i cannot believe how comically apropos and ironic and terrible the entire thing was
ok, get this
first off they came in on a sat night and reserved like half of our fucking tables, like a 30-top so we had to rearrange the entire place for their meetup. they show up huddled outside the restaurant like boy scouts waiting to be lead by their troop leader, but like, 34 year old men (who look EXACTLY like you would expect these fucking dorks to look like; seriously, not even gonna describe them, just picture an effective altruist and yes, thats exactly what they ALL looked like, it was surreal)
ok anyway then they are directed by their troop leader to be seated and that there's a one drink minimum tonight (the leaders have t shirts that say effective altruism on them.....uggghhh), they all proceed to order one drink
literally the rest of the night they do not order a single god damn fucking thing. one of them ordered like 2 sides of fries for the entire group and 2 pizzas for the entire group of 30 people. these pizzas feed 2 people a piece... like, maybe
they proceeded to complain that we arent filling their waters enough. as i refilled their waters, i had to listen to the most insufferable fucking dialogue i have ever heard in my entire adult life. oh my god i was trying so hard not to burst out laughing and/or murder them every time i walked by, like "i was thinking the other day, is it ethical to even exist??? bro, i dont know, sopheclese says" blah blah fucking blah and prenatalism vs promortalism and holy fucking mother of god dude we get it you listen to the sam harris podcast shut up shut up shut the fuck up before i take that pizza tray and beat your ass to death with it oh my god
they then tried to split the check 30 ways, I AM NOT MAKING THIS SHIT UP. YOU CANT, I DARE YOU
we were so staffed up (it was a fucking SATURDAY NIGHT) and we made zero fucking money collectively because these fucking pretentious adult children do not understand the most basic fucking etique, norms or standards that pertain to regular fucking civil society, we must have collectively lost $500 in tips for the entire staff because of the people we physically could not seat because of them.
they stayed until an hour after closing and we had to physically start removing their tables to get them to leave. i will never forget this night
the tip was a pittance obviously, even broke college students tip better, anyway, had to share!
I think the origin of effective altruism was more "it's better to take a high-paying finance job and donate the excess money to charity than get a job at said charity" but I don't think many of them are actually donating half their incomes every year.