Why how nice! Both my Washington Post distributor (a Mr. Iqbal) and my Wall Street Journal distributor (a Mr. Mejia) included holiday cards with the newspapers they delivered to my door this past weekend.
Oh, but wait, what's this? They also included envelopes addressed to themselves. And just in case we didn't quite understand, Mr. Mejia's card says "thanks for your tips," right below "May your Christmas be filled with laughter and fun!" (Hmm, nothing about our Chanuka.)
Now, it's true that if we had a freckle-faced old-fashioned paper-boy who we saw pedalling his bike past our house on an occasional afternoon, and who happened by to collect our subscription fee every now and again, we'd probably give him a little holiday tip.
But, we've never seen or met either Mr. Iqbal or Mr. Mejia. We know that both are businessmen, independent distributors who, presumably, do this for a living. We're no more inclined to give them a "tip", or a cash holiday payment, than we are to give one to all those reporters, editors, photographers, copysetters and everyone else who makes sure the Post and WSJ gets to our house each day.
And, frankly, we resent the way our newspaper distributors so brazenly stick their hands out expecting a "tip". Do these guys report those to the IRS? We doubt it. They're not tipped employees in the traditional sense, and they're not service workers with whom we have personal interaction.
We're sure they're perfectly nice folks, just doing their jobs. So, to Mr. Iqbal and Mr. Mejia: Happy Holidays!
(Remember, we are the Curmudgeon.)
1 comment:
I'm with you on the excessive use of Holiday tips/gifts (I equate them with the Japanese expression "Obligation Gift"). As you note, when papers were delivered by freckled kids wanting movie money, then tips seem more appropriate, especially if the kid had met certain requests like "put the paper on the porch". Now, the paper is delivered at Mach 2 from a moving vehicle and I spend more time fishing my Post out of the bushes then reading it these days. No personal service=no tip.
Same deal with any number of services for which tips or gifts used to be appropriate but now seem greedy: garbagemen, mailmen, etc. It used to be that city and federal employees did a certain route day after day and you get to know him/her and vice-versa. As services get out-sourced or routes get randomly rotated, there is no personal connection and no real interest in going above and beyond.
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