New York Part I - Money
Good day faithful readers. You may have noticed that I haven't posted anything for a while. This is largely due to the fact that I was madly preparing things for my Christmas holidays in Australia and New York. However, now I'm back and you can look forward to the usual semi-regular posts!On my way back to Australia I decided that I stop off in New York. I'd never been to the US before and I'd always wanted to see what NYC was like, so since I was travelling to the other side of the world anyway...
One of things that I find highly annoying about US culture is tipping. It's fine in the US because that's how their pay structure is arranged, so what is really annoying is that it has made its way to the UK and to Australia where waiting staff are paid a wage that means that they don't need to be tipped. Despite the fact we all know this, every time we go somewhere to eat we feel an obligation to give a tip. A lot of places even have a Gratuity option on their credit card machines!
Anyways, arriving in the US I knew that I was going to have to tip people and I was fine with that. Ten percent for taxi drivers, 15-20% for wait staff, a couple of dollars for concierges, I had it all worked out.
My first experience came with having to tip the taxi driver that took me to the hotel from the airport. The trip cost me around $49, but since I'd only just got money out of the ATM I gave him $60. Obviously a bit more than necessary, but given that he'd got me over the first hurdle when arriving in any new city (finding your hotel) and hadn't killed me I thought that he deserved it!My next experience with tipping came with the concierge. Now granted, my bag was a little heavy, but all he had to do was lift it onto his trolley, wheel it to my room and then lift it off again, so I don't think that he deserved anything more than the standard tip. It's not as if he brought me a bowl of fruit or had a coffee brewing in readiness for my arrival or anything. Unfortunately, as with the taxi driver, I still didn't have any change. The smallest that I had was a $10 note, so I had to give him that!
One of my US friends later told me that it is acceptable to ask if they have change so that you don't have to give them a note. I notice that it wasn't part of his duty to advise me of this! I never did see that concierge again for the rest of my stay. I'm pretty sure that he took early retirement on my tips!
The other thing that really annoys me about money in the US is taxes. I don't care that they charge taxes, everyone does that. What really annoys me is that they don't advertise it! For example, I went into Starbucks to get a coffee and got my money ready to pay the $3.69, only to be told that it was going to cost $4.00. "But it says $3.69" I said. "That's without tax" she replied. Well what the hell is the point of telling me the price before tax? There's no possibility that I'm not going to be paying tax, so why don't you just tell me how much I need to scrounge around in my wallet for rather than just some meaningless price?I don't know, maybe I'm being unreasonable. Is it too much to expect the price written on something to be price that I'm going to be expected to pay? Do I really have to imitate Donald Trump every time I go out to eat... "that service was terrible, NO TIP!"
posted by sam @ 1:40 am
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