Tipping/feeding removal men

Murphybear

housebuyer143 said:

The only person I have ever tipped is my old postman and that was because he used to chat to me all the time, sign for my parcels and leave them in my shed without complaint. He was fantastic and deserved every penny. 

Otherwise, no. I strongly do not believe in tipping. Give them a drink if you want to offer and if a tradesmen is doing a long job, maybe get them some biscuits but otherwise no. 

I live in sheltered housing, there are 33 of us.  When the postman delivers the post he also takes the outgoing items.  It saves us a lot of hassle, some of the residents are elderly (I’m 70 and don’t consider that elderly ) and there’s a few disabled and the nearest postbox is quite a long walk away.  We have 2 or 3 regular postmen and we have a collection each Christmas, it’s worth every penny.  It was their idea to do this for us.  

DullGreyGuy

Surprised about people getting defensive about the fact they dont tip binmen/removal men and other low paid staff.

We had a couple of moves where the company didnt survey themselves and the guys said the job had been underestimated... one pair probably was true as they asked "what is your floor number" and the honest answer was "3", then "is there a lift" and the honest answer was "yes". The two facts that werent asked about was the fact the lift is tiny so several items couldnt fit in and secondly with the site being on a slope the van is actually on floor -2 and the lift only went down to floor -1. The form didnt have a free text field to provide additional information etc

There was talk of them telling the office about and an extra charge etc but gave the three guys £20 or so each and never heard anything else about it. 

fourmarks

Marvel1 said:

What about the solictor, the surveryor if you had one etc?

Be careful, they would give you a receipt and then charge you a £100 admin fee.

gingercordial

We tipped our removal guys £25 each/£100 total at the end of the day.  I imagine that was unusual because the chief rang my husband shortly afterwards, presumably when opening the envelope, to check we were sure as it was a lot.  

We were happy to tip them as honestly they were the only part of our house purchase that went smoothly - things had been a nightmare up to that point, but these guys were so helpful and made all the difference on a really stressful day.  In particular we have a collection of guitars to move and they treated them with utmost care.  This was actually the second time we'd used this firm - we'd found by chance the previous time a few years before that they were all musicians themselves so were really happy to talk guitars and treat them as if their own during the move, so of course we used them again!

Tea/coffee was available but only until they packed it...

pinkteapot

No need to feed them - they'll bring their own packed lunches or pop to McD's on the way between houses if there's a wait to get into the new house. 

I do however have a nice box of choccie biscuits for them which always seems to go down well. 

You'll also be popular if you can provide cups of tea. I keep the kettle, teabags, sugar, milk, spoon, and a few mugs we're not fussed about out (not packed) - make tea at the old house, take those bits in the car, make tea at the new house.  

I've never tipped though. 

diystarter7

Hi OP

If removal men are nice/poltie and helpful, last time we had to use them about 4 years ago for one of our kids, we gave them a 20 quid note for drinks. It was a hot day we gave them cold drinks and we always help even though they dot ask

Other times, grumpy, not so polite ones, give them a 'goodby' and no tips.

Why tip someone you paid full price for when they are like above

Thanks

diystarter7

TheJP said:

Do you tip the bin men/women, the person on the till at Tesco's, the barista at Starbucks. I'm guessing no as you pay for that service. This isn't any different.

Tipping is an Americanisation system due to low wages/tip based wage contracts. We don't have that system here.

Not joking

Following on from what you said. A carpet fitter used by one of our kids on hall, landing stairs quailty underlay and carpet. Kids were at work and I was there to oversee. The carpet layer arrived 40 mins late, not  a sinle sorry i am late - was on the mobile several times and i asked him a question very politely about the edging on the stairs and he answered with an abrutp no. It was a hot day and we offer all guests/work people drink but I did not as i was p off. As he left he stood there look at me and said "where my tip." I thought he was jokig he was not.  I was a bit worried he may punch/attack me but I said, take out of the moeny that we have already paid. I am not joking he looked full of rage. However, I though about what had happend from the time he arrive late. I'm gals I did not give him a penny. I took 20 quid with me as my kid asked me to tip the fitter but they are aware i only do that if they not rude/nasty/implite and do an ok or better job.

Thanks

Skiddaw1

We tipped our lovely removers and I gave them a home made cake. We also gave home made cake/biscuits to the EA staff and a big bunch of sunflowers to our solicitor.

youth_leader

I had four men and the boss doing my removal and offered coffee/tea/soft drinks and biscuits at both sale/purchase properties  They worked like machines and were really pleasant, I gave them £20 each at the end.

TBagpuss

Letsgetmoving said:

We are moving on Thursday! And are using professional movers to make things easier.

it was quite expensive (over £1k) do I need to tip/feed the movers? I imagine the majority of the fee goes to the company rather than the guys doing all the heavy lifting. I was thinking of getting paper cups etc… for tea/coffee and biscuits.

We’re only moving a mile away and their depot is not much further so I imagine they’d go back there in the in between time

I hope your move goes smoothly.

You don't *need* to feed or tip them - I think offering tea / cold drinks and biscuits is fairly normal and appropriate although it may not be accepted, other than that I would only plan to offer more if there were unusual circumstances - maybe if you were moving to or from somewhere very remote so them buying nay thing nearby wasn't an option, or if there were delays and they were sacrificing their break time to get the move done! 

Tipping - not required but would no doubt be appreciated