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Tipping ... or, how to pay back ...
Jul. 7th, 2007 09:32 pmI have just asked a bloody-stupid-foreigner question on japan-guide.com. To 'pay' for this, I have, first, answered five intelligent-if-slightly-anxious-foreigner-with-enquiring-mind questions on tripadvisor.
The last one has got me thinking: it asked about tipping grocery delivery firms. I don't like tipping. The basic you-turn-up-and-do-your-job should get a fair wage.
We get occasional (well, far more than weekly) gifts at work. Users, WEEPS (I should know what that stands for - Work Experience something-beginning-with-E - Placements) and volunteers add to the volume of chocolates and biscuits brought in for birthdays, after holidays, left-over from commercial-let luncheons or simply because 'we don't seem to have had a cake for a day or two' which are not doing my cholesterol-friendly diet any good.
Are these two aspects of the same thing? Grocery delivery and public sector employees (should be) paid a fair wage for their work. Those who benefit should be arguing for fair wages (and threatening to take their custom / vote elsewhere). But there should be a simple mechanism in which 'senior management' is alerted by the customer/user to good or bad customer/user service. And there should be a way in which, should the customer/user wish to "demonstrate their appreciation", they can.
And perhaps this is (in my line of pubic service) an opportunity for Oxfam and ICOM to offer to the public 'Thank-you' vouchers. I would (I think - but can't really speak for my staff) be as thrilled to find that a donation had been to the National Archives of Niceragua Purchase Fund or National Library of Namibia Development Fund (etc., etc.) as to find that we had a box of chocolates. Would Ocado delivery staff be as thrilled to find that, rather than cash in hand, a fair-trade co-op in the Caribbean was getting advice on how to sell to the European market? Especially if there was an alert-the-bosses tie-in to this?
I think that would be a way around of the more-than-satisfied (or feeling-intimidated) customer/user subsidising the rest of us customers/tax payers.
Which is not to say that, should you have given us a box of chocolates, that we are not appreciative. We _do_ appreciate the thought behind them! My ramblings are this: how can my own appreciation and thoughts for those who give me beyond the expected service best be recognised, so that the individual, and society as a whole, benefits?
The last one has got me thinking: it asked about tipping grocery delivery firms. I don't like tipping. The basic you-turn-up-and-do-your-job should get a fair wage.
We get occasional (well, far more than weekly) gifts at work. Users, WEEPS (I should know what that stands for - Work Experience something-beginning-with-E - Placements) and volunteers add to the volume of chocolates and biscuits brought in for birthdays, after holidays, left-over from commercial-let luncheons or simply because 'we don't seem to have had a cake for a day or two' which are not doing my cholesterol-friendly diet any good.
Are these two aspects of the same thing? Grocery delivery and public sector employees (should be) paid a fair wage for their work. Those who benefit should be arguing for fair wages (and threatening to take their custom / vote elsewhere). But there should be a simple mechanism in which 'senior management' is alerted by the customer/user to good or bad customer/user service. And there should be a way in which, should the customer/user wish to "demonstrate their appreciation", they can.
And perhaps this is (in my line of pubic service) an opportunity for Oxfam and ICOM to offer to the public 'Thank-you' vouchers. I would (I think - but can't really speak for my staff) be as thrilled to find that a donation had been to the National Archives of Niceragua Purchase Fund or National Library of Namibia Development Fund (etc., etc.) as to find that we had a box of chocolates. Would Ocado delivery staff be as thrilled to find that, rather than cash in hand, a fair-trade co-op in the Caribbean was getting advice on how to sell to the European market? Especially if there was an alert-the-bosses tie-in to this?
I think that would be a way around of the more-than-satisfied (or feeling-intimidated) customer/user subsidising the rest of us customers/tax payers.
Which is not to say that, should you have given us a box of chocolates, that we are not appreciative. We _do_ appreciate the thought behind them! My ramblings are this: how can my own appreciation and thoughts for those who give me beyond the expected service best be recognised, so that the individual, and society as a whole, benefits?
