Good & Healthy Relationship Advice & Tips

Imagine a nice dinner experience with a wonderful partner. Food is good, ambience is cozy and service, great. At the end, you pay the smart and friendly waitress. She goes away and comes back to hand you the change.  You grab your money, pocketing it coolly.

You are happy, your partner is happy and even the server seems happy. Everyone says what a nice evening it has been. Cheerful ‘thank you’s’ are exchanged. But as you begin to walk away with your friend, you feel a hollow inside. Yes, everyone is smiling and saying ‘goodbye’ yet there is something you feel you should have done.

The Christmas holiday season is here and a big feature is going out with family or friends. However, as much as we would all be patronising one tourism service or another, we shall also be faced with that sticky matter, do we tip or do we not?

It is one issue that many do not know how to handle. Indeed, even when they decide to tip, many folks are at a lost as to how much dash to give for which service. This dilemma is worsened because in Ghana, there is no official position on tipping.

The affair assumes a different dimension, especially, around this time when several business premises have placed all forms of boxes and bottles marked ‘Christmas Box’. The expectation is that depending on their appreciation of the service or as they are touched by the spirit of the season, customers would drop in a few cedis if not more.

So what is a tip? In general parlance, a tip is an extra token that is earned as a reward for good service. The Webster English Dictionary defines it as ‘a gift or a sum of money tendered for a service performed or anticipated.

‘In the hospitality industry tipping has its place, and this is not a mere corner. My good friend and tour operator extraordinaire, Kwaku Passah Snr, has a nice way of putting it. He describes it as ‘To Insure Prompt Service.  Apt, won’t you say?

If you think that tipping is a commercial gimmick for modern times, you may have to think again. In the spirit of the season, let me refer to the Bible, specifically, ‘The Parable of The Good Samaritan’.

The passage in Luke Chapter 10 versus 35 reads ‘The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him, ‘’Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.’’’

This is obviously a patron who was willing to pay more for specific service. Let us note that our Good Samaritan didn’t even ask how much the care would cost. He handed an amount that apparently could do the job, an amount that the care-giver couldn’t resist.

Above all, because he wouldn’t want the lack of money to lead to a lack of care for the victim during his absence, he gave what was probably more than needed.

My personal take on this parable is to treat others - no matter who they are - as we wish to be treated. Beyond that, the Good Samaritan story also teaches us that if we have to give money to ensure that a job gets done, we should give the kind of money that ensures that the job gets very well done.

Tipping varies extensively among cultures. Though by definition a tip is never legally required, and its amount is at the discretion of the one being served, for travellers it can cause some serious dilemmas.