Change, suggestions and why the practice of tipping doesn’t work
A selection of letters to the editor from the last week.
We are just emerging from perhaps the most destabilising three years of our lifetimes – a pandemic which changed, and continues to change every aspect of our lives including the way we shop, go to school, travel and socialise.
To put it into the vernacular, the pandemic has really knocked us for a loop.
Sectors and businesses which are in a position to benefit from the hermiting of New Zealand are flourishing whilst those which rely on the physical presence of their customers are withering.
We are seeing paradigmatic changes in the way we get our news, seek medical care, attend classes, shop, access services such as banking and watch TV.
However, we don’t seem to be doing change very well.
We are now living in a world where gratuitous change, unwelcome degradation of services and inexplicable shortages are all around us.
Many of the agents of change are making their changes (seemingly) without consultation with their customers, patients and clients.
They are breaking every rule upon which successful change management is based, ie, you can’t just dump your changes on your stakeholders, but instead, you must take them along with you.
Not a day goes by when we wake up to a news site with a new interface, a financial services institution with a different way of accessing their services or a medical practice relying on a remote health professional to fix your sore toe.
More specifically, though, these businesses/organisations fail to take into account the way people work and play. We are losing our way.
Whilst change can be good, it needs to be managed properly. If it is not, we risk destroying the fabric of the very society upon which we depend.
The story in April 3’s Taranaki Daily News was timely, as many people like myself were wondering how the earthquake strengthening work was proceeding.
When the cathedral was closed in 2016, parishioners were given reason to believe that the number one priority would be the earthquake strengthening of their beautiful old stone church.
Instead, the tempting offer of a grant to first build Te Manu Hononga and restore the vicarage, saw those plans waylaid.
While Te Manu Hononga will no doubt serve its purpose, the design of the House of Reconciliation is quite out of character with the quiet dignity of the cathedral and vicarage.
In my opinion, it could be described as intrusive.
And now, the church finds itself in the position of not having funds to complete the required earthquake strengthening.
The Taranaki Cathedral Church of St Mary is the oldest stone church in New Zealand, but how many people know that?
My first suggestion is that the church embark on an advertising campaign, with advertisements in all the major newspapers seeking funds.
And secondly that a professional fundraiser be engaged to raise the funds required with a set time limit.
Procrastination will only see increasing costs and the present unsatisfactory situation continue.
I support Herb Spannagl in his cautionary approach to introducing tipping as standard practice in New Zealand.
While the incident which I speak of occurred a great many years ago, the circumstances surrounding it are as relevant today as they were then!
Myself, plus a party of three adults were ‘‘enjoying’’ an evening meal in a well-known restaurant chain in the UK. Our waitress, who spoke little English,
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Personal contact details are for verification purposes only and will not be published or held on record. took our order for the wine and three main courses, and returned soon after with the wrong wine.
I had ordered a carafe of white house wine, and she presented us with a bottle of uncorked red wine.
I pointed out her mistake but said that I would accept what she had brought.
Each of us was then served the wrong entree, and while we again accepted what we had been given, I informed the waitress of her error and asked for her to be replaced.
She burst into tears!
It was fortunate that I had made a stand at this point.
The replacement waitress checked what had been ticked for our mains and desserts, and had she not done so, all four of us would have got the wrong mains and wrong desserts!
The meal, by New Zealand standards, was reasonably expensive but on leaving the restaurant, I counted the sum owed, right to the penny to the liveried maitre d’ at the reception desk.
On receiving the exact sum of the bill, he did a polite ‘‘ahem’’ and asked if I had considered a gratuity!
I bristled, and explained that on a scale of one to 10 – one being worse than poor and 10 being excellent – the service rendered did not quite qualify for a one.
He asked me to lower my voice and explained that our initial waitress spoke little English and was in training.
I did not lower my voice and gave him a potted history of tipping in the UK, stressing the point that the custom had been introduced for service above the ordinary; that it was not a right but a gift recognising that service had been given beyond the normal call of duty!
Dr Wendy R London, Hāwera
Derek Quickfall, New Plymouth
Barry Easton, New Plymouth