I have always railroaded friends into helping me move but when my parents moved into their new condo yesterday they employed the services of one of the major franchised moving outfits. Although the day was pretty hot and humid there was nothing particularly arduos about the move. It was local, the old appliances were left behind and there was no livingroom or den furniture to be moved as my folks are getting new stuff. The 4 movers were courteous, efficient, and hard working. When they finished the job 9 hours later my dad and I figured we should tip them 30 bucks each and we did. (and a cold beer of course) Is this customary or are we just nice. Or for that matter is it customary and we are cheap?
Yes, it’s customary to tip them. 30 bucks apiece for a 9-hour day sounds reasonable.
When we moved 3 years ago, we had them pack one day, and move the next day. I think we gave each of the packing crew 20 bucks each; we gave each of the moving crew 40 bucks each (I don’t think we had all the same guys both days). We provided lunch on moving day also - bunch of sandwiches from Subway.
I’m really interested to know this as well. I’ll most likely be moving next week and I estimate the entire move to take between 4-5 hours for three men.
I provided pizza and drinks for my movers 2+ years ago, but it never occurred to me to tip them. I’m sure I’ll get jumped on for asking, but why should they get tipped? Do they only get paid minimum wage or something? I mean, they’re already getting paid to do their job, right? I think giving them food and drink is expected, but a tip on top of the cost of the move? Per guy? Really?
I moved recently, and it was made abundantly clear that it’s customary to tip the movers. Came out to $50 per guy, or about $4 per hour. This probably more than doubled their pay.
It was also clear that only one of them - the one wearing the company’s name on his shirt - knew much about moving. The other two had the appearance of guys that were picked up as casual labor at the 7-11 parking lot, and were shall we say, less than delicate with my furniture.
Sure enough, tip 'em.
The last time I moved, I decided I’d had enough of lugging all my crap around, so we hired movers. Two guys, not a whole lot of stuff, but a lot of it very bulky. Maybe two hours of work – I figured I’ve give them 20 bucks each.
Then, The Television Incident.
You see, we have a rather big TV, and they had to get it upstairs. I am not exaggerating when I say that if this TV was one inch larger, in any direction, it would not have made it. I just barely squeeeezed up the staircase. They guys spent over an hour busting their humps making it work to get that sucker into the living room.
Once they got that done, their tips doubled.
It must really suck busting your hump all day not knowing if you’re going to be tipped or not. At least waitstaff have many tables and turnover. I know movers make more than minimum wage but probably not that much more since it’s unskilled grunt work. I’m just glad the though to tip them occured to us before they left.