I REALLY, REALLY hate ignorant statements like this.
I have never tipped in a motel. (It’s motel, not hotel.) My parents have never tipped in a motel. My grandparents never tipped in a motel. Nobody that I know has ever tipped in a motel to my knowledge.
People like you are ignorant, stupid, and greedy, and you encourage greed. It’s people like you that make mailmen, barbers, and everybody else under the sun go around with out-stretched hands begging for a tip (AKA undeserved handout). [Note–I exempt waiters and waitresses from this statement–tipping them is traditional. The others aren’t.]
You are very lucky that stupidity is not a crime, because if it were, you would be tortured to death as punishment. CookingWithGas, you are a worthless, ignorant, filthy, stinking pile of garbage, pus, and vomit. I hope that you have bad luck and worse things for the rest of your life.
You see tipping as being about the greed of workers; I see it as an excuse for employers to pay their workers poorly and make them hope the customers throw them enough scraps to make up for it.
Jesus fuck dude, switch to decaf. So don’t fucking tip for fuck’s sake. Yeah at a motel I don’t leave a tip but at some hotels I stay at for work, I do, because as Cooking put it, it’s conventional. Any chance you can provide a link to this ‘outrage?’
And as Dir pointed out, it has nothing to do with the workers and everything to do with the employers. I live in Germany but I am an America. Tipping is almost non-existent here … there’s a reason for that.
Wasn’t it the greed of the working class that got us into the recession and prevents the new dawn of ages?
I’m sure we’d usher in a new age of prosperity with the right tweaks here and there: cut social security, switch medicaid to vouchers, criminalise asking for tips, yearly decimation of the impoverished.
The custom of tipping hotel/motel chambermaids (and bellhops, hairdressers, delivery people, train sleeping-car attendants, and various other folks) may not be universal, but there’s no denying that it’s traditional in American society and many other places. Just look up any etiquette guide on tipping while traveling, and you’ll see plenty of evidence for that.
Like it or not, the custom of tipping has a long history and traditionally applies to many more types of servicepeople than just servers in restaurants. I don’t blame you if you dislike the tipping system, and if you want to take a stand on principle that you won’t tip outside restaurants because you disapprove of it, it’s no skin off my nose.
But you are mistaken if you think that somebody else is being “ignorant” or “stupid” just because they know that it’s usual to tip chambermaids and you don’t.
I don’t believe that tipping hotel maids is as common as some people think: link.
If you believe it is your moral obligation to tip workers who have jobs way down there on the service totem pole, have at it. But this is one type of tip that certainly does not seem unusual at all if it isn’t given, and seems truly optional in practice.
Lots of people don’t give up their seat on public transit for the elderly or infirm, either, but that doesn’t mean it’s still not good manners to do so.
Flyer: Did a hotel housekeeper run over your dog with a vacuum cleaner and then ask for a tip? Christ on a pogostick, man.
What exactly does the last sentence mean? Are you unaware that “motel” is a portmanteau word coined in the early 1900s from “motor hotel”, or do you refuse to stay anywhere that terms itself a “hotel” lest those ungrateful maids put on airs above their station?
Yes, you are supposed to tip, whether it’s a hotel, motel, or bed and breakfast. Calling other people ignorant because you are cheap is seriously asinine. You are not impressing anyone.
It means that the person hates ignorant statements by making plenty of them his/herself. It also means that the last sentence of the OP is really self-loathing that s/he knows about him/herself but cannot yet admit, so s/he finds a flimsy excuse to accuse another of it.
I’d be willing to guess that if I did a survey of everyone I know, less than 10% would even realize that you’re supposed to tip the hotel maids. I certainly never heard of it until the last 10 years or so, and I tend to be a pretty good tipper (at least in restaurants, which is the only place I go with any regularity where tipping is normal.)
And how are people supposed to know? Some hotels have special envelopes in the room for leaving tips, but the majority don’t. Heck, nowadays, it’s hard to find a piece of paper and a pen in the room so if you DID want to leave a tip, you could let housekeeping know this was for them, and not a random couple of bucks you left on the dresser.
It’s the greed of immigrant hotel chambermaids that’s causing the recession. I hate it when they clean toilets and then drive off in their fancy cars wearing their fancy jewelry. Didn’t Bernie Madoff use to work for an Hispanic chambermaid?
In the last year I stayed in six different hotels. Every single one had that envelope.
Are non-tipping hotel guests really in the habit of leaving a random couple of bucks on the dresser? Do chambermaids really not know that it was left for them?
I can’t remember specifically which ones but I’m fairly certain I remember a few that included an envelope specifically designed for tipping the maid service in the hotel.