Hugs and tipping

A friend told me today that a person should hug at least 8 times a day. That seemed like a lot to me- a person living in New York in a long distance relationship. I doubt I get that many hugs in a month. I checked it out online and found an organization that advocates:

4 Hugs for Survival
8 Hugs for Maintenance
12 Hugs for Growth

So, I think I'm going to start hugging my friends more. I hugged my roommate tonight, and I took her a bit by surprise. It may have been the first time we ever hugged. I guess I need to work on my hugging etiquette. There's a guideline on the website for that too :-) Maybe if we all start hugging more, the world will be a better place. Like this:



My other realization today was in regards to paying for meals in groups. A frequent frustration is that people put in their cash often feeling like they're contributing more than they should and yet the group still ends up short of what they need. In general, this problem can arise from bad math, forgetting to include something you ordered (like a drink), rounding down, or just simply not realizing how much to account for tax and tip. What people need to realize is that if they simply add 30% to the price of their meal, it should sufficiently cover their portion of tax and tip. For example, if you order a $2.00 soda and a $10.00 entree (it was probably $9.65, but you should always round up), then your total is $12.00. To find 30%, simply move the decimal to the left one place ($1.20) and multiply by 3. Here, this gives you $3.60. Add that to the original $12.00 to get $15.60. If you have exact change, great! If not, always round up, never down in groups, and leave $16.00. If the group ends up with too much in the end, maybe you'll get a buck back, or maybe you'll make the server's day. And serving groups is never easy, so leaving a nice tip makes their job a little better.

Happy hugging and happy tipping!