To not give the postman a Christmas bung

[MurkyMo]

...to not give the postman a Christmas card with a fiver in it. Husband wants to but I say no. As for the bin men, not a chance !

What do you do?

Always give the postman £20. We live in the arse end of nowhere, house is a pain in the arse to access - he makes our life much easier and saves me having to go to the depot.

I always leave beer and chocolates for the bin men. If I forget to put the bins out, they put them out for me! I also give our postman a bottle of wine. We live in a rural area so it is probably more personal than living in a town.

Because they're not just delivering post.

They're social workers, first aiders, the only people some folk see for a chat each day.

My DS is 21 and has been a postie for 4 years. He has saved 2 lives, helped an old man get a washing machine in his house, rescued fallen disabled people, put peoples bins out for them when they cant walk and liaised with police for welfare checks and countless daily stories.

All this whilst carrying a heavy bag in storms, ice, gales, floods. Plus the pay is shocking for what they do.

I read your title as Christmas bong. Was wondering wtf you were doing 😂

Your poor postie is obviously working in a base that is severely understaffed and is conversely working twice as hard as the others in well staffed areas.
It's sad that people don't realise this.
NHS is the same. Staff who stay flogging themselves to death on understaffed wards get more complaints than those who move out to "easier" roles.

I don't share my Christmas bong with just anyone! 😆

No one tips me or my husband and he worked throughout lock down! Think it's werid to tip the postman and hairdresser but no one else! I understand years ago when hairdressers didn't make much money, but they do now! Also back then we got the same regular post man twice a day (for 1st and 2nd class) 6 days a week! But we don't even get the same post man anymore! I actually only get mail once a week from a variety of post people. The 1st and 2nd class gets mixed together. The only people I want to tip are the bin men.They work hard outdoors, whatever the weather. Perhaps I'll place a tub of quality street on my bin for them to share?

I always tipped our postman very well as he was great and really helpful. But he has moved on and we don’t seem to have a regular person now. Not that I would recognise them, we only seem to get a delivery now about once a week of all our mail. It’s terrible.

i always tip the binmen. It’s a tough job and I wouldn’t want to do it. And it’s always good to keep them on side. It makes life easier.

Absolutely this!

Some go beyond that - ours will put parcels in safe places for us to save us going to town to collect, he will wrap up stuff if raining and he generally keeps an eye on things. He is a well loved and appreciated man in our village. We give him a tip every year.

No why would I ? My DH doesn't get tipped for serving customers and why would he so why should I equally tip a postman or bin man

I used to, as we had the same postie for years, but we don't seem to have the same one 2 days in a row now. So no Christmas tip.

Your postie is not responsible for the service deteriorating.

Hyacinth Bucket struck her postman off her list of recipients of Christmas boxes, because he pronounces her surname as "Bucket", he produces her letters from the middle of the pile, rather than the top, and because he delivers letters with second-class stamps. "Postmen should be trained to recognise first-class-stamp houses!"

"Are you my regular postman? The one with the twitch?"

My parents always gave Christmas chocs and money to the postman and binmen. I still remember the postman! I work out of the house a lot and very rarely see them, I wouldn't recognise them. We are rural and get 1 or 2 postal deliveries a week, we are frequently given our neighbours lettrrs and parcels and vice versa, so I then redeliver to the right address. It's an awful service. The binmen are good though, perhaps I will leave a tub of chocs on top of the bin next week, it's a good idea, thankyou OP

It's really NOT like that for the majority of postal delivery workers!

I love the posties (I used to be one). They are decent people. Royal Mail has gone to buggery because of privatisation. That’s not the ordinary workers’ fault. Blame shareholders wanting their cut of profits. It’s always the way.

They don’t earn much so, if you can afford it, I’d tip them if they are nice people. I used to work with a postie and one of his clients always gave him a big pack of socks at Xmas which he was very grateful for!

I’ve never spoken to our binmen so I wouldn’t give them anything but posties are one of the few groups of people who glue society together. We used to have milkmen, shopkeepers who knew your name etc etc.

We give a tenner in an envelope and some biscuits to the bin men and the milk woman. The bin men are so friendly with the kids and the milk woman never wakes the dog. We have one lovely postman and one miserable one, I'll give the nice one a tip if I see him in the next few days!

Never occurred to me to give anything to the postman but we don’t seem to have a regular one here, there are 4 or 5 of them.

We used to leave a crate of beer out for the bin men until they went on strike for months and left everyone in the lurch so now they get naff all 🤣

It’s just a fiver ffs. If your DH wants to, why would you bother yourself with fighting this?

My husband is a postman and the pressure of the Christmas has impact on everyone at the work that they had to deliver letters and parcels in time without the overtime as the overtime pay has been cut. They faces so many problems from their bosses putting pressures on them while they working in their warm office not knowing the impact on their postal workers.
The pressures is unbelievable and my husband couldn't get his time off between boxing day to new year eve off to see his family who lives 3 hours away because of this.

I tip our window cleaner as I live in a 2nd Floor flat and he always cleans the insides as well as the outsides. Three double windows and he only charges £10.

Just to add that we live in the South East which is notoriously expensive.

Where we lived before, I always tipped the bin men because they knew my husband wasn't always around and they collected our bins from inside the garage, emptied them and put them back. The bin men here often leave our bins in the middle of our drive, so I have to leave the car by the side of the road and move them! I don't tip them. Our 2 current postmen are lovely and we always give them a decent bottle of wine.

This. ^ There is no need for 'tipping' in the 21st century, and I find it odd that some people still do it. And it's very odd that some jobs seem to be deemed as more worthy of a tip than others.

Have to say I wouldn't tip the binmen, they are paid more than a decent wage! Ditto hairdressers, and the postal delivery workers are paid an equally decent wage. People can come out with how this person and that person they know 'goes that extra mile' to help people and 'works sooooo hard,' but everyone has got a few stories to tell about how they went above and beyond in their job, and no-one is more worthy than anyone else.

Do people tip Sandra on the checkout in Morrisons? Or Lucy the GP Practice Nurse who takes your blood tests? Or your optician or dentist or the GP receptionist, or the woman who is on reception at the Travelodge who books you in and hands little pots of milk and extra pillows to you? Or your GP?

Course you don't, and why should you? No-one (in the UK) needs a tip in 2025. Indeed no-one has needed tips for over a quarter of a century, and I'm fed up of how some people claim that people in certain jobs work much harder than people in other jobs, and are more worthy of tips.. And as I said, once you start it, (giving tips,) it's very hard to stop!