Tipping, Ice Fields, Downpours and Dogs on Airplanes....by Stephanie McCarthy
We felt awkward, uncomfortable and annoyed at the pressure upon us to tip. Australians think this way – if you’ve received exceptional service from someone in the hospitality industry, you will tip that person because you really want to, and the recipient won’t necessarily be expecting it, because they earn a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.
Steph on the Columbian Ice Fields
Result? Good feeling.
BUT, everywhere in Canada we bought food or drink, even in a line up canteen
with a checkout at the end (i.e. no service at all) the pressure was in the bill
to tip.
Result? Bad feeling. I believe that in Canada the hospitality
staff are paid pretty well, unlike America where (quite wrongly) the waiters
are forced to depend on their tips. This doesn’t mean it is right. It means the
Canadian system has slavishly and conveniently followed American custom, and
the American system is totally broken, and the employers in the hospitality
industry not paying fair wages are making bucketloads of money.
One Canadian
told me that her waitress daughter had been fired from one restaurant because
she had dared to question where the tipping $$ had ended up. And so whenever we
did feel like tipping, which happened quite often due to the friendliness of
most Canadian waiters, we always tried to hand the cash over personally. The
‘friendliness’ I mention was sometimes way over the top, almost a practiced
performance in some cases, but when we felt we were being served by a genuinely
helpful person, it was a pleasure to tip.
We
loved walking the gorges and were overawed by the sheer mass of water rushing
through a narrow chasm. We loved walking on the Columbian Ice-fields but didn’t
love what we heard about the rate the glacier was receding every year. Hard not
to be angry at the climate change deniers, one of whom is our PM, Turncoat
Turnbull who seems to be happy to forget all his former ideals about the
environment, and is giving in to the Nationals, who have some similarities with
the US Republicans.
Steph, her son and new daughter in law, the one who informed her about tipping customs in the North Country.
We
drove down to Cochrane, Alberta in the
biggest rain and lightning storm we’ve ever experienced. Looking up through the
glass roof made me feel as if I were underwater. My Daughter in Law, a farm
girl who had regularly driven mammoth machinery in all kinds of weathers, was
scornful of all those drivers who had stopped on the verge, and so we pushed on
through the sleet until we reached quieter climes on the other side of the
Rockies.
Cochrane
is not a tourist town, and we really enjoyed our full day there – many classy
and unusual shops, and with a serene ambience. My son, a master musician and
maker of marimbas and vibraphones, fell in love with a mandolin finished only
hours before by a man in a tea shop, the instrument fashioned from an authentic
Nicaraguan cigar box. So while I was looking over an array of tea pots, Jim was
testing the instrument and listening earnestly to its maker. This may give an
idea of the surprises in store at Cochrane.
Maurice
and I said our goodbyes to the kids who drove back to Saskatoon while we flew
from Calgary, city of stampeding cowboys, to Kitchener. At the Calgary airport we discovered a lady with strange
contents in her carry-on luggage – a small shaggy dog in a bespoke ‘tent’ small
enough to fit under the seat in front of her. Dogs with their owners on planes,
in this particular case Westjet!
We had never heard of such a practice before.
We asked ourselves ‘What if the dog went crazy and began yapping? What if the
owner took pity on her pet and took him out for a cuddle and he escaped down
the aisle? What if he needed to pee or worse?’ This is all still a mystery to
us, so if anyone would like to explain it? However, I was very pleased for the
dogs themselves, because it must be very frightening for animals in the baggage
department.
Next week, Steph and Maurice arrive in Ontario!
No comments:
Post a Comment