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As mentioned earlier, holiday tipping is taking a hit these days. But some building staffs still have expectations. One shop steward tells Page Six Magazine, "Anything under $50 is considered a bad tip. Some tenants give $20, a few give $400 and some don't give at all—and I can tell you the staff treats [the nongivers] differently. If a bad-tipping tenant calls down for help, the doormen make them wait a little longer. The biggest tippers get the best service." Other doormen put it this way: If you're a good tipper, they'll help you with "moving parked cars to abide by the city's alternate side parking rules, fixing TVs and computers, taking dogs for walks and conveniently 'forgetting' comely visitors to the apartments of adulterers." [Via Curbed]
Holiday Tipping is More Fraught Than Ever
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This shouldn't be. My friends from other countries hear that I tip $800 for Christmas, and they look at me like I have two heads.
Just pay people more in the first damn place.
I tried to give my super $20 last year, and he refused; I couldn't believe it. Good guy.
FYI, a shop steward is like a middle-level manager for the union. he/she speaks directly to the workers and acts almost as a spokesman for the workers. I'll save the snark for the new year, but you can get rid of the question mark. Also, there's this website called Google that I've heard is pretty effective for figuring shit out.
REQUIRED tipping culture blows.
@3—Oh, you shouldn't save the snark for the new year, 'cause you seem to have an excess of it.
And thanks for the explanation on shop steward. I've heard of union steward (or union rep).
I tipped much less this year and I been receiving some dirty looks. daman
I was a union delegate.
One yr we were late with the tips and I too got dirty looks.
at first building management left a memo stating the staff is well paid and tipping is at your discretion with a list of workers and their shifts and floors. now it's just a list of the building staff.
and, I consider the Super part of management and shouldn't receive tips.
Do people tip doormen, supers, etc. in other cities also for fear of not getting their toilet unclogged or their car bumpers smashed up in the garage?
I don't know what all these guys get paid, but with the rents that folks in Manhattan pay for a doorman building (especially the large hi-rises) it seems like the landlords are keeping too much.
In my building the tipping is anonymous (at least to the staff). You give what you want to one of the Board members and it goes into a pool the staff splits up. A running day-to-day tally is posted in the elevator. This year the staff got just under $10,000, which is around $2K less than last year. We gave $50, but we also tip individually during the year when someone works on something in our apartment.
Articles like this one in the Post are counterproductive. It makes someone like me cringe and give less, not more. Tipping should feel like a pleasure, not a shakedown. It makes me wonder if Moocowtoo's super turned down his twenty because it was an insult.
@JacqueMehoff, @JenChungsBra, interesting!
@burgerdeluxe—I think it's one of the great mysteries, knowing how much you really should tip, but we generally tip because we appreciate their service and their demeanor. I think of our building as an organism and it takes people to keep it healthy.
I don't usually tip during the year, unless we have huge deliveries or repair issues, so we make sure to be generous within our means—we can't compete with some high-fliers in the building—at the end of the year.
Lower Manhattan - you hit the nail on the head. It's turned into this mandatory shakedown every year. Every year the staff suddenly starts being extra friendly for a couple weeks in early December. It's ridiculous. With all my tips to building staff, office assistants, etc., I'm dropping $1K every December. Tipping has become this mandatory practice in New York and that needs to change.
Happy to live in a slightly dingy lower Manhattan walkup and never have to deal with this kind of thing. My wife, the nurse, gives health tips to the lady around the corner who regularly hauls out the garbage, and mops the hallway about 5 times a year.
Happy Holidays.
how about landlords and other employers just pay a living wage to their staff so it's not MY obligation to make sure they earn an income? friggin hell, why does the doorman take it out on the tenets? they're not his boss. Get mad at the greedy building owners who they probably never see.
@9, I really like the idea of an anonymous pool. That way there's no retaliation and nobody feels pressured to give.
Outside of that, the holiday tipping really has become a shakedown. I can understand tipping someone if they do something exceptional for you, but for the rest, it's extortion. Basically, if you don't cough up an appropriate bribe at the end of the year, your building's staff won't feel inspired to do the jobs they are already PAID to do? Lovely.
And no, not everyone in a doorman building has the means to spend thousands every Christmas on tips. This year, I probably earned less than my doorman, and I don't have benefits like health insurance. Tips for everyone in the building would have been over a month's wages for me. It was either tipping the building staff or paying for this month's groceries, medication and small presents for my family. I chose the latter and I sure as hell don't feel badly about it.
My heat was just out for three days. Nobody's getting a damn dime from me.
My building has one super and one maintenance guy--both friendly. Each is getting $50, a card and a small gift. The building is a water-damaged, roach-infested, 5-floor walkup. The guys do fine, the building's kind of icky, money is tight, what can you do?
As a single person, living in a new building that opened only 6 mths ago and that`s been fraught with problems - I tipped all 21 people on the staff a $20 (some of whom I´ve never seen). I felt cheap, for those that had helped me with my minimal needs, but really couldn´t justify the total amount- in a downturn - in a new building- and as a single person who needs very little help (vs. let~s say a family).
It´s a conundrum and frustrating.
I´d like to be fair and generous - but those things do not coexist in this case.