Can someone please explain the tipping thing?

6 04 2006

OK, I've travelled a lot to the US and Canada. And everywhere we're advised to tip the waiter (and other service people) some 15-20% of the cost of the service. This is NOT common practice in Australia and something that – after all these visits – still rankles with me to the point where I often don't tip at all.

I've heard the arguments about the wait staff being paid a pittance and so they have to make up for it in tips. But this is a Catch-22 argument – if the employers paid a decent, award wage, then tips wouldn't be needed; but because waiters get tips, employers don't pay a decent wage. A very circular argument that goes nowhere… and doesn't convince me.

What I want to know is what about all the other people in the restaurant? Who actually gets the tip? The person who serves you (can be more than one), the busboy who cleans up the tables afterwards (I've seen them pocket tips left on the table), and what about the rest of the staff – like the people who do the hard work of preparing the meal, making sure the place is clean, taking the bookings, cleaning the dishes etc. What do *they* get from the tips? Why just the waiters? What makes them so special that they get all this extra money?

And if I leave $$ on the table or on the VISA slip, how does the money get divided up with these other people? Is there an honour system whereby you tell everyone what tips you got for the night and it gets divided equally, or do you pocket your own and say nothing and don't share with anyone else who made the meal happen?

The other argument I've heard is that tipping is for good service. Well, isn't service exactly that – "service"? And doesn't "service" imply that you have a job to do and are required to do it politely and civilly? If you're in the service industry, then THAT'S YOUR JOB. You shouldn't be paid more for it. The other thing we've found is that most service isn't exceptional – it's just service. Nothing more or less. Just what I expect. So why this pressure to tip for something that I consider to be part of the job?

We had a situation yesterday that brought this home to me – we were at a chain restaurant and the waiter came up towards the end of the meal and asked if everything was OK. Well, it's a bit late to ask then, and I realised that her question was just a euphemism for "I'm still here. You are going to give me a good tip, aren't you?" Where was she earlier when my husband wanted Tabasco sauce for his chilli? Where was she when my uncle wanted a decaf coffee? Nowhere to be seen. But she pops her head in our faces right when we're down to the last French Fry to ask if everything is OK. And of course, she sure isn't expecting a negative response! Not that we gave her one, but I wondered what she would or could do if we told her the meal was horrid (it wasn't, by the way). Would she have the authority to refund part of the meal, give us a voucher for another meal, or just apologise and tell us she'll let the kitchen staff know.

So, after that little ramble, if anyone living in the US and who has perhaps worked as a waiter can offer me any valid reason why I should tip, I'll consider it. And not being paid enough won't fly with me – that's an issue between employer and employee and needs to be sorted in another arena.


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Categories : Food & Wine, Travel, USA

A working phone!

5 04 2006

After more internet research on phones, I decided to take the "I don't care if I throw it away" approach. And so bought a cheap TracFone from a Rite-Aid pharmacy and a 100 min pre-paid card. All up – just under $80 US. Phone is a Nokia which cost $40 US. Everything is activated now and the phone works… well, it receives calls – haven't tried making a call yet. And I can reactivate it and get a new number again next year… at least that's what the rules are right now.


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Categories : Travel, USA

Why do they keep changing the rules?

4 04 2006

My first day in LA has not been a good one. OK, so there's the almost 30 hours now without sleep thing, but that's not what made it bad… that just meant that I wasn't able to deal with life's little challenges as easily as usual.

The day started off well enough. We arrived in LA on time, and it was only 45 mins between touching down, clearing immigration, collecting luggage, clearing customs and being out on the pavement awaiting the rental car shuttle. So far, so good…

But then drama #1 happened.

I'd done my research of rental car prices and found that for the size of car we wanted and the number of days, Thrifty were by far the cheapest of the national/international brands. So I'd booked a full-size car online through their website. We get to the counter and the booking is in the system – this is a good thing. Then the $175 fee for the 10 days magically becomes close to $600!!! For the first time we had to pay insurance (never had to with Hertz etc. as it is covered by our travel insurance, but the Thrifty people said that our travel insurance didn't cover the types of insurance THEY wanted). We were able to get a couple of the insurance categories waived as the travel insurance did cover them, but ended up having to pay for two we weren't expecting, totalling over $300! The guy at the counter 'graciously' upgraded us to a Luxury vehicle – some HUGE tank of a Chrysler that probably guzzles fuel like it was water! And the price of gas here is unbelievable – $2.85 a gallon around LAX – and Thrifty charge you $6.69 a gallon to refill the car if you don't bring it back full. Most car rental companies charge a bit more than the going rate, but not $4 a gallon more! We've got another booking with Thrifty for the Michigan part of the trip. I'm seriously considering cancelling it and going with another company. Not happy, and being tired and grumpy meant that I wasn't feeling very kindly toward the man at the Thrifty counter.

Drama #2.

US cell phones and me are not meant to be together. Period. Let's backtrack a few years…

Back in about 2001 or 02, I decided to purchase a pre-paid US cell phone for my annual trips. Upgrading my Austalian phone to tri-band wasn't a viable option, and the call charges from Telstra were horrendous (gee, nothing's changes). So I ambled down to a Verizon store, bought a cheap phone, and paid to have it activated, then paid a bit more for talk time. About $90 all up. On returning to the US the next year, I reactivated the phone for a $30 charge and paid for some more talk time. I then lent the phone to a friend travelling to the US who reported that Verizon wouldn't reactivate it – something about radio frequencies of this type of phone and terrorists… So the Verizon phone became a small brick, suitable only for anchoring tiny objects to the sea floor.

The following year, I purchased an AT&T GoPhone. Well, AT&T is a BIG company, so I figured I'd be pretty safe with them. No reactivation fee for subsequent years too, so I paid $40 for the GoPhone and some more for some talk time minutes (probably about $30 which included 400 free weekend minutes).

In 2005 I return to the US to find that AT&T have been taken over by Cingular. After finding a Cingular store, I get the AT&T phone reactivated and pay for some more minutes. Life is rosy.

Then today, I take the AT&T GoPhone into the Cingular store (like I did last year), but now they can't reactivate the phone as they no longer deal with the AT&T SIM cards or AT&T network or AT&T phones (take you pick – I got ALL those responses… some even from the same person!). My alternative, says the nice Cingular salesperson, is to purchase a Cingular GoPhone + talk time minutes. Well, their GoPhones starts at $130 and talk time minutes are charged at either 25c a minute (or 10c a minute if you take the option where the first call of the day costs $1 flat + 10c minute thereafter). My head hurts, my brain's foggy, and I'm NOT HAPPY!

So I thank the nice gentleman at the Cingular store and walk out with a two year old obsolete phone that is only suitable for anchoring seaweed to the bottom of the ocean – and no working phone!!!

I'm really peeved that the rules can be changed so easily. What you believe one day (as per the website, as per what you were told, etc.) turns out to be a crock and a scam to lure you into paying many more dollars than you expected – or that you should.


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Categories : Travel, USA

Zombie land

4 04 2006

Qantas jets at Melbourne Airport

What is it about me and planes? I have absolutely no trouble sleeping pretty much anywhere – except on a plane! Even with serious drugs prescribed by my doctor, with ear plugs, noise cancelling headphones, and even in Business Class where you get those neat SkyBeds, I *still* can't sleep. (Not that we did Business Class…)

We had two flights yesterday/today – the 45 min one to Melbourne from Launceston (where they even served breakfast!), then the 14+ hour one to Los Angeles. That's pure zombie brain waves for me. I can't think clearly, can't concentrate on reading, can't do any work – and can't sleep. So I did some Sudokus (and showed some US tennis camp kids some tips on getting them out), and watched 3 movies I normally wouldn't have seen – "March of the Penguins" (brilliant doco; won an Oscar), "Brokeback Mountain" (good movie; Heath Ledger gives a stunning performance… and the scenery should've got an Oscar too!), and "Walk the Line" (Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash and Reese Witherspoon as June Carter; Reese W won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance and I can see why – she took on a far more demanding role than some of her giggle-girl earlier stuff would have indicated).

And I stared into space, and wrapped myself up in a blanket and tried really hard to sleep… Ain't gonna happen! I'm going to have to resign myself to the fact that sleeping on planes and me are not a good combination.


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Categories : Travel

Alarming

3 04 2006

I hardly slept last night, wondering if the alarms would go off – what is it about knowing you have to be up at a certain time and so you don't sleep well all night because you don't trust that this 'foreign' alarm clock in your room will work?

The Airport Shuttle was due to pick us up at 4:45am; when it hadn't arrived by 5:00am I called a cab. Which turned up just as the Shuttle did. Oops. Had to apologise to the cab person and let them go.

We were checked in at Launceston airport all the way to LAX, so now it's a matter of the short flight to Melbourne, a 3.5 hour wait in Melbourne, then the 15 hour flight to Los Angeles.


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Categories : Travel

New AFL season, 2006

3 04 2006

Game day today! Had to set the clocks back last night – very confusing when you're from a state that doesn't have daylight saving. Yes, we can see the oval from the motel room, and the day is looking good!! Clear blue skies, with hardly a cloud. And from the lack of movement in the trees outside our room, hardly a breath of wind. Excellent! Hope it stays that way for the game.

More soon…

Well, the footy was disappointing to say the least… but more on that later.

We met Suzanne and Bruce (her business partner), who'd travelled up from Hobart to see us and come to the game, and Clare (Suzanne's friend) and Richard for brunch at Aromas in Charles St, Launceston. The Deluxe Breakfast was just that – deluxe! Eggs, bacon, sausages, tomatoes, mushrooms, toast… Very yummy. Lots of chat and heaps of laughter – a very clever and witty group.

Clare had to fly to Mt Isa this afternoon so she had to give the footy a miss, which is why Bruce came along. What a lot of fun he is – highly intelligent, full of life, and very funny. No wonder he and Suzanne get along so well.

I'd received an SMS from Paul earlier to let me know the tickets were available from the Hotel Grand Chancellor where the Dockers were staying, so we stopped by there and picked them up – just as the team was boarding the bus. Couldn't see Paul – I think he was already on board, but briefly chatted to Rick Hart again, and at Reception we wished Jeff Farmer the best for his 200th game.

Where we were staying – Adina Place Motel Apartments – was walking distance from Aurora Stadium, so Bruce and Suzanne parked at the motel and we all walked down the hill. Glorious weather – sunny, blue skies, a little wind. A great day for the footy!

Found our way to our seats which were under cover – a necessity had it been windy and raining. I was SO looking forward to this first game of the season, but it was disappointing in so many ways.

While I love it when the Dockers win, I'm not fussed if they lose as long as they play with heart and passion and give it their all. Well, they didn't. The game was even at quarter time – even in score and performance – and low on both counts! There wasn't much difference by half time… in fact the game was boring to watch [did I really say that?]. In the third quarter, the Hawks took control and took advantage of the hesitant playing and inaccurate kicking by the Dockers, putting on a big lead. Hawthorn pretty much stopped playing when there was about 5 mins to go and they were 9 goals ahead. So Freo got a few quick goals from Paul at the very end but it was way too little, too late. Oh well, you win some, you lose some. But it would've been nice to have won the first one, if for no other reason than to boost the team's confidence.

After the match we adjourned to the Royal Oak Hotel up the road and had a nice 'pub grub' steak dinner each. Lots more talking and laughter, then we said goodbye to Suzanne and Bruce and headed to bed early as we have a 4:00am rise tomorrow morning for our flight to Melbourne.

It was SO nice catching up with Suzanne again – I miss her quirky, offbeat humour and her fantastic way of looking at life. And I'm so glad she brought Bruce along too – he's a lot of fun as well. They're a great pair.


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Categories : Aussie Rules Football

Changing states, changing times

3 04 2006

Three states, three time zones, plus a daylight saving changeover to add to the confusion!

Cab charges

The taxi was right on time this morning, but we were charged a $1 pre-booking fee which I thought was a bit rough. Surely pre-booking is a certainty compared to “come and get me now” pick-ups for the cab company. It means they can plan and schedule their drivers, so why do *we* have to pay extra for the privilege?

Aussie icon

Collected a few extra packs of Vegemite from the Qantas Club lounge before the first flight of the day. They’ll be handouts to the participants in the Aussie pub crawl night at the conference in California.

Flight 1

The flight to Melbourne was delayed as the plane was late getting in. It had the headwinds of the remnants of Cyclone Glenda to deal with coming across the country. The good bit was they we had a great tailwind! The flight was fairly full. It was an Airbus A330 with a seat configuration of 2x4x2, which is much better than 3x3x3 as you only ever have one person to climb over to go to the toilet even if you’re sitting on the window.

Movie

I watched the movie “Prime” (Meryl Streep, Uma Thurman). Innocuous little thing, that I’d give 2 stars to. Of course, airlines can’t show really meaty films as they have to cater for absolutely every spectrum of the population without offending anyone.

The illusion of security

What I still can’t deal with is the illusion of security on planes. Why illusion? Because they give us plastic knives for the meal, but full size stainless steel forks, real glass for the wine, real glass mini wine bottles, and real glass salad bowls. You tell me where the security is in plastic knives when any one of those other items could cause as much damage as a metal knife. We’re not talking steak knives here, just plain ordinary dinner and bread and butter knives. If someone really wanted to threaten or hurt someone else, there’s enough on the meal tray already already to do damage. It’s bloody ridiculous!

Qantas Club

After arriving in Melbourne we had a 2 hour wait for the flight to Launceston. As I’m a member of the Qantas Club, we hung out there grazing on the finger food and availing ourselves of a nice Penfold red (Thomas Hyland, I think). Briefly chatted with Rick Hart, Chairman of the Dockers who was on the same flight over from Melbourne but was catching an earlier flight to Launceston for the game tomorrow.

New state!

The flight to Launceston (Tasmania) was pretty empty – maybe 50 people on it. Launceston is oe of those old-fashioned Aussie airports with the rollaway stairs, the walk across the tarmac, and the collection of bags direct off the cart in the outside air. No luggage carousels or jetways here! It reminded me of how Karratha airport was in the 80s.

The air was brisk (we heard 8C) and for the first time ever, we both set foot on Tasmanian soil, the only Australian state neither of us has been to before.

We caught the Airport Shuttle ($10 per person) to the motel in town, but didn’t see much as we came the back way to drop off others at various accommodation venues, and it was night! Clearn night though – could see the stars clearly out of the shuttle bus window. It seems the footy oval is only about 15 mins walk from the motel, and in the day time we’ll be able to see it from our room on the 3rd floor.

So finally we’re in the last state to be visited by us! But only for about 30 hours – and two nights of that is sleep time – so I don’t think we’ll get more than a tiny taste of Launceston and Tassie.

Tomorrow is the reason we did this detour – we catch up with my friend from Hobart (Suzanne) and her friend, then it’s off to the first Dockers game of the AFL season – yay! Can’t wait – I hope the boys play a great game, and winning it would be good too…


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Categories : Australia, Travel

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