See’s One Pound Gift certs to:
Handyman
Mail carrier
UPS dude
Hair salon ladies
Parking garage dude (he keeps a special eye on my car)
Mechanic.
They are a great idea. The cost is low, they say you think of them, they fit in a envelope, and if that person doesn’t like See’s (:eek:
) they can be re-gifted.
I forgot to mention garbage collectors - we haven’t tipped ours, because generally they’ve been lazy. Sometimes we haven’t even had a pickup for a week! (And ours, like the postal service, isn’t paid for by taxes - we pay a monthly fee.)
Letter carriers “officially” aren’t supposed to accept money, but that (according to my USPS employee husband) is probably mostly to prevent arguments over whether a temporary letter carrier “stole” someone’s tip from their route. My husband gets tips from many people on his route, and says that no tip won’t hurt your service, but one or kind treatment and kind words will help for that little extra mile sort of thing.
For instance, letters that get sent along with insufficient postage and postage due on delivery by a couple cents, he usually just pays for out of pocket change rather than ask for it or delay delivery if no one’s home, and signs off on it as being paid for. Someone on his route had this happen before, then got an item with a more significant amount due; it might have been a couple bucks or so, I don’t know for sure. He knocked on their door to give them the item and collect the money, and the woman didn’t seem to get what he was saying about needing money. She told him she assumed he’d just pay for this as well.
Oh yeah, our regular UPS carrier too. She’s awesome; she knows we get home late and will swing by again later when we have to sign for something. We know she’s probably not on the route if we get an ‘attempted delivery’ package notice.
I don’t tip my garbage guys. They throw the cans wherever they want to and are generally assholes. But you could call most of the City of Pittsburgh employees assholes with good cause.
But my parents live at the end of a long drive. They tip about $100 each guy. In response, if they forget to put their trash out (happens every couple months or so), they call one of them and they don’t hesitate to come and get it. So I guess the tip is for excellent service, above and beyond.
But if you guys never forget to put your trash out and they make 60k, don’t even bother. Jeez.
I give an extra $100 to the woman who cleans our home and pet/house-sits for us. I will also give a gift certificate for $25 or so to our occasional babysitter and to the kids’ teachers. That’s about it.
Re the garbage guys and mail person, how do you even know if it’s the same people all the time? Or do you just tip whoever happens to show up that day? I just don’t tip people that I couldn’t pick out of a line up.
Thanks for all the replies so far! I’ve rarely experienced confusion in a tipping situation at a restauarant or standard hair salon visit, but tipping for things generally related to homeownership confuses me.
Truly, if I were to tip any one worker in my neighorhood, it’d be the guys from our local electric company and the lawn service up the street. The electric company for slogging themselves out in the cold to fix our electric line yesterday (I know they get paid for that, but I imagine is still really sucks), and the lawn service who doesn’t service my lawn for humoring my son every time he asks to ride on their tractor or toss in branches when they mulch fallen trees.
I expect presents from no-one but enjoy them when freely given.
My payment for the mail service is the payment for doing the job properly.
I accept bonuses that are part of my contract.
Yes.
I’m sure I have no idea.
Nothing, really.
No, but when I pay for mail services I expect that a part of that money goes towards paying mailpersons’ salary.
I used to be uncomfortable receiving presents, but now I’ve gotten used to it and receive them with great thanks and appreciation. However, I still prefer to give presents rather than receive.
And I see (a) presents, (b) bonuses and (c) tips as being completely unrelated things though, which, judging by your comments, maybe you don’t (and that’s fine).
I’ll accept a performance related bonus - it’s part of my employment agreement so I don’t consider it a tip or a present.
When I was a pizza delivery boy working my way through university, I initially refused tips on principle, but quickly changed my ways when I learned that refusing tips made the customers unhappy. In any case the tips were miniscule and hardly effected my base-line pay (Australia, at that time, had only begun the smallest steps towards a tipping culture, so while most people would not tip, some would, but if they did it was a tiny amount - say 50 cents). But I did take the tips - it was easier on everyone if I did.
I don’t think I’m a hypocrite.
I don’t think it’s hypocritical not to tip your mailman, garbage man and the like for Christmas. I mean, I’m part of the reason they have a job, right? And they do their jobs, which is great. And they get paid a far more decent wage than waitstaff, where the employer can legally pay the waitstaff much lower than minimum wage.
But they don’t give me a gift, either. The more I think about it, if I were required to tip “or else” (or else I’d get bad service, they’d “forget” to give me my mail, etc.) isn’t that akin to extortion or requiring a bribe, other than the fact that it occurs during the Hap-Happiest Time of the Year?
I tip the mailman $20, left in an envelope in the mail slot, ditto the newspaper guy (both of whom leave Christmas cards, which I take as gift solicitations). I leave $20 taped to the lid of our trash can (which is the standard way here). I don’t tip anyone else and I exchange gifts with only one other person (my son’s FIL–and it is not my idea).
Hi OverlyVerbose, nice to post with you again. This has been a very interesting thread.
My point was, if you accept something for nothing, and then say you don’t tip because that would be giving something for nothing, I’d consider that to be hypocritical. You haven’t indicated doing anything like that, so I wouldn’t call you a hypocrite.
Are you sure your mailman never did you a favor though? And have you ever put out more trash than they were supposed to pick up, but they did it anyway? If nothing like that has ever happened, well then you aren’t obligated to give any tip on moral grounds at all.
When the tip is required to get the service you have a right to without it, well that’s wrong. But it’s wise to pay it anyway. I’ve been in that position, but it was worth an extra $20 a year to get my trash picked up.
Just remembered something, have to add Toy School Bus to my letter to Santa:)
Good to see you again, too. 
As far as the mailman doing me a favor, I have no idea - I’m not here during the day, so I honestly don’t know. And I don’t put out more trash than is supposed to be out there (at least not unless it’s bulky trash pickup day, which occurs twice a year). If we have that much trash, my husband and I arrange to have it picked up by a paid service or dump it appropriately ourselves.
I’m sure it’d be different if I were living in a larger city (St. Louis isn’t teeny, but it isn’t NYC), but I can’t imagine my trash guy “forgetting” to pick up my trash one day because they hadn’t gotten a tip or gift.