"Do I tip a tow truck driver?" and other conundrums of the American way of life

Spending an extended amount of time in a foreign country always gives you a chance to see how people in another country go about some of the everyday parts of life differently, and inevitably throws up a few things that seem like they could be brought back home, as well as a few that make you grateful you live wherever you do. In the USA there are so many things done just a little bit differently to Australia or Germany, and I wanted to take a chance to record a few of those things, and perhaps promote some of them back home.

First and foremost, the cultural norm that follows the traveler is the tipping culture. Everyone knows that waiters and bar staff work for little or no hourly wage and live from tips, and its an easy custom to adjust to - add 10% as a minimum, a little more if you are satisfied, and more again if you are particularly happy. I know people have strong opinions about tipping in Australia, but I have to say I come down in favour of the American system here. The service is almost universally very good - not just because of the extra incentive that the tip provides, but because people who find it difficult to be friendly or otherwise don't make good waiters quickly find they can't make any money in this industry and move on. My only objection to the tipping culture in restaurants is that it allows a restaurateur to basically shift all the patronage risk in his labour costs onto the employees. That might be a wonderful economic policy in terms of flexible workplace relations, but it does seem harsh that if an employer over staffs a restaurant, the waiters are the ones who take the loss. Similarly, the waiter bears the brunt of dissatisfaction, regardless of the cause. If my meal is bad, or takes too long, I am unlikely to tip as generously, and the waiter, rather than the kitchen, will suffer the consequences. On the other hand, the waiter gets a part of the upside. If the restaurant does particularly well, the waiters probably earn far more than they could in Australia.

More difficult, as far as tipping goes, is knowing where to stop. Waiters and bar tenders are obvious, which did lead me to theorise that you should tip when the service is separate from the good you are paying for - so I pay for the drink, and tip for the pouring and bringing of the drink. But that does not cover taxi drivers, where the service is all I'm paying for, yet they clearly expect tips. Most troubling was the tow truck driver, where I didn't pay for the service at all, other than the $90 we paid for AAA membership at the start of the trip. If you receive a service from a club that you are a member of, provided by a contractor not actually employed by that club, do you tip? Even when you decide that a tip is appropriate, how do you know how much to tip, when you can't use a percentage of the price as a guide?

Unfortunately, you never actually answer any of these questions, because no-one ever gives you feedback on a tip. I gave the tow truck driver 10 dollars, but I have no way of knowing whether he drove off thinking a) that was fair, b) awesome, I never usually get tipped, c) I can't believe he only gave me $10, or d) who does this guy think he is, some sort of big shot who thinks I need a tip - I probably make more than him, judging by his crappy car.

Essential to the tipping culture is another oft commented upon facet of American life - all the money looks the same. At first this drove me to distraction, and I am still prone to thinking I have a well stocked wallet, only to find out at a very inconvenient time that I have 15 one dollar bills and nothing else. But when you think about the tips, it suddenly makes sense. You are forever handing over notes to people for minor services, from serving you a drink to getting your car or your bags to providing the live music (Bands here generally play for tips only - which is probably a part of what makes the live music culture possible). In those situations it is convenient that all the money looks the same, because it allows you to decide how much to tip far more discreetly - no one knows I've given them a single dollar until I am far enough away to avoid an awkward moment.

Still on the subject of money, less convenient is the American habit of displaying prices that do not include fees and taxes. Each state levies its own sales tax - even individual cities have their own taxes. On top of sales tax there can be a 'bed charge' ($3.50 per night in New York), an amusement tax (9% in Chicago) or any manner of extra charges. Unless you have both an encyclopedic knowledge of federal, state and local taxes and a genius level IQ, it is impossible to know what the final price of any particular item is going to be. Published prices adhere to the principle of making every thing end in 99 cents, so after taxes you forever end up paying amounts like $8.43. This in turn means you collect mountains of 1c coins. The USA mints 40 million 1 cent coins per year, at a cost of $80 million. This is one area where Australia has clearly found a better solution. In NZ they even got rid of 5c coins.

Moving away from money to one of the travelers other great concerns - coffee. Every time I leave Australia, I realise how good the coffee culture in Sydney is. Australia is the exception, rather than the rule, in serving espresso coffee in every last cafe. Outside of the very big cities, cafe lattes in the USA are largely limited to Starbucks and a few imitation chains. Even here in Chicago a standard breakfast cafe is unlikely to serve you a cappuccino. Fortunately, Starbucks is everywhere, and you rarely have to go a day without getting your fix. Unfortunately, the coffee at Starbucks is not excellent, and there is no such thing as full cream milk - 2% milk is the best you can hope for.

One thing about Starbucks here is that when I say its everywhere, I really mean that. Obviously its in all the big cities, on almost every block, but far more delightfully, there is a Starbucks at most truck stops on the long interstate drives, and in every little rural town. That is where I think Starbucks went wrong in Australia - if they'd put their shops at Pheasants Nest and Sutton Forrest, serving coffee to all the passing city folk who don't want to even enter the Coolibah Cafe, instead of competing with a thousands coffee stands on Pitt Street and Collins Street, they probably wouldn't have had to shut them all down.

Another quirk of American life is the four way stop sign. When you come to an intersection between two smaller streets there is often a stop sign in every direction. If you were to apply the Australian interpretation of a stop sign, then when two cars approach from right angles at the same time, they would both have to stop and wait until the other one went, meaning they would be stuck at the stop sign forever. In America, you stop at the stop sign and let one car go, then the next car has to stop and let you go. It's simple enough, but it took us a while to work out, and led to some strange looks from other motorists as we firmly refused to budge while there was a stopped car on the other street. Once you figure it out, it works, but its pretty obvious that a better solution would be that invention that is completely absent from American roads, the roundabout.

By far America's worst habit has to be the imperial measurement system. Here is some history for you. A pound was traditionally measured in grains - one pound was the weight of 7000 grains of standard cereal. After starting with 7000, its natural that you would divide this into 16 ounces, meaning there are 437.5 grains in an ounce. Clearly this is a measure of weight, not volume, which is why a fluid ounce, which is how they measure drinks here, has no relation to the ounce weight. A fluid ounce is 1/128 of a gallon, which, logically enough, is 231 cubic inches. The origin of the inch is uncertain, though the earliest known definition seems to be that an inch is equivalent to three barleycorns. 36 inches make up a yard, and 1760 yards give you a mile. In case you can't do this in your heard, that means there are 63,360 inches in a mile, or 190,080 barleycorns.

America is fully committed to this system though. As with roundabouts, soccer, and gun control, it seems that the very fact that the rest of the world has figured it out makes supporting this system a point of national pride in the USA. Deep down I suspect there is probably a hint of defensiveness because they know that they have missed something here and they don't want to admit it. The irony of it all is that since 1959 all the imperial measurements have been measured in metric terms. The official measure of a yard in no longer 108 barleycorns - its actually 0.9144 meters.

I don't want to end on a negative note, so I've saved America's best habit for last - the people's amazing friendliness to strangers, and their willingness to make proper conversation with anyone they meet. I first noticed this in Central America, when we were stuck on a plane in El Salvador for a few hours. While we sat there and read our books, it was clear the many Americans on the flight were making friends with their neighbours. I suspect this much might happen in Australia, but after a few exchanges and the odd shared sarcastic remark, people would get back to their own friends, or their Ipods. The Americans on the other hand, by the time we were back in the air, were exchanging phone numbers and email addresses and making plans to have dinner back home in a few months time.

We've tried to be open to this approach, which doesn't necessarily come naturally to me, and we've seen American friendliness first hand, on too many occasions to count. In Seattle a family (Canadian, but to be honest, it really is pretty much the same thing) we met on the plane offered to show is round Vancouver; in Las Vegas we chatted for 30 minutes with two guys next to us at a bar, just because they were sitting there and introduced themselves. In Austin the friends we made watching the World Cup had offered us a place to stay within half an hour of meeting us, and invited us straight to their 4th of July celebrations.

It seems to me that this is the true irony of America. From the outside it seems determined to be different, proudly rejecting the world's favorite past times and better innovations, but from the inside, it seems more open to other people and ideas, be they from out of town or overseas, than any country I've ever been to.