Greetings to my hive family around the world. The word tipping is a very strong word that has to do with paying ones way through to get what you wanted or even what you deserve. So, for this reason, tipping is now part of our culture in this part of the world. I have engaged in tipping people just to scale through hurdles. Although to some, it's against moral but to someone like me, it's a way of appreciating people's efforts.
Sometime ago, when I was to collect my late mum gratuity from a state government in Nigeria was my first time of tipping people. Then, I didn't know anything about the system and I thought everything will follow due process and as an advocate of due process, I went home to relax expecting the outcome of all the processes we have passed through but all to no avail , Nothing came out as expected. It's as a result of this that led me to informing a family friend at the ministry of finance, when he heard about the happenings, he laughed and parted me at my back, saying look at you, in this system, nothing goes for nothing, it's then I asked him what he meant and he replied by saying " you have to tip them before you get what you want or deserve". I was amazed and vow not do such within myself, but when I realized it's not going to work, I went to the ministry to look into the matter as well and in the process, one of the beneficiaries called be aside and told me what to do to fasten the process. It's then I surrendered and tipped then with 5,000 naira and within the same week, everything was settled and I collected my late mum gratuity check and even, if there's any other development as regard the gratuity, those people will still call to keep me updated. This is because we were not paid everything at once.See my tipping in action.
Another scenario was on my supply business, I'm into the supply of granite and stone dust and as a supplier, for those people at the quarry to help you load ur granite using their pay loader, , you have to tip them most especially the payloader operators, even for the gate man to open the gate for you, you have to tip them, at the scale tipping is not forbidden. The driver is another person you must not joke with and this is because without him being tipped, he may say the truck has a mechanical fault just to delay you from getting to your destination on time. What of the site engineers? These people have their own way of demanding money from suppliers and not only them, we still have the casual labor looking for you to tip them. why? Coz this are the people that will recommend what you have brought or supplied to the chief engineer, it's what they say that the engineer on site will believe. If they say it's full then it's full, if they say it's big or small then it's. So for you as a supplier to thrive in the business, you must not joke with tipping. It's one of the chain of supplying. Well as I said earlier, it's one of the way of appreciating people. Thanks for reading.
All photos are mine.
