my blood burning, and the pull of the tracks…and I had to stagger back and shut my eyes until the train was gone, because the last thing I wanted was to mess up some innocent engineer’s life with my own selfish, stupid disease. I knew I had a right to some semblance of a normal life. I also knew I did NOT have the right to ruin somebody else’s.
I now measure my mental health by the fact that I live right next to not one, but two major railway lines, and like to look for wild asparagus growing along the side of the tracks when it’s in season…and have not the slightest urge to make like Anna Karenina at all.
And that’s the difference between suicidality and aggrieved entitlement, for anyone out there who’s not clear on the subject.
mrex, that article sounds interesting, but wordpress borked the link. Could you post it again please?