I live in a building that has about seven doormen. Three of them I see all the time, the other four more sporadically.
The holidays are coming up and I need to start handing out tips to the building staff. I’ve decided to tip the two porters and the super, and at least the three regular doormen. It’s the other four that I’m not sure about. I’m giving everyone $50, so that’s $300 already. Should I spend more money on staff I barely even know about?
What would you do?
Everybody who lives in a doorman building seems to run into this issue. The generally-accepted philosophy (which I agree with) is to tip the people you see every day or almost every day, and the super. So the fulltime doorman yes, the guy who fills in for four hours on Saturday no. (That guy probably works fulltime at another building anyway. Neighboring buildings often have staff fill in for each other, especially in Brooklyn.)
If you line them up just right, one ought to do the trick.
It is what these people say about you behind your back which counts. If you tip everyone, then they will all say and agree that “so and so in apartment xx” is a really good person, etc.
That kind of reputation can come in quite handy sometimes!
On the other hand, a tenant who has a reputation for being nasty and so forth may find certain things don’t get done, packages don’t get delivered correctly, things don’t get repaired, etc.
So best to give everyone something is my thinking. If $50 is too much for your budget, then make it $25 or a less expensive gift. It is the thought which counts! And for those on a tight budget, a simple Christmas card along with a “Thank You” will do.
I’ve heard of building that dealt with this by having a pool, you put your tips in there and let the doormen fight it out amongst themselves for a share. Be really cool if they literally fought it out down in the parking garage, have the tenants place bets and give the winner an additional prize from the percentage of the betting. Then the winning doormen from different buildings could duke it out for the World Doorman Championship. You could get that one on pay-per-view.
If the other four doorman are there full time, but you don’t see them as often because of the hours you keep, then I’d tip them the same amount. If they’re part-time then I usually tip them a commensurate amount.
At my building, they ask residents to pool the tips into a box in the leasing office, they then split it between the door people and the maintenance staff. There’s one maintenance guy who often watches premier league soccer with me on weekend mornings as well as allows me to borrow tools, so he’ll get a separate gift card aside from the communal tip pool.
That’s what they do in my building, too. If I had to do it separately, I’d still tip them all, for the reasons Me_Billy brings up.
Could they be wearing the fanciest of doorman dress while fighting?
http://redraiders.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/superphoto/11088410.jpg
I think the audience would insist on it.
Tip the smallest and weakest and let Natural Selection take its course. It’s the only way you can ensure that the best and strongest doorman will survive to win a mate and pass on his superior doorman genes.