Eldon-Online

Tipping Points

Oh dear! Hong Kong’s taxi drivers are in the hot seat given the front page article in today's (Saturday 27 March) English language newspaper (SCMP). Would you believe that due to their wicked ways, the drivers are each pocketing on average an additional HK$171 a month (roughly US$22) or on a 24 day working month HK$7 a day, less than one US dollar. How? - by keeping the 50¢ in change (less than 3% of the flag fall price) by rounding up fares, in a city where it is not the general practice to even tip a cab driver. 

Can you imagine the reaction of a New York or London cabbie if they were not tipped? But here, no tips for a job that is a tough one; long hours, and dangerous in some cases recently in Hong Kong. A city, incidentally where there is still a debate going on about the necessity of introducing a minimum wage – reluctantly suggested by the city’s biggest Chamber of Commerce as being set at HK$25 an hour. I digress.

All of which left me scratching my head at the apparent lack of news, if this dastardly crime is the best the paper can engineer as its headline. It also led me to consider, once again, the thorny issue of tipping anyway - how confusing it is for the unwary and how people handle it.

I have just been on holiday. Hard to believe, I know, but even us “retired” folk need a break now and again!! We went for a cruise up the west coast of Latin America - fantastic. The cruise ship we took was a small one - reputable, but where the price you pay covers absolutely everything including, specifically, tips. This means that the staff have no expectations but it does not stop you - for service above and beyond your usual expectations - from recognising individual excellence. But it also makes you realise how diverse are the practices in various countries. From the bill presented with no extras, through that presented with the addition of a "service charge" and nothing else required, to the expectation of a substantial tip on top of an already high service charge  - depending on the country.

From practices in Japan where tipping is not expected, through Australia where I have found the small change is often the only expectation, to the full blown 15-20% add-on expected in New York.

For me, tipping should be a reward for service rendered. It should not be designed to keep wages artificially low, where tips are expected to make up the weekly pay packet to a living wage. Tipping should be selective, although I can understand that it is difficult to specifically reward a chef who has had a particularly excellent night in his kitchen. It should not in most cases be a "general" pool shared by all - irrespective of performance – where even the un-enthusiastic service provider receives a “cut”. I am also very cautious about adding the tip to the bill - because I know from conversations I have had on the subject that this does not always find its way to the intended recipient. I am much happier paying the bill, as presented, and tipping separately. At least I have some chance of ensuring it goes where I would like it to go, and indeed I often ask the question as to who gets it, before I hand it over.

 

But, at the end of the day, whatever my preferences, I usually succumb and fall in with local convention, although not always! I recall an incident in a Hong Kong restaurant some years ago where I paid a bill in cash for a meal that had been average and served by surly waiters.  I waited for my change and eventually had to ask my waiter to bring it to me – to which he responded by saying he thought it was his tip. (At about 21% of the bill, his thinking was way out of line). I said the tipping decision was mine, and I would make it when I had received my change. You might guess the outcome.

 

Of course, there are plenty of web sites you can go to in advance of a trip to find out what the tipping practices are in the countries you are visiting, but sometimes you do not have the time to do so, leaving you uninformed and possibly embarrassed. If only there was a generally accepted global “norm”. This would involve all staff in all enterprises being paid fairly, and not being made to rely on hand outs. It would enable service receivers to consider whether extra payments were warranted, rather than the service provider hovering around waiting expectantly for something perhaps they did not deserve.

 

It would certainly take some of the pain and uncertainty out of knowing what to do in each country you visit but, sadly, we have gone past creating such a universal standard. The best I could think of was the creation of the definitive guide to tipping. You could even have called it “Tipping Points” – until the remarkable and very readable Mr Gladwell wrote a best seller with a too similar title - and it has nothing to do with gratuities!!

Chile - The Aftermath

Arriving anywhere after a 43 hour journey is a daunting enough experience. But instead of a nice air-conditioned air bridge, you are faced with an airport building that has been rendered unusable. You walk down the steps of the plane to retrieve your luggage that has been placed on the apron - no nicely revolving carousel where someone else has already done a lot of the hard work. And with luggage in tow, which is being dragged, pushed, carried or if lucky balanced on an airport trolley, entry into tents where hot and potentially irritable Immigration officers are using laptops to process passengers, and Customs too are operating from the same tent. Cue for a severe sense of humour failure from someone, anyone!

Not a bit of it!

The passengers understood, and co-operated. The immigration and the customs officials, clearly working way out of their comfort zone - both physically and mentally I would say (we have just had another after shock as I write this), were professional, calm and industrious. No wonder that Chile has earned its reputation for being the foremost Latin American country (with all due apologies to friends from other neighbouring countries).

Yes, there has been the unseemly sight of looting particularly in the hardest hit areas - this is not an unusual phenomenon, distasteful though it might be to those of us who have lost nothing, but a means of pure survival for many who have lost everything. Sadly some of the "loot" was nothing to do with survival - more for personal gain. But what I have found amazing is the fact that following condemnation of this practice from the President downwards, some USD2m worth of non-food, non-essential items have been returned. 

Speaking to many people in the country of this catastrophe, they are remarkably positive. Chile is after all, they say, a country known to suffer from earthquakes - many of then annually - but thankfully not so many on the scale of the massive earthquake that arrived on 27 February. An earthquake that was 500 times bigger in magnitude to the Sichuan earthquake in 2008. They will survive it and move on, as they have done before. And while the theme of my last blog about charity is fresh, an event was held in Chile over this weekend where a charity show was held to raise money for the victims of the earthquake. The target, 15bn Pesos or around USD30m. The result? Almost double! Money from everyone, everywhere - anybody who had anything to give.

The aftershocks may still be coming, but the country is holding up well - and all power to it's success!

The Art of Giving

Charity seems to have been in the news recently, particularly following on from the disasters in Haiti and Chile, to the difficulties being faced by Oxfam in China, and thence to the front page news of HSBC banker Michael Geoghegan's own intentions towards charity out of his bonus proceeds.

Given the materiality that exists in this world of ours, and the selfishness of some people, I am often moved and overawed at the generosity of people towards others no matter how much or how little they have to give. But I am also surprised these days by the fund-raisers. Not the professionals, whose job it is to put their hands in the pockets of the rich and the corporations, with a view to extracting dollars for this or that good cause often accompanied by some form of publicity, but by ordinary people who care more about the giving than the razzmatazz.

Two months or so ago, in lieu of birthday presents, a close and good friend of ours asked for donations to be made to an, at the time largely, unheralded charity in England, Shelter Box. (I then stole the idea from them, with full acknowledgment, on the occasion of my Mother's 90th birthday when I asked well wishers to donate to her favourite charity). And in the last two months I have been receiving a stream of requests from various friends who have been undertaking arduous tasks in return for raising money for their own favourite charities. 

But if I have had a concern with charities, without taking anything away from the causes they help, it has been in the cost of administration of some of them. In particular, with those that spend huge sums of money on an infrastructure which, if they managed the charity better would mean the beneficiaries benefit. In Hong Kong, for example, the Community Chest does well because not only is it well run, properly administered and accountable, but its costs are fully funded - meaning that every dollar raised by The Chest, goes to charity. So donors would always be well advised to look at what is behind the numbers.

Equally important is the commitment of the people involved. I remember many years ago, I was working in North Yemen, and was watching the behaviour of two charities. One, a household name which will remain nameless in this blog, received a consignment of goods for a leper colony some distance from the port of Hodeidah, where I was located. The goods were handed by the people administering the charity (Europeans) to two taxi drivers with instructions to deliver them to the colony. Despite the return receipts received via the taxi drivers, who knows if the goods - or at least all of them, ever arrived? The other charity, Catholic Relief Services, administered by a non-Catholic European, working in Yemen on his own, received at the same time a similar consignment for the same destination. The gentleman concerned hired a truck driver and went off in the truck to the colony himself, where he stayed for two full days and not only saw the goods delivered, but also ensured they were fairly distributed. 

So, charities come in all shapes and sizes, sometimes making it difficult to choose. Of course, we are all aware of the popular charities, but how do you get to hear about those equally deserving insitutions that are not so well known. And this seems to be where the "amateurs" are playing their part. Drawing attention to an organisation that struggles for every dollar, but which is every bit as worthwhile as the big well-funded charities.

Hong Kong people have a reputation for their generosity, so not many people worry if a lot of the charity events they attend are glitzy, black tie and expensive affairs (albeit sometimes underwritten, so the charity benefits). Large sums are still raised, although how much more could be done if the event was low key would be open to question - but then the counter balance is that maybe the big donors wouldn't come out to play!

The best idea I have ever heard was from John Chan, the current Chairman of the Hong Kong Jockey Club (a great charitable organisation) who suggested a virtual charity ball. Pay for your table, bid for items online - "and spend the evening at home, relaxing". No dressing up. No noisy bands. Perfect.

However, last week I was present at one of those events that would run John's idea close.

It was for the charity Room to Read, mentioned before in these blogs as our son Andrew has been a supporter for a few years since he started running silly distances across deserts in an attempt to raise awareness. I am not going into details here, please read their website, but here is a charity started basically by one person with a passion and a vision that has now at last caught the attention of the public. The event to which I refer was a charity dinner in Hong Kong. No Black Ties, No glitz, no big name bands and dancing, no real pressure to donate. Sure there was the inevitable raffle, there were auctions, but in this low key and tastefully done environment, John Wood - the founder - raised over USD2m during the evening, all in the interests of education. A phenomenal sum in a short space of time. Given by people who didn't need their names read out. Who didn't want the publicity they could have achieved, but who donated because they knew in their hearts it was the right thing to do.

And therein, surely, lies the Art of Giving.