Question Tipping

[seaj]

Time is more valuable than money. If I do a good work I expect to be given more free time, not more money.
Money is very important for covering monthly expenses. But having reached that goal, getting more money has little value for me. I prefer to get more free time...

I'm surprised by this post. How exactly can you give these crews "time?" Well, I would suggest that since they're working for money for "covering their monthly expenses," the better you tip the faster (a time related factor) they achieve that goal. Once that goal is achieved, their free to do what they'd like with their time.

Tips are an incentive for workers to do their very best to create an enjoyable experience for the customer. That's something I've heard can be lacking in non tipping cultures.

Time may be more valuable than money, but the two are strongly interrelated in most economies.

 

[Angelo Farina]

I'm surprised by this post. How exactly can you give these crews "time?" Well, I would suggest that since they're working for money for "covering their monthly expenses," the better you tip the faster (a time related factor) they achieve that goal. Once that goal is achieved, their free to do what they'd like with their time.

Tips are an incentive for workers to do their very best to create an enjoyable experience for the customer. That's something I've heard can be lacking in non tipping cultures.

Time may be more valuable than money, but the two are strongly interrelated in most economies.

Simple. Pay them a fixed monthly wage, which surpasses reasonably their monthly need. And which removes any anxiety on their future, and that terrible tension to be appreciated by customers, which as a customer I find pretty annoying.
Normal workers get one free day per week. Good workers get two.
You can give an entire free week when someone does something exceptional.
This is how I manage my research staff here at the university. And my research assistants are very happy of this approach.
This comes out almost automatically, because our work is task-based.
I assign a task to a research assistant which normally takes three days. If he/she is a good hard worker, the task will be accomplished in just two days, so the third day is free and the guy can use it as he likes.
So I am not talking about theory, this is how I managed my staff in the past 20 years.
Anf if some of my assistants accepts a tip from our customers, I will fire immediatety my assistant, as in our culture this is very unethical, and researchers at the University are not expected to receive tips.
I understand that for a waiter in a trstaurant tge situation is a bit different.
But not as a divemaster working in a diving center. I worked as a DM in touristic resorts for five years, in Italy and at Maldives, and also there accepting a tip was unthinkable.
What was allowed was getting a free beer at the bar, at evening.

 

[seaj]

Simple. Pay them a fixed monthly wage, which surpasses reasonably their monthly need. And which removes any anxiety on their future, and that terrible tension to be appreciated by consumers, which as a consumer I find pretty annoying.
Normal workers get one free day per week. Good workers get two.
You can give an entire free week when someone does something exceptional.
This is how I manage my research staff here at the university. And my research assistants are very happy of this approach.
This comes out almost automatically, because our work is task-based.
I assign a task to a research assistant which normally takes three days. If he/she is a good hard worker, the task will be accomplished in just two days, so the third day is free and the guy can use it as he likes.
So I am not talking about theory, this is how I managed my staff in the past 20 years.

Wow, I can't begin to see how you're drawing parallels between a research staff and a boat & dive crew. How do they do their work faster? Cut time off our dive? Rinse BC's and regs faster? I'd prefer they give proper time to maintaining that life supporting equipment and I'm happy to tip them for not rushing the experiences I find so enjoyable.

And where does this "fixed monthly wage" come from? Should operators increase the cost per dive to $100 or $200 per cylinder? Or should there be tax on divers, or tourists in general, managed by the government?

Either way, the money comes out of your pocket. Doesn't it?

This is tourism. People work hard to create a good experience. Show your gratitude with kind words, repeat business and a lousy $20 (if not more) at the end of the dive.

 

[Angelo Farina]

Wow, I can't begin to see how you're drawing parallels between a research staff and a boat & dive crew. How do they do their work faster? Cut time off our dive? Rinse BC's and regs faster? I'd prefer they give proper time to maintaining that life supporting equipment and I'm happy to tip them for not rushing the experiences I find so enjoyable.

And where does this "fixed monthly wage" come from? Should operators increase the cost per dive to $100 or $200 per cylinder? Or should there be tax on dicers, or tourists in general, managed by the government?

Either way, the money comes out of your pocket. Doesn't it?

This is tourism. People work hard to create a good experience. Show your gratitude with kind words, repeat business and a lousy $20 (if not more) at the end of the dive.

I perfectly understand how the tipping culture works. Simply I do not like it...
The monthly wage should come from the tour operator.
When I was working as a DM I was an employee of a tour operator called Club Vacanze.
Customers did purchase holiday packages advertised as "all included": air travel, transfer to the resort, lodging, meals, wine and water, snimation, all kind of sports, included scuba diving (max 2 dives per day).
It was a great commercial success.
As customers did not pay for each dive, there was no pressure to have them "diving more". The pressure was to keep them happy. And the first step for having happy customers is to have an happy staff.
So we had a great working environment, well paid and with rewards for good employees.
Customers had to fill up an evaluation questionnaire at end of their vacation, and good members of staff, reveiving appreciation, were rewarded by the tour operator.
Rewards were in some case a day free of work ("you are a customer today"), in some others diving equipment (the tour operator had an agreement with Cressi, so we had a lot of give-away material for customers, which was often given also to the staff as a reward for good service).
Customers had that nice experience of travelling without money in their pockets, as in these resorts everything was already included. No surprises, no extra cost...
There was even a free medical consultancy, with a resident hyperbaric doctor as a member of the staff. At Maldives we had in our island a two-compartment hyperbaric chamber, and the staff did include the hyperbaric doctor, two hyperbaric technicians, one marine biologist and one astrophysic. The latter was managing a 400mm telescope, used for watching stars and planets.
After working 5 years in such a professional and well managed workplace, I do not really understand how other crap tour operators can stay in business, providing lower service, with unpaid DMs who rely on tips for surviving.
Our diving industry should be reformed, aligning to the best tour operators.

 

[Aura]

Tips are an incentive for workers to do their very best to create an enjoyable experience for the customer. That's something I've heard can be lacking in non tipping cultures.

I don't think I agree with this. People in all professions are expected to do their best, tips or not. Several people have mentioned in this thread that workers expecting tips will perform LESS than their best if they're unsatisfied with the amount they receive. So in reality it sounds like it has the opposite effect.

 

[BoundForElsewhere]

In a country where the social welfare system subsidizes corporate profit, we have a long way to go before we can ever achieve equity in worth and value.

In the meantime, I will continue to tip when I travel to places I know rely on it. Otherwise, I will just bring beef jerky and chocolate as gifts.

As a muslim, our faith provides us the opportunity to be bigger than ourselves on a daily basis through Sadaqah (Sadaqah - Wikipedia). I was explaining this to our 7-year old daughter last night. Perhaps this is a greater aspiration than tipping.

 

[NovaCane]

“I don’t like tipping, therefore the entire country’s economic & labor policies should be altered conform to my preferences. Meanwhile I’ll keep behaving as if they have done so.” - only an academic

 

[Green Frog]

From a purely personal level, I need to know what %age is customary these days in Nassau, and do you tip the captain to distribute to crew, the divemaster, or??? I’m scheduling several days with Stuart Coves, and assume tipping is daily at the end of a dive, not cumulatively, since you pass from boat to boat, right?

 

[SATurner]

[SNIP] in Nassau, [SNIP] with Stuart Coves, [SNIP]

It has been pointed out to me earlier in the thread

This is a Cozumel forum. What they charge in other places is irrelevant to what to tip in Cozumel. [SNIP]

May ReefHound have mercy on your soul...

I made the mistake of responding to a thread title without checking the sub form it was in too. Mea culpa...

 

[ReefHound]

Simple. Pay them a fixed monthly wage, which surpasses reasonably their monthly need. And which removes any anxiety on their future, and that terrible tension to be appreciated by customers, which as a customer I find pretty annoying.
Normal workers get one free day per week. Good workers get two.
You can give an entire free week when someone does something exceptional.

The really bad workers might get all 7 days free.

In my observations, most workers want more hours not less (provided they are paid for them). Especially at the lower end non-professional occupations. And why would an employer want their best workers working less and their worst workers working more? Paying a guaranteed wage sounds great except the money has to come from somewhere and at the end of the day the employer is paying money for labor. If they aren't getting adequate labor for their money they won't succeed. Now we're getting into the "living wage" argument and who is responsible for ensuring that.