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1101 East Pike St. Suite 300, Seattle, WA 98122
1101 East Pike St. Suite 300, Seattle, WA 98122
Was Unpaid Intern on assignment when it happened? He/she may be covered under the Stranger's insurance policy. Could be a GH3 in it for you.
Also, UI, you need to get insurance for your gear. As a non-professional, I have that EXACT camera (the pancake is nice, ain't it?) covered by All State (plus a few pricier lenses) for a grand total of $37 a year.
Btw, this is meant to be helpful, not ad insult.
it was probably one of those bottom feeders across the street from you that you champion. or maybe someone whose other hobbies include smashing windows.
It sucks when people act like the law does not apply to them, and that they are justified in taking or damaging things that do not belong to them.
idiot!!!
you want your shit stolen, leave it unattended.
lesson learned? maybe. . .
NEW Panasonic GH2 digital video camera - $675 (mercer island)
http://seattle.craigslist.org/est/pho/38…
I'm trying to wrap my mind around the notion that anyone would leave something of value unattended for any amount of time. I fretted about leaving my stupid hoodie on my chair at SIFF while I went to get some water the other night...even though I asked my neighbors to keep an eye on it, I was prepared for it to be gone, gone, gone.
this "kid" did something stupid, and now he can learn from it. real life. get over it or with it or ignore it, your choice.
Chances are slim this will work out, but I'll be vigilant in trying to get it back. Just called Glazer's Camera and told them to keep an eye out. Now I'll call Kenmore Camera and set up a Craigslist RSS feed.
Instead, I saw a bunch of bitter assholes harping on a kid(?) about how he should've been smarter.
What are you, his parents?
Sorry your camera got stolen, Ansel. Wish I could help.
(*works for old, non-fancy cameras too)
Renter's insurance may also cover your camera too. You have that, right? (Mine is $9/month.)
Sorry about your camera kid. I logging in to toss in a few bucks your way.
I once walked out of a cafe in Mexico with my camera still slung over the back of my chair. The bus boy chased me an entire block to return it. It was a nice reminder the world isn't all assholes.
Renter's insurance wouldn't cover this situation, but a separate, itemized policy will, and they're very affordable. Going forward, that is.
I'm not a fan of the engraving thing either, because 99% of the time you can't expect to ever see your gear again—and it'll bite you in the ass if you decide to sell it. Once it's stolen...It's gone. Your insurer will photograph and catalog all the relevant data you'd need in the advent of a theft.
You're right, Goldy, the lack of empathy in the comments is absolutely shocking.
Not one commenter yet has shown the slightest interest in understanding the poor, desperate person who took that camera.
There's a widespread, pernicious assumption that consumer-electronics thieves are all privileged, opportunistic hipsters out for a cheap thrill, but the reality is that they're far more likely to be homeless or social outcasts, often with fragile mental health. They're usually desperately poor, they're often young; sometimes they're queer and have experienced little in life but bullying and exclusion.
They don't play by the rules, but the rules were written to benefit the privileged property-owning class, and those rules have left these desperate people behind.
Fuck those rules.
That is literally one of the stupidest things I've ever read.
--no, you saw people who know better, saying "lesson learned" & "check yourself before you wreck yourself"
@29 "WOW!! Slog is just full of the assholes these days"
--no, you slog is just full of people who know better, saying "lesson learned" & "check yourself before you wreck yourself"
Why is this hard? he fucked up. he lost his (or possibly his newspapers camera.) done.
nobody should be helping him and nobody should have sympathy.
if it was the stangers camera - then they can replace it. it was his- HA!, suck it up. . .
Thanks, but I have to confess I plagiarized most of it.
Everyone does things that could make it easier for them to be victims of crime. Just because Ansel wasn't at his most cautious that moment doesn't make it any less messed up or make him any more "deserving." I suspect there's such a lack of empathy among so many commenters because they like to think they are in control of their lives, and the only way they know how to do that is to be an asshole to someone who's down.
But at the same time, someone who A) has the money to buy a $2000 camera AND can afford to intern for nothing (and this suggests B) that he or his parents are wealthy enough to send him to J-school), and C) has largely made his name hereabouts by telling readers how stupid and bourgeois they are, doesn't engender an unusual amount of sympathy. (And D), if he's that damn smart, ought to know better by now than to leave a chunk of expensive electronics unattended in ANY city, not just Seattle.)
As far as I can tell, the camera was stolen while he was out and about on The Stranger's business. If y'all are that upset about it - man up, dig into the doughnut fund and buy him a new one. (Or does that not fit with your corporate culture?)
Don't waste time trying to appeal to the better nature of thieves - they don't have any - even though it makes you look appropriately concerned. Buy Ansel a new camera, or simply say (and yeah, you're legally if not ethically entitled to do so): "Sorry, kid. We don't pay you, and we're not responsible for what happens to your personal property even when you're working for us. Tough shit."
The trolls are being a little rough about it, but they're essentially right. Ansel didn't deserve to have his camera stolen, but it was because of his poor decision. My guess is that this isn't the first time he's walked away from a valuable item in a public place and that, therefore, this was going to happen eventually. Be glad it was a camera and not a laptop. The pictures on it are probably not replaceable, but there are worse things you can lose. He should consider it a lesson.
That's not lack of empathy - I feel bad for him and hope the camera magically shows up - but it's just the way it is. And I'm sure as hell not handing my money over to cover his lazy foolishness.
BTW Ansel, I like your work.
Please go back there and take your adolescent blather with you. That last journalism course you took (or was it creative writing?) was a bust.
I always enjoy the unpaid interns, but Ansel has been especially delightful.
Sorry your camera got swiped, intern.
And severely depressed by the increasing assholism on Slog lately.
I'm so sorry to hear!
You can afford fancy latte drinks, but you can't pay some kid minimum wage? Not that you're a hypocritical scumbag or anything, Goldy.
I like unpaid intern's occasional Occupy musing and he's probably a great guy, but how anyone can muster anything more than a lazy shrug at this is beyond me.
what goes around comes around.
Unpaid Intern (UI) has a claim against both the Café and his sort of employer.
Reality, no attorney in his right mind would take the case. The math doesn't make sense. For the attorney that is.
@54: I like this idea.
I feel for the kid but cmon, always watch your stuff.
Yep, the lesson is that Capitol Hill is an adult daycare center, but that the usual fuckwits have made it impossible to oust the wackos on sight. Knowing that they have no power to change anything, and that if they tried they might get fired, the employees of the coffee shop did what human beings do when told not to exercise their common sense: They turned a blind eye.
Your lesson is that the freedom to be a drooling wacko hipster has a flip side: indifference to the consequences. Put yourself in the place of the coffee shop employees. It wouldn't surprise me if at least one of them saw the whole thing out of the corner of his or her eye, and quickly decided that the cost of intervening would be much higher than the cost of doing nothing.
Unpaid Intern, I can tell you that Seattle wasn't always like this. But that's the way most of it is now, especially in the adult daycare center where you were ripped off. Welcome to San Francisco, the vibrant city.
Hopefully next time you remember to never leave anything like that unattended. Also, if you have a bag (camera or otherwise) it is best to attached it to something like the chair or table so that when a thief comes and tries to snatch it they take the bag/camera and chair all in one go. They will have created a scene that attracts attention.
I've read and heard many stories about stolen cameras/bags left unattended or attended by the owner but unguarded enough to learn to never leave my bag/camera unattended.
@58 for the shrug. - once again, you fucked up. cry, wince, whatever and learn a lesson.
no, i will not donate anything to anyone to replace what you stupidly lost. your fault, your dime. . .
The last persons I've seen steal stuff in supermarket were :
* the adult son of an insurance company board member, who taught me how his dad never paid for frozen stuff, by hiding the frozen stuff bag in plain view under the grocery cart, and who kindly showed me how it went : the overworked sales clerk did forget to look and make him pay ;
* the teenage daughter of a college director, whose parents gave money but forbid her to buy makeup, telling her she didn't need "to look like a whore", who demonstrated looking for cameras and nicking makeup and placing in in her pockets.
It's silly to assume that all people steal out of poverty.
Rich people became rich by making sure the profits poor people's work generated went into their own pockets, and not poor people's. The rich are used to stealing the poor, and used to do it in a way that they won't get caught.
Unless you are a REAL journalist stationed in a war zone, you really shouldn't bitch about work related hazards. But I guess we can give Goldy a permit to bitch, given that he's not a real journalist.
I also wondered how many people were around. I would totally notice this go down near me if I were in that space- being nosy has few benefits but I would have said something for you! Even a decade later I am still bitter about my favorite bike so I feel for you. The violation on top of the loss is the worst.
Don't see what you all think owning one expensive item proves about this guy. Most of us were gifted a few things during our cash poor lives- gifted a car in high school kinda shit. I hope his parents are helping him through school, mine did for me, hope I can for mine. Still shitty for this kid, Goldster just happens to have a platform to alert a small population to keep an eye out. Sometimes see missing dog postings here too.
I think you may have missed the comment (#36) where I confessed to plagiarism. I didn't mention who I cribbed from, though— care to guess?
All joking aside, when I've been robbed (and I've been robbed a good few times), I really have taken solace in the thought that whoever stole the stuff most likely needs it a lot more than I do.
This is a lot easier to do, of course, when you've got a bit of living behind you and have thus taken the trouble to buy insurance that you know will cover theft of the stuff you really need, under circumstances you might plausibly experience.
Incidentally, since Ansel is presently making at most only occasional money from his photo work, his gear would have been covered by a standard Renter's or Homeowner's insurance policy. Renter's insurance is amazingly affordable, and every time I've signed up for or renegotiated a policy, the rep on the phone has always made sure I know that I'm covered for cameras, laptops, bicycles, tools, and all the other crap I routinely bring outside my home.
Photo.net (of course, thanks Phil G) has more on camera equipment insurance:
http://photo.net/learn/insurance
please use its indigenous name; Nogata Kamra
I personally have been dumb enough to leave $600 worth of stuff I really, really needed in an unlocked car while I ran into a place for less than ten minutes to drop off a thing, yet smart enough to have my choice of two distinct insurance policies to file a claim against after the fact (auto and renter's, if you're curious, and I picked renter's, if you're nosy).
Moments of Stupid happen to everyone, all the time. Insurance only happens to people who buy into the oppressive capitalist system. Or something.
@ 84, wrong. Robotslave is providing valuable information to many who likely don't know it. Incidents like this are wasted if we only express empathy and generocity without also sharing information. Too late for Ansel, but not any of the hundreds of readers who might not realize what renter's covers. Your focus on style and snark over substance is typical.
On a side note, it seems really weird for a paper that rants about fare wages to use unpaid labour....
*Swoon*
But it's time to learn that YOUR SHIT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. If I leave my toolbox unattended in the back of my truck, in most urban areas, it's gonna be gone by the time I get back from picking up my coffee. And that would be total carelessness and stupidity on my part.
(And I note that the only bit you apparently had an argument with is whether you were on your own time or The Stranger's, which is either telling or a total missing of the point.)
@42: Well done you, to notice (absent any prior reference) that I have something of a background in journalism. I must be better than I ever thought. Don't do it much these days, though I'm beginning to think I'd do better than many with the degree after their names.
You sure do seem to have alot of opinions about how other people should live their lives. In fact, you seem to enjoy paternalistic finger wagging "You need to learn responsibility young man! Now, go clean your room and get off my lawn!"
Now, let me disabuse you of a few misconceptions. One, you are not the father of Ansel or crone. Two, they're both grown adults, so even if you were, I'd still tell you to fuck off.
The guy lost a very expensive camera. The Stranger staff are working together to solve this problem and recover the camera. If you hate the staff so much, you can go read the Seattle Weakly instead.
And no, I don't hate the staff. I hate the attitude.
I hate the constant nose-in-the-air behavior. I hate the obscurantism. I hate the hypocrisy that excuses shitty and stupid words and acts as Art or as activism. I hate the shallow, parochial and entitled lens that 90% of this paper's writers see the world through.
I hate the fact that a fair number of decently smart and sometimes sharp-witted people are using their public platform, more often than not, to jack themselves off to an audience rather than to make a difference.
And with that, I'm done. I quoted the late DJ John Peel here once before: "I prefer to spend my limited time amongst the naive and well-intentioned, rather than amongst the sophisticated and malign." And my few months around this joint have given me a damn good illustration of what that meant.