Last weekend, not the one that just passed, was a bit of a working whirlwind: after a particularly full week of work, I had to take part in a meeting all day on the Saturday. This meeting would be followed by dinner and a talk. The preparation for the actual meeting wasn’t that heinous, but a last minute discovery led to a suddenly heavy workload for me, and I spent all day Friday and some time on Saturday finishing something up. I was pretty stressed. On top of that, our fair city had been having very snowy weather, so it was advised that we pack a change of clothing and some toiletries in case we had to sleep over at the hotel our meeting was being held at.

Saturday morning dawned and the roads looked ok more or less: the ploughs had definitely been down my street so I decided to take the bus downtown at 7:15am and that went well. I arrived at the hotel on time, had a yummy hot breakfast (the bacon was especially delicious) took part in the all-day meeting and then headed to the office (located conveniently next door) to do the aforementioned work.

Then it was off to the suite where before dinner drinks were being served and more importantly, Dance Dance Revolution for the Wii had been set up. After protesting half heartedly I got up there and had a ball for a few minutes before I had to go help get ready for the awards portion of our dinner.

The dinner was delicious and the dessert was especially toothsome and about 10 000 calories too decadent:

The chocolate icing covering it had gold bits in it, this fine gold glitter.

After dinner and the talk, there was time for more DDR. When I discovered that the storm that had been brewing all day would in fact make getting home near impossible, I decided to see if I could snag a laptop with some internet access for my hotel room. I got the computer and it appeared that wireless internet was working but of course once I arrived in the room and tried it, it was a no-go. Since it was after 1am anyway, perhaps it was best that way, although I did consider going next door to my work computer (I am an addict).

The next morning, after being roped into running some errands, I packed and got ready to take a cab home. The main roads looked perfectly fine so I was a bit curious about why finding a cab was near impossible. A driver eventually showed up and he let me know that:

• the weather was so bad and he was taking a big risk being out (the weather was actually not that bad: it wasn’t snowing and the roads had been ploughed. I, novice driver that I am, had driven on at least three occasions this winter that were far worse) and when I told him that he conceded that the main roads were in good condition but said the side streets were pretty bad.
• the long wait times were due to many cab drivers deciding to stay home and not bothering to dig themselves out of their driveways. He said he would have done the same but he is renting his car and he’s charged $130 in rent every day so he has to make that money somehow.
• cab drivers should be able to charge double the fare in bad weather because they are taking a risk by being on the road (I was silent because I see his job as driving his cab and if the weather is prohibitive, he has the option to stay home like some of his colleagues did. If he decides to drive it is his decision and he even said he was working because he didn’t want to lose out on the cash that he needs to pay that daily rent fee that he is charged).

Now, a note about tipping. When it comes to tipping, I’m a fair tipper: I’m not extravagant unless I receive amazing service but I follow the general rules on how much to tip at certain places. However, I don’t have a problem not leaving a tip if I receive poor service. Some of my friends are great tippers, and tip all and sundry. I, on the other hand, would expect to be tipped only if I provided service that went above and beyond my job description, and would regard any tips received for doing my job a bonus. So, in a retail environment, spending two hours helping a woman pick one outfit is to me my job. They pay me to sell clothing. But if a customer that I had sold something to previously called me with a clothing emergency and asked if I could pick an outfit for her, charge her account then deliver the garments to her house, then I would think that’s a tip-worthy endeavour.

When it comes to tipping cab drivers, my basic rule is if the guy says hello and is conversational and doesn’t smoke in the car, I’ll likely tip. If I’m going or returning from a trip and I have bags in the trunk and he pops the trunk and helps me get my bags in and out of the car, I’ll tip. If he doesn’t, I won’t tip: driving me from one place to another is not tip-worthy in my opinion, just like me selling a skirt to a customer is not tip-worthy either, even if it takes me three hours to make the sale.

In this case, when I tried to tell the cab driver where to turn and when (because he didn’t seem to recognize my street when I gave him the name), he waved me aside saying he knew he was going. Our car got beeped at for stopping at a green light for nearly a minute even though we were nowhere near my house and the light had been green before he arrived at the intersection. When the cab driver pulled up in front of my house, he popped the trunk. I had a taxi chit, so I filled it out for the amount on the meter. I don’t know if we’re supposed to cover the price of the tip, so just in case I usually pay the tip and just charge work the amount on the meter. After I finished filling out the chit, I looked up and saw that the meter was still going and the amount I had written was wrong and was getting higher every 23 seconds! I asked the driver why the meter was still going when I had told him that this was my house, and what the amount due was, and he finally stopped the meter and told me the least I could do was add five dollars to the amount on the meter because he was driving in poor weather. I told him that this was a work chit and was about to explain that because of that I tip separately but he didn’t even let me finish: he just told me to give him the chit and said he couldn’t believe how ungrateful I was after he drove me in this weather. I couldn’t get out of the cab fast enough and grab my things from the trunk.

What really got me about the whole situation was that he had no idea whether I was planning to tip him separately or not, then he presumed to tell me how much to tip him (big no-no with Jummy) and then he practically drove off with my things still in his trunk.

Interactions like that always get me angry and I made sure I took note of his cab number and driver number and will be making a complaint about him if I remember to.

So tell me: what’s your most horrible tip-related story? Have you ever been told by someone how much of a tip you should give them? What prompted you to leave the worst tip you’ve ever left (or not)? What about the best tip? (no need to go into the actual amounts tipped, I’m more interested in the reason).

Filed under: Job, Mundane by jummy