Yeah, I tend to use “staff” or sometimes “waitstaff” to describe them, particularly in cafes, where the owner and/or manager might also be waiting tables. “Waiter” or “waitress” I’d mostly use when recounting something that happened while eating out, and I’m trying to specify who’s who in the story.

Hmmm, well, the “wait” in waiter/waitress/waitstaff refers to the act of serving someone, usually in a restaurant or cafe. (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/wait-on?topic=providing-and-serving-meals.) Like a lot of words in English, “wait” has more than one meaning.

There’s nothing wrong with “server”, per se, other than that we already had an established set of words for that role, and a server was also an existing word for a piece of IT equipment prior to US vernacular shifting (somewhere between the 90s and the 2010s, I think - we’ve always had a lot of US media pumped into Australia, but the vocab used to align on this one when I was a kid, and then at some point it changed).

Not saying Americans should do things the way we do it (vive la difference), just that the linguistic shift still throws me off. It would probably confuse me less if you’d always called them servers.

Of all the American vernacular for job titles, “server” is probably the one that makes my poor Aussie brain glitch most frequently. While you’re wondering why people are bringing you a meal in the office, I’m looking at the same sentence and wondering why diners are being forced to work as sysadmins over dinner.

CommBank winning the Big 4’s race to the bottom yet again? The only thing that surprises me about this is that people still bank with them when credit unions and building societies exist 🙄 (The only exception would be international students, backpackers and working holidaymakers, because I hear CommBank’s probably the easiest institution for foreign nationals to set up an account.)

All good! There’s probably far more people in your boat than mine; it was a pretty natural conclusion to draw 🙂

No one needs the internet outside of work.

As someone with a disability (and no car), the internet has played a massive role in allowing me to live independently, which in turn has a profoundly positive impact on my mental health. There are a wide variety of circumstances in which the internet has enhanced life experience - let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

From Banksy’s 2004 book Cut It Out. Banksy, in turn, ‘got’ it (in its original form) from Sean Tejaratchi’s 1999 essay in his Crap Hound zine. 😅

Who, Jeff? He made a whole video a while back about how he doesn’t rely on YouTube, and is also on Floatplane. However, he acknowledges that a lot of viewers can’t afford a subscription service, and YT has a massive reach, so he still uploads there, too.

There was a famous 24h florist in my city that everyone joked had to be a front for something. (Turned out it was drugs.)

Coincidentally, there’s a shop in my neighbourhood that’s also floral-themed and suspicious as heck: it says it sells flowers, but I only see potted plants (that don’t appear to be for sale) and earrings on display stands (which do appear to maybe be for sale) when I peek in the window. I’ve lived here for many years, and I’ve never once seen it open, no matter what time of day or day of the week I walk past. With rent constantly rising and quite a lot of businesses in the street closing or moving away, it seems highly suspicious that this one could be turning a profit without ever being open.

I’ll be mildly shocked if this isn’t in Australia.

I grew up in an electorate that had been ‘blue-ribbon Liberal’ since the 70s, and Labor representation only a tiny blip before that. Became very apathetic about voting after seeing the LNP win by a landslide at every local, state and federal election.

I’m now in a seat that’s been either Labor or Greens since almost Federation. One seat in the House of Reps won’t change the world (or even the country, most likely), but it’s comforting to walk around my neighbourhood and know that the majority of the people I encounter are certified Non-Fuckwits. (It’s also fun on polling day to see offers of LNP and far-right parties’ how-to-vote cards declined by pretty much everyone in the queue.)