Midwest Memo
Rounding up
by Alan Shultz

I don't mind hailing a cab, I just don't like paying for the ride. My problem, I never know what constitutes a fair tip.

Usually I monitor the meter from the back seat watching the fare due figure click away as I near my destination. Let's say we've almost arrived and the fare reads $4.85. There I am with wallet in hand fishing out a five and two singles. But, oh wait, the numbers now jump to $5.35 by the time we're parked at the curb.

At the $4.85 fare I thought my $2.15 tip looked pretty good. At $5.35 my $1.65 tip feels cheap. So, now I'm fumbling for another single only to find that I've got a couple $20s and that's it. Now what do I do?

I guess I figure that when in doubt, you have to round up. But it's easier said than done.

I was in the bookstore the other day and I paid for my purchase with cash at the register. I was due back about 60 cents in change.

The counter lady smiled and looked me in the eye. "Would you like to round that up and donate the change to charity?"

The cashier's question caught me off guard, but it was a pleasant ambush. The bookstore has a charity that buys books for needy children. Leaving my bit of change to go to the charity was an easy decision.

"Sure," I agreed without hesitation. And I thought for a moment about the huge possibilities if rounding up for charity caught on.

Not long ago a client and I were trying to come up with the approximate cost of some purchase that had several components to it. We came to our respective conclusions after wrestling with the mental math. Our results were different. His estimate was higher than mine.

It turned out that I had rounded down the numbers and he had rounded up.

"You always round up," he said as though that was the 11th Commandment.

But the more I think about it, I guess he's correct.

I was once involved in a luncheon meeting where box lunches were to be provided for the dozen or so of us attending. The fellow ordering the lunches wanted an exact count several days in advance. He was also looking for an ironclad commitment that each of us would be there at noon to eat said boxed lunch.

Several folks that we really wanted at the meeting had scheduling conflicts but promised to try to attend. The fellow ordering the lunches made such a big deal about the advance commitment that he forced the maybes in the group to finally weigh in with a definite "no." All that agony and rigidity over ham sandwiches because we couldn't round up our head count to

be expectant of more, not less.

In my personal experience, one extra ham sandwich is pretty easy to get rid of. I've been known to finish off leftovers before getting the key in the ignition.

Rounding up seems to me kind of the mathematical equivalent of the glass being half full. Rounding up seems optimistic, anticipatory.

I once belonged to an organization that had a lot of inactive folks on the membership roster. I remember the business meeting where the collective mood was to trim the membership list down to actives. The motivation for the trimming was to avoid a local organizational fee imposed based on membership numbers.

Before the vote one member took the floor. She explained that she valued every member who thought of themselves as a member. "Err on the side of counting them in," she advised. And the vote went her way.

Round up - live big.

And the next time I'm short on singles in my wallet, I'm walking. And when I tell you how far I walked - I'm rounding up.