A Tip: Serve Up A Little Generosity

 

Good morning and welcome to today’s column. When you are done reading, please drop a tip in the mail.

 

This is what the world is coming to, it seems. Asking for tips.

 

Tip jars. Tip glasses. Tip bowls, boxes and buckets. I have even seen a tip abalone shell. You see them everywhere. In cafes, coffee houses and bagel shops. In burrito huts, pizza parlors, burger joints. Doughnut shops, ice cream shops, sandwich shops.

 

I half expect my bank teller to put out a tip jar soon.

 

“Tips!”

 

“Tips, Please!”

 

“Leave your change, will ya!”

 

Actually, I haven’t seen the latter sign on a jar or conch shell – yet. But I did see a humorous threat in the pick-up window of a gourmet food truck: “Every Time You Don’t Tip A Child Gets A Mullet Haircut.”

 

Yes, as Bob Dylan sang, “The times they are a-changin’.”

 

Rather, these are “Got any loose change?” times.

 

At first blush these solicitations can leave a customer cold. I mean, why should you tip the barista who made your double-mocha-skinny-latte? Or the cashier who rings up the take-out order you are picking up? Isn’t that their job?

 

Well, yes. But is it not a waitresses/waiter’s job to take your order, serve your food and clear the table? Sure it is, yet we think nothing of leaving them a tip.

 

Actually, sometimes we think A LOT about it – as in trying to mentally calculate percentages to know how much to tip. But I digress.

 

The point is this: It is expected that we leave tips in sit-down restaurants because the waitstaff depends on “gratuities” to bring their pay at least up to minimum wage.

 

Personally, I wish all restaurant owners would just raise their menu prices 20 percent and pass 100 percent of this bump along to workers and save us the math-induced migraine.

 

The thing is, if anyone could use a booster shot for anemic wages more than waitresses and busboys it is hamburger helpers and teen-agers scooping ice cream.

 

And while 15 or 20 percent of a nice restaurant bill can be a tidy sum, a similar tip on a take-away bagel breakfast or pizza lunch deal is certainly not going to make you fall shy on your next car payment.

 

And yet how often do we ignore the tip jar/glass/bowl/box/bucket/abalone shell? Sometimes, if you are at all like me, your intentions are good but the paltry change you receive back from the cashier seems like an insult to drop in the tip jar.

 

This isn’t a valid excuse because folding money is what we really should drop in. A dollar or two still often falls short of a 15-percent tip.

 

You will be surprised how grateful the person behind the counter will be for a two-buck tip. Drop an Abraham Lincoln or Alexander Hamilton in the jar/glass/bowl/box/bucket/abalone shell and you will almost see cartwheels of gratitude.

 

Indeed, I now embrace tip jars because the workers truly make it feel like you have given a “gratuity” instead of giving something expected.

 

In fact, I am disappointed when there isn’t a tip jar. This was especially the case when my take-out tab was nine cents over an even-dollar amount and I had no dime or any change. Nine cents was too much to take from the spare-penny dish, so I was doomed to getting back a pocketful of loose change.

 

Then my luck changed. The young man behind the counter gave me one of my dollar bills back, smiled, reached into his pocket and dropped his own dime into the register.

 

            With no tip jar, beyond a warm thank you the only gratuity I could give was to sing his praises to the manager.

 

And if you really want a philanthropic feeling for very little cost, tip a kid running a lemonade stand. I recently stopped to buy a $1 glass from two cute young girls.

 

Their glee made it the best five bucks I can remember spending in a long time when I put the change of four singles in – what else? – their decorated tip jar.

 

 

 

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

 

 

 

Check out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

 

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