I recently came across an article on Indians being lousy tippers, which reminded me of something that happened last year when my friends and I went on a backpacking trip to Europe.
Last year, my friends and I went on a backpacking trip to the Europe and during the last leg of our trip in Italy, while we were trying to board the metro in Paris, , my friend who lives in Germany noticed something fluttering on the platform, he noticed a 50 Euro note lying in our path, I ran and grabbed the note before it flew away, my friends joined me and we all had a Eureka moment.
We an early morning flight to catch and so we didn't have time to discuss what we had to do with the 50 Euros, we retired and early and the next morning caught our flight from Paris to Rome.
We checked into our Air-BNB's that afternoon, hunger forced us to venture out.
We walked around the streets of Roma, looking for half-decent cheap hotels that would fit in our bootstrapped budget. While we walked, we all debated on what we should be doing with this 50 Euro note, we termed it "God Money".
We arrived at an Italian place in Roma, Italy, we were still debating what to do with this "God Money", when the waiter an old man in his late sixties came over and charmed us by ranting out the Menu in classic Italian, we couldn't understand a word, but we were thoroughly impressed.
The debate on what to do with the God Money was put on hold to satiate our hunger. My Vegetarian friend ordered a Pizza which had a bizarre name, assuming it to be Vegetarian. Just when it arrived, he looked at it, Unquote, " Maga, this thing doesn't look Vegetarian and smells funny. It turned out to be true and that Pizza was made of Fish, he then ordered another that was Vegetarian.
While we had our Pizza, the debate on what to do with the God Money continued, we were pondering over whether we should buy something for ourselves or just add this to our pool and spend it, that's when a brilliant idea came-up. We all knew we had tipped badly (Literally hadn't tipped) previously in all restaurants we had visited, that's when it hit us, the next place wherever we went, we would be very generous in our tip. We had taken the responsibility of changing the image of us Indians in Europe and we took our jobs seriously.
At the very place which witnessed our world-changing debate, we let the old man who served us and served us well have a very big tip, before leaving he gave us all a salute and a warm smile and for a moment, we felt newly crowned-kings and left the place with an air of superiority.
We continued to tip generously till the 50 Euros became zero, after that we became the lousy tippers we originally were.
Last year, my friends and I went on a backpacking trip to the Europe and during the last leg of our trip in Italy, while we were trying to board the metro in Paris, , my friend who lives in Germany noticed something fluttering on the platform, he noticed a 50 Euro note lying in our path, I ran and grabbed the note before it flew away, my friends joined me and we all had a Eureka moment.
We an early morning flight to catch and so we didn't have time to discuss what we had to do with the 50 Euros, we retired and early and the next morning caught our flight from Paris to Rome.
We checked into our Air-BNB's that afternoon, hunger forced us to venture out.
We walked around the streets of Roma, looking for half-decent cheap hotels that would fit in our bootstrapped budget. While we walked, we all debated on what we should be doing with this 50 Euro note, we termed it "God Money".
We arrived at an Italian place in Roma, Italy, we were still debating what to do with this "God Money", when the waiter an old man in his late sixties came over and charmed us by ranting out the Menu in classic Italian, we couldn't understand a word, but we were thoroughly impressed.
The debate on what to do with the God Money was put on hold to satiate our hunger. My Vegetarian friend ordered a Pizza which had a bizarre name, assuming it to be Vegetarian. Just when it arrived, he looked at it, Unquote, " Maga, this thing doesn't look Vegetarian and smells funny. It turned out to be true and that Pizza was made of Fish, he then ordered another that was Vegetarian.
While we had our Pizza, the debate on what to do with the God Money continued, we were pondering over whether we should buy something for ourselves or just add this to our pool and spend it, that's when a brilliant idea came-up. We all knew we had tipped badly (Literally hadn't tipped) previously in all restaurants we had visited, that's when it hit us, the next place wherever we went, we would be very generous in our tip. We had taken the responsibility of changing the image of us Indians in Europe and we took our jobs seriously.
At the very place which witnessed our world-changing debate, we let the old man who served us and served us well have a very big tip, before leaving he gave us all a salute and a warm smile and for a moment, we felt newly crowned-kings and left the place with an air of superiority.
We continued to tip generously till the 50 Euros became zero, after that we became the lousy tippers we originally were.
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