“Employee Tipping and Gift-Receiving Policy
All postal employees, including carriers, must comply with the Standards of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Exec¬utive Branch. Under these federal regulations, carriers are permitted to accept a gift worth $20 or less from a customer per occasion, such as Christmas. However, cash and cash equivalents, such as checks or gift cards that can be exchanged for cash, must never be accepted in any amount. Furthermore, no employee may accept more than $50 worth of gifts from any one customer in any one calendar year period.”
I would never tip a USPS employee, and I also don’t think government workers should accept gifts. I hadn’t thought about teachers, though. I think it’s a good idea, though!
I tip my hairdresser quite generously throughout the year, I don’t get the paper anymore, and my letter carrier is pretty useless. I do tip the woman who cleans my house the equivalent of one service. I also knitted her a hat because she admired mine twice. That took a lot more effort than anything!!!
I think it is illegal for postal workers to accept cash.
I’m not sure how I could even tip the newspaper delivery person. My payment is made directly to the publisher of the paper and I never encounter the delivery person.
We pay for our paper subscription with a yearly payment to the paper, and there is room to add a tip. The trouble with that is that the paper deliverer could get the tip for the year, and then quit the next week.
For a while, we had a nanny from Germany who also did our grocery shopping. At Christmas time, she demanded that I give her hundreds of dollars for tips for the butcher, the produce vendors at the farmer’s market, the cheese guy at Whole Foods. She insisted that “if you don’t tip the butcher you don’t get good cuts of meat.” She was furious when I refused on the grounds that we don’t do things that way here. She actually quit shortly after that. So, does anyone tip the butcher to ensure you get good cuts of meat?
I do, too. We’ve had the same carrier for several years now and our papers are always delivered early, wrapped in plastic if it’s raining or snowing, and left right at the front door. Our carrier leaves a Christmas card for us, with a stamped return address envelope. I am grateful that he does it because otherwise I wouldn’t know how to give him a tip. I send him a check for $100 every Christmas, which when considering it’s a 365 day a year job, is not a lot.
It’s funny, in Japan there is no tipping, but there is a LOT of very formal protocol-driven gift giving. I wonder what their holiday rules are for service people?
This year, thanks to this wonderful thread, I decided I am not cooking on Christmas day except to throw the turkey in and will make some mashed potatoes. Made a bunch of stuff yesterday and today that I will just warm up. So much weight off my back. So happy. Thank you college confidential!!!
Merry Christmas everyone! Gotta say, my decision to not make dinner…BEST THING EVER. I think we will do this every year forever. Everyone was so happy. Especially mom (me!)…
A silly thing I stopped doing about the time I had kids or puppies, I can’t remember which - I almost never put bows on packages. I used to wrap gifts very nicely, but Now its bag and naked boxes. I try to do tissue, but can’t claim perfection on that either.
Around 8 or so years ago I declared that everyone must cook one dish for Christmas dinner. Our main Holiday meal in going out for Christmas Eve.
I grew tired of cooking and everyone else relaxing. The last straw was taking a nap and finding the clean up half done. I think that is the year I smashed a Waterford wine glass in the sink
X_X .
I cooked Whole Foods crab cakes, made aioli, and a salad.
H made twice baked potatoes.
D roasted romanesque (SP?) the broccoli like ugly veggie.
H also baked a frozen peach cobbler.
Had a fun Christmas eve and Christmas day with family and friends, but today is definitely a stay-in-my-jammies and watch catch-up TV day. And stuff myself with Christmas chocolates.
What I didn’t do: my ONE job! After a relaxing and wonderful morning with adult kids, spouses, baby and my parents, we ate fruit, my yeast roll, and a breakfast casserole. Cleaned the house and swept just in time to enjoy Days of Our Lives.
Get to Mom’s for dinner at 3. “Where’s the layered salad?” Oh #$#! Geez, H even made a special trip to the grocery Thurs. so the ingredients would be as fresh as possible. My parents are perky and with it at age 72. Guess we can’t say the same for me…
