Caught With His Hand In the Tip Jar
Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.
Where we are: We’re in Hualien, Taiwan, on a little road trip around this spectacular (and spectacularly wet) island.
Caught With His Hand In the Tip Jar
To tip or not to tip, that is the question.
More often than not, though, that one simple question is more of a hastily whispered conversation in the back of a taxi as it pulls up in front our accommodation, usually late in the evening when we’re both tired after a long journey:
“Are we supposed to tip cab drivers in this country?”
“Beats me. Look it up.”
“I can’t; I just rebooted my phone.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway, because we forgot to get cash.”
“Oh. Well, don’t let the bellman grab the suitcases, ‘cause we can’t tip him either.”
“Too late.”
Variations on the theme include:
—surreptitiously trying to Google tipping hairdressers in Estonia while a hairdresser who speaks impeccable English is hovering at your right shoulder, making sure your ends are perfectly even.
—the waiter standing next to the table, slowly and conspicuously counting out our change, then waiting just a beat too long, while we both realize—neither of us remembered to look up tipping etiquette.
—being stopped at the door by a huffily indignant waiter, insisting we keep our change, because tipping is certainly not necessary, thankyouverymuch.
—being asked, point-blank, Would you like to add a tip? And having no clue how much is appropriate. 10 percent? 20 percent? Whatever coins are left if I pay with cash? How much are those coins worth, anyway? I can’t see them without my reading glasses, which are in my purse, which Lee is holding out on the sidewalk, because he likes to escape the awkward part of the meal as often as possible.
Google is great—it can tell you (with varying degrees of consistency) whether or not to tip just about anywhere in the world, and how much.
What it can’t do is ensure that you have the foresight and good sense to acquire this information before you need it. It’s one of those pesky details that Lee and I sometimes get slack about in our complacency.
It’s rare to add the tip to the credit card total—after several years of trying, we realized that it’s just not done that way outside of the US. But then we got to Mexico.
On our second day—the day we ate at the fifth-ranked restaurant in the world (which had a price tag to match its standing)—Lee happened to be chatting with the people sitting next to us when the waiter brought the credit card machine to our table. Lee had already pulled out his card, so I handed it to the waiter. A moment later, he turned the machine toward me, indicating that I should choose how much to tip.
In the space of two seconds, I froze, dithered, and made an executive decision. I tapped the 20% button, signed, and we were done.
By the time I stood up from the table, I was second-guessing myself. I don’t think we’ve been anywhere, outside the US, where 20% is the norm. When I told Lee, he immediately calculated just how ridiculously I had overtipped. No wonder the waiter had thanked me so profusely.
That’s okay, though. I’d rather over-tip than … not.
In Oaxaca, we found a coffee shop that we loved, and went there every day. Lee sometimes went twice a day. The day before we left, he was trying to use up the last of our pesos—a pile of coins. He counted out the price of the coffee and put it on the counter; the barista then turned away to make the coffee.
Lee dropped the rest of our coins in the tip jar.
It turned out he had miscounted, and owed five more pesos.
Lee had to convince the barista he had actually put coins in the tip jar, so that he could pick out five pesos—while being carefully watched.
Sometimes things are just awkward.
Take care,
Lisa
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