Time To Tip Your Service People

Sable is waiting on Karen, our mailman. Rural mail delivery people are some of the best people I know and Karen is at the top of her profession. She also gives Sable the yummiest hot dog looking dog treats almost every day. Sable often digs around the mailbox looking for a morsel she missed.

Karen and her substitutes rarely makes a mistake and goes out of their way to fiz it if she does. She is a family friend now. She bought my old hay baler a few years ago and that was probably the best gift I could give her. It was a low priced New Holland baler that hasn't missed a bale since I sold it to her!

This summer she lost a barn full of hay to fire which is not uncommon. I don't know what her loss was but I am giving her a big tip this month to help make up for her loss. She treats me so well.

I tell you, the local Post Office is right there with UPS and the both blow the competition away. The UPS people are friends of me and Sable too and she has been known to jump into the truck when they slide the door open for a delivery. I would hate to lose either service.

What prompted this story is another plug for volunteer firemen I saw. A fireman answers a fire alarm every 23 seconds somewhere in the United Stated and three fourths of those firemen are volunteer. God Bless our firemen. I am going to send them a donation, too. I have not had to use them yet and hope I never do but they are there if I need them.

The nice guy who picks who our garbage is probably higher paid than all the others that services us but they do a job in the dark and the cold or heat most don't do. He works for Rumpke Waste Systems, one of the largest in our region. Carl Rumpke was a farmer who got pushed out by Cincinnati so he started burying their waste for them. We now have three Rumpke Mountains within and hour of the house.

I know they rotate drivers and I am not often up when they show up before 6 AM but this guy loaded a bunch of heavy carpet backing that should have been cut up in pieces. I owe this fellow a nice tip and I am going to write a thank you note to him and include a tip at the office of the site where he unloads our refuse.

Why send money to another continent when our people need help right here? The people I mention earned it and the list goes on and on. I owe so many people who help me. Our farm is a popular spot for teens to get some money because I always need something done I cannot get done.

So this Christmas season, consider tipping the people that help you or give them an appropriate gift if you know them. We often forget them or take their service for granted.

We have to take care of one another.

Ed Winkle