Tipping etiquette confounds all those new to this city. New Yorkers’ opinions differ on even the most common and least controversial tip – the appropriate addition to a restaurant bill – and it’s impossible to get a consistent answer on exactly who it is you’re supposed to tip. With tipping practices so extensive, you’re constantly asking whether you should be slipping an extra few to the UPS delivery guy, the cable guy or even your dry cleaner. Just when you thought you had figured a tipping rule out – like no tips on take-away items – you notice the place where you pick up your morning coffee has a large tip jar inviting you to “support local latte artists”. There are several websites purporting to provide standards on how much to tip and to whom, but the basis of their authority in this area is not clear. If you prefer the enhanced credibility that comes with a published work, there are also several books available for purchase which will help you master “The Art of Tipping”. I briefly considered ordering the particularly promising title, “Tipping for Success“, but couldn’t really justify the investment. It’s simpler just to randomly stuff a few extra bills into every eager hand – apparently this is the way you say thanks here, and I do have good manners after all.
When we all began receiving “Happy Holidays!” cards from our building staff, each card identifying the various superintendents, doormen, handymen and porters by their full names (with some rather curiously including headshots of the staff), we were bemused to learn that they were not intended as a pleasant seasonal greeting. The purpose of these cards, were were told, was to provide a handy reference guide to help us identify those of the staff to whom we would be delivering envelopes stuffed with cold hard cash. This was how we were introduced to a new and much more significant category of “Holiday tipping”, a practice so well-established you can even buy tall, narrow Christmas cards specifically tailored to accommodate greenbacks. How significant is this new tipping? You must pay out to everyone that could make your life uncomfortable in the next year – from your super to your hairdresser to your personal trainer to your postman. How much, exactly? The New York Post was suggesting figures of anywhere between $50 to $500 for the superintendent; $25 to $200 for each doorman, and $20 to $50 for each porter. Many of us tipped with reluctant generosity, “because they might do something bad to you if you don’t tip… I am tipping out of fear rather any sense of gratitude“. This was the simple, eloquent recognition by a fellow Australian of the real spirit – fear of retribution – behind our holiday tipping. After all, these are the people charged with the safe delivery of our packages and effecting emergency repair on leaky radiators. We wouldn’t want them suddenly to become persistently unavailable, would we? The price of this security, for those unlucky few living in large luxury doorman buildings with over 20 eligible staff, got as high as 1,000 bucks.
And, when a few days later we all learned that it’s also customary to tip our secretaries, we didn’t make too much fuss. Okay, perhaps we engaged in a little cathartic whinging, but we quickly accepted it with the same grim resignation we did when they insisted we start using “z”s and dropping “u”s, and made us feel obligated to utilize ridiculous words like “utilize” and “obligated”. We were firmly discouraged by the locals from trying to offer a thoughtful gift to our secretaries instead of money (the sum of which should be somewhere between $50 and $500, depending on your seniority and how much you think you’ll miss a happy, helpful and highly efficient secretary over the coming year). Those who felt strange about giving their secretaries cash opted for the marginally less vulgar gift card. In the US, gift cards are available for purchase almost anywhere you hand over money, from post offices to take-away burger joints to chemists. It doesn’t seem to make any sense at first, but then you learn that for big business, it’s eeeeeasy money. Last year in the US, there were around 8 billion dollars worth of unused gift cards. True story. I chose to give the gift of cash – because it doesn’t have a sneaky expiration date, and nothing says I love you like money.
With warm greetings for this season of tipping, Happy Holidays!
