I have just been watching a television discussion on tipping... The whole giddy rigmarole concerns me and either gnaws at the edges of my conscience, or, less often, makes me angry... The reason it is making me angry this year, on my return from the northern hemisphere, is that South African waiters and waitresses seem to have abandoned any attempt to mutter even a ritual Thank You. For a sincere thank you, you might have to cosh one of the unhappy souls with a platinum ingot... My grandfather used to say that it was always prudent to tip on arriving at a hotel. That way the staff remained on their toes (in expectation!) for the entire duration of ones stay. There was no advantage at all, he averred, to tipping only on ones departure. (The latter was a bit like buying an item of computer equipment at a certain Sandton iStore: once your credit/debit card has been zapped, you are more alone than a Zuma spokesman with visible consequences of a severe dose of the pox or the clap would be...) In the years immediately after the war, my mother used to leave a discreet sixpenny piece under her saucer after taking tea in a prissy tearoom. My mother followed the old-fashioned English habit of discretion in everything, and her worst fear - nay, her terror, was that members of her family would draw attention to themselves in public... (I was for many years a TV news reader. Eventually, my mother saw a videotape of me reading the news at home in England. She said to my father: Oh Thomas, I dont like the idea of Mark exposing himself in public like this... And to me, Mark, Darling, cant you get a proper job...? I was a big disappointment to Mama...) My father, was brutally snoep (have I got that word right?) with anyone. Money was to be hoarded. There was no other point to life... (Possibly because my grandfather (Old Man Lloyd) was a boulevardier on the French Riviera at Monte Carlo. A boulevardier was a man who strolled along wearing his top hat, carrying his silver topped cane, with an alert and ready eye for a well-turned stockinged ankle. His natural habitats were the Casino at what he called Monty and the Promenade des Anglais in Nice... He tipped lavishly. The French are very careful with their tips, mainly because service in restaurants in France in now almost always automatically included in the bill. The French leave, at most, what they call a coin as an additional acknowledgement after paying their bill. The system works well. I learned to tip (generously, I might add!) from my grandfather, and in America, where tips are a human right. (You can go to the electric chair if you get the amount of the tip wrong in the good old US of A!) I still tip generously, but I am still congealed in a past in which one used to say Thank You as a matter of course... Before I decide whether to suspend the whole idea of tipping over the coming ruinous South African Christmas period, when complete strangers approach one in the street and use the solitary Open Sesame word Christmas... in the full expectation of untold wealth from insane, guilt-ridden and grateful survivors of apartheid, I need to think some more. And maybe I should buy a low-slung Maserati instead. It might cost me less... I have absolutely no idea what all this is germane to, but the rain has been hissing down here in Johannesburg, and I cant go out to play... Do have a lovely day, yall... Marco...
Posted on: Sun, 23 Nov 2014 09:07:45 +0000
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