Month: July 2010

#FollowFriday – EMQ FamiliesFirst @emqff #ff

Today's #FollowFriday post is devoted to EMQ FamiliesFirst (@emqff). Today was my last day working as a full-time employee with EMQFF.  

EMQ FamiliesFirst is doing great work in the state of California to help children in crisis recover from abuse, neglect and drug addiction. But, with the budget problems in California, they need your help now more than ever. 

You can learn more about the agency on their web site, Facebook page or by following them on Twitter. 

I've never liked the idea of the #FF tweets filled with a list of names, so following someone else's lead I'm going to do some posts that give more detail about why you should follow someone instead. 

What’s an appropriate tip?

I recently started dating someone, and when we go out to eat we often swap who pays for dinner (I pay one night, he pays another, etc.) However, there has been twice where I've been unhappy with his tip and instead of walking away from the table, I've thrown a couple extra dollars in with his credit card receipt. 

The first time this happened, he was unhappy with an aspect of the service. He had ordered a flavored lemonade, and when it came time for refills, the waitress asked him if he wanted to try a different flavor. He assumed that it would be treated like another refill, and she didn't say anything either way. When the bill came, and he was charged twice for the lemonade, he was upset. I agreed with him that it was poor service, but I've also always been taught that the tip goes to more than just the waitress. He had left less than 10%, and I added a couple of dollars to bring it up to more like 15%. 

The second time this happened, we had pretty good service. The waitress was busy with a large table, but I didn't feel that it negatively impacted our service. When he wrote down the tip, he left barely 10%. I again threw in a couple of dollars and made the tip closer to 20%. 

I was taught by my grandparents on how to leave a tip and have always followed their advice. For really bad service, I would talk to the manager and possibly leave a small 10-15% tip. But, it would have to be really, really bad service. For mediocre service where maybe something was missed but corrected, or the wait staff was slow to come take our order, etc. I would love a base 15% tip. For relatively good service, I leave around 18-20% and then for really excellent service, or if we've had a lot of special requests, I leave somewhere between 20-25%. 

Am I wrong? What do other people leave as tips? 

My new apartment

I’ve really wanted to move for over a year now, but I felt stuck. I felt like I couldn’t move until I found a new job. Moving is difficult, and I only wanted to do it once and then be settled again for awhile.

 
So I waited …
… I waited to start eating better until I was in a kitchen where I could cook healthy meals.
… I waited to start socializing more until I was in an apartment where I didn’t feel like I was inviting someone into my bedroom.
… I waited to start exercising more until “after I move.”
… I waited to get more organized until I was ready to move.
 
Well, now the wait is over. On 7/24, I move into my new apartment and I’m super excited. The next couple of weeks are going to be super busy. I have to finish wrapping things up at my current job, potential jury duty, pack everything up, buy some new furniture and lots of other tasks. But, I’m ready to stop waiting and get on with things.