No Times de hoje #18

Aos domingos o New York Times vem acompanhado da revista New York Times Style Magazine que geralmente traz uma secção de artigos mais light. Hoje, o artigo que me chamou a atenção, fala de um assunto que a mim sempre me fez confusão: a obrigação das gorjetas. Neste lado do Atlântico, toda a gente dá gorjeta (por defeito) nos restaurantes, bares, taxis... a menos que algo tenha estado mesmo mal com o serviço prestado... e atenção, não é apenas uma gorjeta para acertar a conta, trata-se de 15-20% do total da despesa. Eu sempre achei que isto era um atentado à liberdade individual de querer ou não dar gorjeta. Do outro lado do Atlântico dá gorjeta quem quer, mesmo que nada de errado aconteça com o serviço: o cliente é livre de deixar ou não. Este artigo de hoje faz-me olhar o problema de outra perspectiva... e talvez me faça mudar de opinião. Vale a pena ler!
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The Tipping Point

By KEN GROSS
Published: December 3, 2006
I do not double the tax or bother with the strict 18-percent solution, or even calculate the exact value of this or that test of service; I do not twist my brain, seeking some perfect balance between cost and expectation, or weigh the consequences of missing the mark. No, mine is an easier solution to settling accounts: I simply overtip.

This uncomplicated policy has eased my way through life, although it is usually well beyond my means. Nevertheless, I have come to believe that there is a steep price one pays to stay at ease in the world, and that cost is not listed on any menu or tallied to a certainty on any bill.

As a result of this guiding principle, I always have a choice table at my favorite restaurant. I have the services of the superintendent of my building without suffering long, grinding domestic standstills. I have hot, fresh bagels from the bagel store when everyone else is eating cold cement. I get my laundry and dry-cleaning and food delivered with speed and good cheer. I have the good opinion of my mail person, the respect of my handyman, the regard of my house painter, the esteem of my doorman — and, through a kind of unforced, albeit communicable deference, the admiration of my neighbors.

It is not bribery, in any legal or moral sense, nor am I driven by some philosophical strain of ambient guilt; this is straightforward recognition on my part that there is an inherent economic injustice in the world, and I do my part to set things straight.

Naturally, you can’t go through life with a radical tipping policy and not expect to hit a few bumps in the road.

Not too long ago my wife and I were thrown out of a fancy French restaurant right here in Manhattan. We were seated on a banquette, and I had rashly complained to the waiter that our neighbor’s hair was dangling in my wife’s soup. A fuss ensued, he tore up our check, pointed to 55th Street and said, quivering with Gallic indignation, “She is a regular!”

That guy got no tip.

But don’t get me wrong, I’m not a sucker or one of those gaudy gangsters who hand out $100 bills like Communion wafers. No, I have a healthy workingman’s appreciation for the price of labor — something I learned as a boy in the Bronx. My mother was a single parent, and all four of her sons had to kick in to survive.

I went to work at 13 and brought home $10 a week, which, in those days, was a salary.

I was a helper at Leo & Chubby’s, a produce market on 180th Street, and after school and on the weekends I loaded and delivered weighty bags of food to customers within a 10-block radius. In addition to a $5-a-week wage, I got tips. Leo and Chubby were Korean War veterans who were fundamentally decent men. They passed along the creed of running an honorable business. Always be polite to customers, do not cheat on weight, and, above all, be fair. However, nothing is ever quite so simple. There is a side to every business that requires some ethical... equivocation. For example, every time Leo and Chubby got a shipment of fruit or vegetables, some portion was inevitably rotten. The bad stuff was immediately thrown out. It was a built-in loss. But there was also some portion that was dubious — not bad, as such, but not great. It could be eaten, but not memorably. That part could not be thrown out. That was the difference between profit and loss. Leo and Chubby had a wise and fair solution: they divided the less-than-perfect fruits and vegetables among all the customers. No one would get too much. And as the loader of the deliveries, I did my part. Everyone got one mushy peach or a cottony tomato.

Of course, I was little more than a child and I still remember that blistering August of my 13th year. Some deliveries more than others. I recall one day climbing tenement stairs, trying to balance three heavy bags as the sweat fell like tears down from my eyes. As I climbed from one floor to the next, I could read the full text of the dinner menus in the air. There was the sweet scent of cabbage on two, a potent whiff of sauerkraut on three, the thick perfume of garlic chicken on four. And there on five was a woman waiting with her arms folded, her lips pressed — annoyed that I had kept her pots waiting.

She ushered me through the living room and hallway and into the kitchen and watched as I carefully deposited her order on the table. Then, only when she had examined the bags and made certain that I had not stolen anything, she squeezed a coin out of her change purse as if she were giving birth. A nickel.

There were all kinds of tippers on my route. Dime tippers. Even quarter tippers. But there was also one lady who gave me half a dollar. I don’t believe she did it to show off, or to get better fruit, which from then on she did. I like to think it was a simple recognition of the effort it took to get the food to her table. She set a standard for generosity that I have tried to meet ever since. That lousy half-dollar tip has cost me a fortune.