The Tipping Dilemma

Tipping is a very intriguing subject for me.

My latest experience goes as follows: I had a meeting with a client and was running late. I find a parking spot right next to the client’s office, in the pay-park area. As I get ready to get out of my car and get a ticket from the park meter, a guy who seems to work as a valet for some store comes up to me and asks me if I would like him to get me the ticket (he had already prepared the coins and everything). In my rush and hurry, I immediately agree, thinking in my head “what a nice man.” A minute later, he comes back and hands me the ticket, with a smile on his face. I smile back and hand him LL1,000, which is what the ticket is worth for an hour’s park. He takes it and keeps standing there. I look at him, wondering what it is he wants from me. After about 10 seconds of awkward silence, he tells me “the LL1,000 is for the park meter”. I nod in agreement and wait to see where this is going (he was stating the obvious after all). Then he continues: “Well what about me?”

At first I didn't understand. I mean all he had done was just walk for 2 seconds to get the ticket which I hadn’t even asked him to do in the first place. I tried to mumble the sentence “I could have gotten the ticket myself, I have plenty of coins in my wallet!”, but instead ended up smiling and speechless. I handed him the additional LL2,000 which is usually the fair tipping amount in my opinion, and even far too generous for this type of “service”, and went to my meeting.

But this is just one thing. I can never tip the hairdresser or the manicurist for example; kinda makes me feel like a pimp. But I see a lot of women slip, very smoothly, LL5,000s and LL10,000s through the hairdresser's belts or in the manicurist's pockets before they leave the store, smiling and happy to feel so generous. I just don’t understand the concept. It is normal in a restaurant, since you just include the tip with whatever your bill has amounted to. At least in that situation, you don’t have to slip anything down anyone’s pants.

One time, my friend picked me up from home to go out for lunch; he was not very familiar with the area, since he lives abroad, and I wasn’t paying much attention to where he was going so he ended up taking a wrong turn. A policeman who felt like doing his job that day stopped us to give my friend a fine as we were going in the opposite street direction. After a lot of discussion and arguing that there wasn't even a sign showing that the street was one way, he ended up letting us go…provided we gave him "at least a tip, enno walaw!"
Yes, those were his words.

But the best of them all is at the car wash. This is a situation where I never know what to do or how to act. I deliver my car to one person and wait for them to finish washing it. I then see 2 people working on it, to speed things up and provide a better service. But why is it that when I go to take my car after it has been washed, there are 5 people standing there, pretending to have all participated in the process? If that was really the case it would have been done in a minute and I wouldn’t have had to wait for half an hour! One of them is holding the door for me, another is spraying some sanitizer inside, and the other is still wiping the windows which, believe me, are pretty dry by now! I am all for helping, believe me; but I always end up just standing there, either handing one of them LL5,000 on top of what I had already paid, expecting that it will be divided amongst them, or, when available, hand each person individually LL1,000. Some other times I don’t give anything at all and it makes me look cheap and ungrateful (although, come to think of it, I have already paid for the service).

I am telling you, tipping is some confusing business! I am just saying I would be much more comfortable with the concept if there was a clear place where I could tip, like a box at the door for instance. Watch me generously tip then.