Metblogs NYC Advent Calendar. (Day 18)
Behind door number seventeen we have… holiday tips!
New York goes tip crazy this time of year. Sure, holiday tips are the norm all over the place, but nowhere is it quite like here, where everyone from your super to your regular delivery guy to the entire staff of your office building (and everyone in between) seems to have their hand out and that extra little twinkle in their eye.
Not that it should be that way, mind you. We live in a service economy (though the service is often abysmal, but that’s a post for another time) and those services frequently come with understood prices. But if you’re new to the city and this is your first holiday season here, chances are you didn’t budget for the extent to which you’d be expected to pony up.
Thank g for all the online tipping guides that pop up this time of year. Oh wait, they all say pretty different things…
Just don’t be a Scrooge, and you’ll probably be ok.
Previous posts in this series:
Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9, Day 10,
Day 11, Day 12, Day 13, Day 14, Day 15, Day 16, Day 17
I have worked in the service industry before (Bellhop, Concierge, Bus Boy, Waiter, Male Prostitute… I mean, forget that last one), so I am a big proponent of tipping for good service. But, it seems that our culture is more and more insistent on tipping for average service. While I almost always tip out a waiter very well (20% min unless they are REALLY bad), I don’t see the point of tipping every single person I come in contact with in Dec. But, I don’t make the rules, so I go along with it to some degree… But that always frustrates me. I am expected to tip the 8 utility men in my building? That gets expensive! I haven’t even met half of them.