Quite recently I was in a liquor store (okay, I am there a lot) and I noticed a tip jar next to the counter.
“Feeling Tipsy?” it asked me, a few coins gleaming from within.
Huh?
I need to tip someone, just for buying my beer?
I pointed to the jar and asked the man, who was my age, if he was going to pour me a drink, if he was asking for a tip.
I said it with a smile, but I know, it was a bit passive aggressive. So then I was just outright aggressive.
“I don’t mean to be a jerk, but why ask for tips?” I smiled again. The man did not smile.
“Weellllll, if I help someone pick out several wines for their dinner party, or complete a big order for them, then they might want to thank me for it.”
I concur, but add, “But won’t they just tell other people what excellent customer service skills you have, and how professional you are, gaining you new customers? I mean, I know I am old-fashioned, but doing a good job used to mean, just that, you did a good job.”
He stares at me blankly. I realize I am digging a hole here, but I can’t stop myself.
“ I’m not trying to be rude about it, I just don’t get it. I see a tip jar now at just about every business I go to. I even saw one at the photocopiers.”
The man stares at me blankly, with a look that says, you can go now.
So I do, none the wiser. I don’t know why he deserved a tip. I don’t know why the photocopier wants one. I know why the baristas do, because they are paid sweet F. A. and need to pay for college/gas/their own beer.
I tip the guy at the gas station if I am too lazy to do it myself. I tip quite a bit, when I feel it is needed. But at the Greenhouse? At the Hardware store? Doesn’t anyone realize that if you do a good job, people will come back and tell other people? I read somewhere (so it must be true) that for every good experience you have at a store, you tell about three or four people. But a bad experience? Twenty. We love to bitch when we feel we have been wronged, and I think people forget to spread the positive, instead shoveling the shitty experience around, freeing ourselves from its wrongful burden.
But I digress. I go to the other liquor store now, and by my wine from the nice people who are always friendly. They don’t ask me for anything, they just smile and say come again, because they know I will.