When I got of the boat at the Venice train station, there was a porter.
He offered help for carrying the luggage.
I know they do that not for free.
Somehow I thought I was in a generous mood and made up my mind to give him 15 euro, which I had in my pocket for his less than 2 minutes of help with the luggage.
When we reached the train station, to my surprise he asked for his services 15 euro.
So I gave him the 15 euro without any discussion.
If you are not familiar with the euro currency, to give you an idea, my taxi from the train station to the hotel cost me ten euro (the distance was not very far)
For me the net monetary effect was the same, but psychologically it was suddenly very different.
For him I think it was quite a bit different too.
Let us say, if he had asked for a reasonable amount of money for the few (certainly not more than 2) minutes of help, he would have gotten 15 euro and he would have really felt appreciated.
But now he asked for the unreasonable 15 euro. He got 15 euro, but within, he must have experienced the bitter taste of having cheated this tourist by charging him extraordinarily high.
Another effect his behavior had is that when I got off the train, there were porters too. Instead of letting them help me, I chose to carry the luggage myself. So, not only he deprived himself of the good feeling of being appreciated and created his own bitterness of having charged too much, but he also gave a bad name to the porters in Italy in general. They are depriving themselves and their whole group of peers from a lot of opportunities to help others and get their business to be successful.
He offered help for carrying the luggage.
I know they do that not for free.
Somehow I thought I was in a generous mood and made up my mind to give him 15 euro, which I had in my pocket for his less than 2 minutes of help with the luggage.
When we reached the train station, to my surprise he asked for his services 15 euro.
So I gave him the 15 euro without any discussion.
If you are not familiar with the euro currency, to give you an idea, my taxi from the train station to the hotel cost me ten euro (the distance was not very far)
For me the net monetary effect was the same, but psychologically it was suddenly very different.
For him I think it was quite a bit different too.
Let us say, if he had asked for a reasonable amount of money for the few (certainly not more than 2) minutes of help, he would have gotten 15 euro and he would have really felt appreciated.
But now he asked for the unreasonable 15 euro. He got 15 euro, but within, he must have experienced the bitter taste of having cheated this tourist by charging him extraordinarily high.
Another effect his behavior had is that when I got off the train, there were porters too. Instead of letting them help me, I chose to carry the luggage myself. So, not only he deprived himself of the good feeling of being appreciated and created his own bitterness of having charged too much, but he also gave a bad name to the porters in Italy in general. They are depriving themselves and their whole group of peers from a lot of opportunities to help others and get their business to be successful.
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