tipping the balance

In all my years in some sort of employment, I've never had to think much about my pay. I knew what my wage was and come a certain day of the week, I would get it.
Working as a server in Canada is a different story.
Most hospitality staff get minimum wage, which is less than $9 an hour, although it's going up in November. Some quick math: 38 hours x $9 = $342. Before tax. So how do thousands of hospitality staff survive in a city that isn't all that cheap to live in? Enter the North American custom of tipping.

In Australia, tipping is uncommon. If you get excellent service you might go out of your way to tip, but usually the only time we leave extra money is when we're too lazy to deal with the change: "Oh you can round that up to $20", one might say over a $18.75 bill. In both the US and Canada, tipping in bars and restaurants is expected. God help what your server will say about you if you don't. I know this because I know what I think about customers who don't tip. I like to give them the benefit of the doubt and think they either forgot or thought their friend was leaving one etc, which is most likely true, but it doesn't take away from the fact THEY DID NOT TIP!

When I arrived in New York I had to remind myself to tip and agonised over who and how much to tip. Common advice was 15%. 20% or more if it was good. So I would sit with my bill in a New York cafe and do the math, hoping that when I left, my server wouldn't make a mental note to spit in my drink if I ever came back. After all, minimum wage in parts of the US can be as low as $2 an hour. Or sometimes nothing.

Now that I rely on tips, I have a new perspective on the process. Tipping isn't just something you should do, or an amount or percentage pulled out of thin air. It's something that should be considered. Did you get good service? Did you get above average service? Did your server go out of his/her way to accommodate requests? Did you demand more of a server's time than the average customer. If so, consider that when leaving a tip. Most people I speak to say they leave 15%, but in practise I find the average to be more like 10%.

I went to a cafe the other day and ordered at the counter. The waitress gave me my drink there and brought my meal to my table. I never saw her again. She gave me about 30 seconds of her time. But that was fine, I didn't need any more. But I also factored that in when it came time to tip.

At a restaurant a few days later, the server greeted me when I joined my group, brought me a menu, took a drink order, brought my drink over, took my food order, updated me when the meal took a little longer than usual (without me asking about it), appeared regularly but not too frequently to see that everything at the table was OK and top us up with water. Because we were a large group, we paid a 17% automatic gratuity. She actually lost out with that because I would have left 20%. I kicked myself later for not doing so anyway.

As an employee, my wage depends on my performance. That applies to every customer I serve. So I can't slack off for a bit, because my wage suffers. It makes a change from getting paid for 8 hours work, even if I was late, enjoyed a prolonged morning tea and took a long lunch break - all in the one day. As a customer, I get better service because of tips. At home, my waitress might take her sweet time bringing out my drinks or checking on my meal because she's getting $18 an hour anyway. Here, my servers know that if they're not good at their job, they might not make rent this month. And that gets me my gin and tonic fast. Every time.

turning up the heat

"All you need is a yoga mat, a coffee mug and a rain jacket."

My yoga kit

This statement I heard recently sums up Vancouver perfectly. A quick search on Yelp found 48 yoga studios in Vancouver. Another search on vancouveryoga.com's class database found 146 classes offered in gyms, studios, community centres and more. Vancouver was also recently named the third worst-dressed city in the world because everyone wears yoga pants too often. Yoga is up there with riding a bike and recycling in the list of things one must do in Vancouver. Since my time in Vancouver is supposed to be about life experience and trying all the things I never had the opportunity or time to do in Tassie, yoga has been high on my list of things to do. The gym down the road opens on Saturday and that will have yoga all the time, but the other craze that interests me is Bikram Yoga. A new studio has opened up in a not-too-hard to reach location and offering a $49 for the month introductory deal. I'm going to take it, but first I decided to try an free intro class.

This isn't the studio I went to, just a random picture off
the web to give you the idea.

I've done bikram once before in Hobart. The class is 90-minutes, but it took 90 seconds to realise it wasn't going to come easily to me. For those that don't know, bikram is conducted in a room heated to 40C and involves 26 poses and a few breathing exercises. I'm not a fan of the heat, whether it involves sun or not, so this was always going to be a challenge. But learning to stick with things that fall in the too-hard basket is also part of my time here.

 

After my second class I can only compare me doing yoga to a white guy rapping - it just shouldn't be done. I adjusted to the heat a bit better than in my first class last year, but still got quite dizzy on a few poses and needed a quick sit-down. About 15 minutes I was wondering if it would be bad form to leave, but that urge subsided. I also wasn't looking for a clock to find out when it would be over, like last time. I left with a huge headache and feeling exhausted. But by the time I got home I had more energy than I have for ages. The memories of the hardest parts of class are still fresh and almost bad enough to keep me from going again. But I've set myself a challenge and I'm determined to see it through.

giving thanks for stretchy pants

The American influence on Australian popular culture means I know of a lot of things I don't know anything about, such as North American special occasions. Independence Day, Halloween, Superbowl etc. This week I got to experience one.

Before Monday, I knew Thanksgiving involved a turkey. And I thought Pumpkin Pie was just the cute name my friend Tracy gave her cat. (Because nobody would actually want to eat a pie with pumpkin in it, right?) I also thought the occasion was later in the year. As it turns out, the US celebrates Thanksgiving in November, and Canada in October. Despite the day marking the same thing.

I had been invited to celebrate the occasion with my cousin Vicky and her parents, but my work schedule didn't allow for that so I instead accepted Joe's invitation to dinner at his place. I thought Thanksgiving would be a quiet day at work, but it seems the holiday has gone the same way as most of the others on the calender - tradition is all but ignored. We were flat-out at work (and I didn't sell one turkey sandwich), but thanks to a quick history lesson from one of the chefs (combined with some trivia I learnt at burlesque the other week), by about lunchtime I was able to wish my customers a happy Thanksgiving, without muttering to one of my co-workers "I don't know what that means". Turns out there is more to Thanksgiving than turkey. There were pilgrims. And something to do with a harvest moon. Anyway, back to the food.

Instead of a turkey, Joe cooked a roast beef. We are Australians after all. But we did follow the usual traditions of pumpkin pie and eating waaaaay too much. If time had allowed I would have attempted baking my own pie, but it didn't so I didn't. Wholefoods supermarket provided well though.

I would have taken a 'before' pic of the serving with cream on top etc, but what
would have involved waiting before eating. Not gunna happen.

I had been assured by one of the girls are work that it was delicious but even as we served it up, I had my doubts. Pumpkin in a pie? Hmmm. Turns out there's about as much pumpkin in the pie as there is nutrition in a burger from McDonalds. It's mainly spices, a bit of pumpkin puree and other 'pie-like' ingredients (evaporated milk, loads of sugar etc). But it tastes OK...sort of.

Thanksgiving dinner ended with me lying down in Joe's kitchen for about half-an-hour before I felt able to go home. And giving thanks for wearing stretchy pants.

things that made me smile today

PARENTS KILLED BY NINJAS. NEED MONEY FOR KARATE LESSONS.
These were the words on a sign carried by I assume a homeless man on Granville St in Downtown Vancouver today. One has to admire his sense of humour when life doesn't seem to be going his way. It made me smile.

A former colleague from the paper, Kellíe O'Brien, has a blog (Three Li'l Princesses) and writes regularly of the things for which she is grateful. In similar fashion, I will share things that made me smile today.

On the window of the #8 bus heading downtown

It was an unremarkable Wednesday. In typical Vancouver fashion, it was raining. Rather than cosy up in bed all day, I limited that behaviour to just the morning and around lunchtime ventured Downtown to explore Gastown, an historical and hip area of Vancouver. I took my seat on the bus and looked out the window, only to be staring at this piece of graffiti. It might be harsh to label such a friendly message as such, but it is what it is. Either way, it made me smile as intended.

Walking through Gastown, a sushi place called Momo looked popular and cheap so I took a table. There wasn't much conventional about this particular sushi place. It was more retro than ramen. But the Spongebob Squarepants placemats made me chuckle.

After lunch I explored Gastown, which borders on a not-so-desirable part of town. As such several homeless people beg outside Gastown's up-scale stores. I wasn't carrying cash, which meant I wasn't lying when I told the beggers I didn't have any change. One begger told me that was OK as money wasn't everything. He told me what an incredible job his mother did because it isn't easy to raise someone to the age of 57 and left me with the challenge of thinking about what the most important thing in life. He also made me promise to keep smiling. So I did.

A poster on the side of a bus said something about Elton John. Another poster outside an arts theatre filled in the blanks. Love Lies Bleeding is a performance by the Alberta Ballet inspired by and featuring the songs of Elton John and Bernie Taupin. A ballet to Elton John songs? Yes thanks. Smile.

My day got rather mundane from here, but still plenty of reasons to smile.

• Finding the brand of rice cakes the girls at work have been raving about. I've been searching every supermarket I can find for the last three weeks without success until today.
• Using the rewards card I signed up for at Save on Foods supermarket so my French couchsurfers could get a discount when we were there a couple of weeks ago to save 50% on the frozen fish I have for dinner most nights.
• Hearing that my Mum is given a stuffed toy to squeeze at the dentist so she doesn't attack anyone.
• Realising that will be me in 30 years.

The night is still young so no doubt there will be more reasons to smile. The most recent one came through a Facebook conversation with my friend Joe. Joe had a gruelling 17-hour drive to San Fransisco the other weekend. I told him there were only so many times one could sing The Wheels on the Bus before you even yourself.
His answer?
"That number is 576".

I will not be going on a roadtrip with Joe.

when did sweet get so sour?

The fudge brownies look good don't they? Could you resist them if you saw them everyday, and as part of your job were allowed to eat a treat a day? These aren't even the ones I have to look at. The brownies at SGTC are delectable. The ones in the picture barely have any resemblance and I still want to eat one.

The temptation that comes with working in a cafe that sells some of the most delicious food I've ever come across (and I say this after spending a month in France and its patisseries) is immense. At first I indulged in the name of research. I should know what I'm selling right? Then it became hard to resist them because I found out how good they were. But a few weeks in and I noticed my heart was racing sometimes after I had a dessert...or anything with sugar. My skin wasn't looking great. And I was a little pudgy around the edges. It was time to make a call. Less sugar. I was going to be no-more sugar, but I need to keep things realistic.

So a few days ago I started cutting back. Some people prefer a gradual approach but I find that never works because there's too much room for negotiation with ones self. So instead I went in tough. No sugar in my tea, not even a bit of honey in my herbal teas. No more treats at work. No salad dressing. No juice. I even started to watch a documentary about how bad sugar is for the body for motivation.

I'm about five days in. It seems too early notice any radical changes. Today was particularly bad for cravings so a nice fresh piece of corn had to do for some sweetness. I'm not out to achieve anything in particular except to make me more aware of how much sugar I consume. It really is in everything. I considered putting a bit of BBQ sauce with dinner. Nope. 16g per two teaspoons. Even my milk, because it's low fat, is loaded with sugar. I haven't come up with an alternative to that yet and not sure I will.

So far my mission is doing its job. I no longer scoff any of the dessert cut-offs the kitchen staff leave out for the servers. I'm not relying on sweet pick-me-ups to get me through the day either. I shall report back.