For about a year now, our family has been rounding up our cab fares to the nearest dollar.
This was initiated by the hubby, who believes that this is a good way to give cabbies a bit of a boost to their earnings.
It’s not much, but we realised that the gesture brings quite a lot of cheer to cabbies. It’s always cute to see how they light up! A small gesture at the end of the trip is a small gesture of grace, I suppose. The trip has come to an end, and there is no further expectation. It need not influence how friendly the cabbie is to you throughout the journey, he can be himself!
In other countries, a tip is de rigour. And taxi fares in other countries tend to be much higher, to begin with. Since our cabbies have to be locals, we felt that this was a good albeit small way of raising the wages of locals, who have come under stiff competition from foreigners in almost every other industry.
A dose of unexpected kindness can really make someone else’s day. And as with kindness, it blesses the giver as much as the receiver. What’s an extra 40 or 80 cents to us, who have jobs with relatively stable incomes? The heartfelt “thanks!” and smile (after the initial surprise, which shows how rare an occurance this is) brightens their day and yours.
What are you waiting for? Let’s translate this into a wave of action!
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