"poverty mentality"

bearcub

Justamum wrote: »

But they don't contain them, that's the problem.

Of course they do! Not everyone, obviously, but Tearfund have provided goats for families for years, and I've not heard that the whole environment has been wrecked because of the animals. I'm sure other agencies, apart from Tearfund, would have soon had a moan, as there's nothing the Brits like more than a good old moan that their money's been wasted!

Bearing in mind that most waiting staff are on minumum wage, or close to it, it's very often not a 'nice job', and a £1 tip isn't exactly a reward for good service. Mind you, £1 given to Oxfam won't do much good, either, given their track record for 'admin expenses'.

Derivative

bearcub wrote: »

Bearing in mind that most waiting staff are on minumum wage, or close to it, it's very often not a 'nice job', and a £1 tip isn't exactly a reward for good service. Mind you, £1 given to Oxfam won't do much good, either, given their track record for 'admin expenses'.

I think that a £1 tip is a pretty decent reward. Remember that it's not a one off, how many tables does a waiter serve daily? I don't think that waiting staff keep the whole tip in most establishments though.

Good point on the Oxfam thing. I simply chose them as a charity that everyone knows about.

The "nice job" thing is a bit of a sideshow for me.

Cleaners have a worse job, you don't tip them.
Taxi drivers sit in an air conditioned box and drive around all day but they do take tips.

It's a social norm, not related to the difficulty of the job.

Austin_Allegro

Traditionally tipping was reserved for exceptional service or for people who otherwise got little or nothing at all (crossing sweepers, torch bearers etc - I was happy to tip people like this when I lived briefly in India). It has become a bit pointless in a society which has a minimum wage. It just allows employers to pay less because they know the shortfall will be made up by tipping.

I do tip in restaurants and at the barbers but it makes me wonder why in that case we don't tip supermarket check out staff or the man who tears your ticket at the cinema, or any other minimum wage employees...

OrkneyStar

Mistral001 wrote: »

I am self-employed and on a very few ocassions people pay me more than I charge them and even if it is just maybe a few % more like rounding up from £195 to £200, it can be very very welcome. On the other hand, about 6 years ago I got a cheque from a client where he rounded down the payment from something like £254.50 to £254.00. Even though it was most likely just a mistake made in reading my invoice, it still annoys me today when I think about it.

That would make me grrrrr....were you not tempted to send a bill for the other 50p, plus interest plus admin fee for issuing another bill ?
LOL, I know seriously you couldn't do that, and it probably was a genuine mistake, but grrr is really the only response to that. It is not the 50p (or whatever amount), but the marking down itself, after all you would not get away with that in a shop or when paying the leccie bill! Lets hope more folks round up in the future, or at least pay what they are meant to .

Austin_Allegro

Haha here in Hungary, the smallest coin is 5 forints so if something comes to, say, 97 forints and you give a 100 piece, you don't get any change. Sometimes shops even round up to the nearest 10 forints). Sometimes it works the other way round (eg if something's 97 forints and you give them 95 they'll accept it, but most people overpay).

Of course these are all tiny amounts (about 360 forints to the pound) but, like the fractions-of-a-cent scam in Office Space, somebody in a big corporation is making a tidy amount from it!

bearcub

Derivative wrote: »

I think that a £1 tip is a pretty decent reward. Remember that it's not a one off, how many tables does a waiter serve daily? I don't think that waiting staff keep the whole tip in most establishments though.

Good point on the Oxfam thing. I simply chose them as a charity that everyone knows about.

The "nice job" thing is a bit of a sideshow for me.

Cleaners have a worse job, you don't tip them.
Taxi drivers sit in an air conditioned box and drive around all day but they do take tips.

It's a social norm, not related to the difficulty of the job.

I don't understand what you mean by 'social norm'. In Italy, waiting is considered a 'nice job' - it's a well-respected job, and well-rewarded. In this country, unless it's silver service or in a high-class restaurant (and it's still pretty poorly paid), waiting staff are considered no better than cleaners. Cleaners are often treated with more respect, and they don't have to put up with ill-mannered customers! My younger daughter's in the hospitality trade. If it wasn't for her boyfriend, she'd not be able to afford to live anywhere, and she has to be very, very careful how she reacts when a customer is extremely rude to her staff. But, that being so, she has a job - at the moment. :cool:

Justamum

Austin_Allegro wrote: »

Haha here in Hungary, the smallest coin is 5 forints so if something comes to, say, 97 forints and you give a 100 piece, you don't get any change. Sometimes shops even round up to the nearest 10 forints). Sometimes it works the other way round (eg if something's 97 forints and you give them 95 they'll accept it, but most people overpay).

Of course these are all tiny amounts (about 360 forints to the pound) but, like the fractions-of-a-cent scam in Office Space, somebody in a big corporation is making a tidy amount from it!

They do a similar thing in South Africa, except the shops (the big ones anyway) tend to round down to the nearest 5 cents rather than up. My DH grew up in Swaziland and he said that when he was younger chewing gum was used as small change by shops! (if you change was only 1 or 2 cents for example you could be given a couple of chewing gums instead :rotfl:)

Derivative

bearcub wrote: »

I don't understand what you mean by 'social norm'.

Tipping is a 'social norm' - it's something that is simply culturally accepted.

There is no logical reason why a waiter should be given donations above and beyond their wage, when people who have arguably harder jobs don't.

RAS

Justamum wrote: »

When goats graze they don't just crop the grass they rip it up by the roots. There is nothing left to hold the soil together, the rains come and wash away the topsoil, then nothing can grow. Desertification gets worse.

Read the link above.

In dry landscapes the absence of grazers causes desertification not necessarily their presence.

What wrecked much of Africa and America was the introduction of West European extensive grazing techniques suited to temperate climates into dryland climates.

If intensive grazing is re-introduced, the land starts to recover.

But the charities do not even teach that, they still teach people to keep the livestock in stalls where they cannot rip up plants or browse trees. Zero-grazing is much better than extensive grazing but intensive grazing (as practiced by the nomadic peoples for millenia) is more effective.

katieowl_2

Austin_Allegro wrote: »

Traditionally tipping was reserved for exceptional service or for people who otherwise got little or nothing at all (crossing sweepers, torch bearers etc - I was happy to tip people like this when I lived briefly in India). It has become a bit pointless in a society which has a minimum wage. It just allows employers to pay less because they know the shortfall will be made up by tipping.

Not many people tip where I work anyway (in a cafe) most days we have less than £1 and it's split between whoever has been in that day. I think the Friday before Xmas we go got £8 and that was really exceptional. Hardly tops up the part time and min. wage LOL! (and yes they always get a smile!)