Britt Jones
How do you show appreciation to those working in gritty job roles?Gratitude in the form of cold hard cash is something that a lot of people in the US rely on.
But some people believe that there is no need to provide a helping hand, not even during the holidays - like this one woman who caused controversy after she asked if she should tip sanitation workers:
The tipping culture in the United States has been the topic of controversy for years, with a lot of people unsure about whether they need to tip essential workers or not.
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Kaidi Dey took to TikTok with a question regarding tipping her sanitation workers, and people were quick to attack her.
Dey, originally from Estonia, but living in the US, created a short clip on the platform to query how much she should tip during the holidays, if at all.
She explained that her local sanitation workers had given her a Christmas card in November, which read ‘Happy holidays, the best wishes for you and your family, from your sanitation crew’, and her father-in-law told her that it meant that the workers expected a tip.
But Dey wasn’t sure if she should oblige, and if she did, how much was acceptable?
She said: “I realise that everybody in America tips for everything.
“I do tip for a lot of things, like my hair stylist for example, or if I get a massage or something like that.
“But I find it rather odd that you have to also tip for sanitation workers.”
So, in her quest to find out what to do, Dey asked her viewers how much she should tip them during the holidays.
She captioned her video: “Tipping sanitation workers? Yay or nay and how much if yay?”
Since her upload gained massive amounts of attention and over one million views, there was no doubt the comments would be plentiful.
One of the top comments under Dey’s video read: “You’re a terrible person.”
Another person wrote: “You come across as so privileged and entitled. Those guys do hard work. Imagine even asking whether to tip?”
A third person quipped: “To me it makes so much more sense to tip the sanitation workers than it does to tip a hairstylist.”
However, Dey spoke to Business Insider about the negative comments and whether people watched to the end of her video or not.
She said that they are ‘only seeing one sliver… and they don’t have the full picture.’
But the comments did have an effect on the woman.
She told the publication: “When the comments started flooding in with the first wave of hate, I was actually in tears because it was so bad.”
She added: “I wasn’t expecting people to perceive me as this horrible monster that’s putting down our sanitation crew because I was asking a question.
“I came from a very poor family and I’ve had to fight my way to be here... It hurts when people say that I’m privileged and entitled, but that’s just their opinion of me, they don’t know me.”
After the whirlwind backlash she received, Dey went on to say that she is now planning to give $20 gift cards to Sugarlips, a donut shop and give it to the sanitation workers as a tip and in a follow-up video. Dey also came out to explain her confusion over the hate she received, explaining that in Estonia, tipping isn't the norm.
Thankfully, the response was a lot kinder under that video.