Do you tip the housekeeping staff when you stay at a hotel? This is inspired by Phoebe in another thread.
I never do, and hardly think about it. When I travel, I'm normally staying for one night (on business) to stay in a budget hotel (Comfort Suites/Hampton Inn/Holiday Inn Express). Tipping isn't something that occurred to me, and I'm wondering if other people do.
Tip Hotel Staff?
Re: Tip Hotel Staff?
Yes - as you surmise from earlier comment, I do. But the amounts have been affected in recent years by these new policies where the hotel does not offer housekeeping services during your longer stay because I have to do my own housekeeping while I'm there. It seems unfair to staff but I also had to do my own cleaning and have limited cash. Normally I like to find a way to get a little money back into the hands of the local people who are actually providing the labor for the thing - be it the waiter who's bringing the food or the cleaner who's picking up your dirty towels. Often it seems they're at the end of a long chain after everybody else is getting paid your dollar, even though they do the crucial service.
The new practice of tipping at the counter with those little machines is very frustrating, by contrast. If the staff are doing something special - i.e. "service" is being accomplished - then I don't mind these tipping arrangements for counter staff. But it's uncomfortable when the only thing the person did was put item A in box B and ring up your purchase. Why am I tipping you, or being pressured to tip you because I have to click on various option buttons to get away from the tipping screen as you watch me decide not to give you money? Very uncomfortable, and that's even though I like to give them a dollar on top regardless. Worse yet, I watch as you dribble runny beans and slop sour cream on my burrito in desultory fashion, yet now you want a tip. Can I run through and whip up my own burrito instead?
There's an interesting inverse relation to the tipping of hotel staff here, because the work of the cleaning crew often goes on invisibly and they don't get an opportunity to ask you for a tip. Whereas these other people are not really providing service and then are explicitly asking for the tip to your face. That's weird.
I sometimes think it would be better if we got away from a tipping economy entirely and people got paid a better wage across the board. But people who collect tips as part of their work usually assure me that this is a better way and they benefit more from those tips. ?
Another weird thing is how people decide who gets what standard percentage. It doesn't seem to track the nature of the work very well. Like maybe we should tip nursing assistants before we tip people who box up your pizza.
(Because I can't stay on topic at all let me add: I recently was one of the last people off the plane at the end of the whole day and the night plane cleaning crew came on and started working before we deplaned. It was terrifying. There were like 20 people cleaning, all rushing as fast as possible as if they were paid by the plane vs by the hour, and they all paused to stare directly at me as I exited - but why? It was like they had never seen a passenger before and were horrified/intrigued. I said hi/thanks/bye as one does to a staring person and not one person reply or even twitched in response. Just wide-eyed staring, from like 20 inches away as one went past. It was so weird. It made me wonder if they were, like, mistreated somehow, kept in the airport basement or something. What the heck?! So weird, seriously.)
The new practice of tipping at the counter with those little machines is very frustrating, by contrast. If the staff are doing something special - i.e. "service" is being accomplished - then I don't mind these tipping arrangements for counter staff. But it's uncomfortable when the only thing the person did was put item A in box B and ring up your purchase. Why am I tipping you, or being pressured to tip you because I have to click on various option buttons to get away from the tipping screen as you watch me decide not to give you money? Very uncomfortable, and that's even though I like to give them a dollar on top regardless. Worse yet, I watch as you dribble runny beans and slop sour cream on my burrito in desultory fashion, yet now you want a tip. Can I run through and whip up my own burrito instead?
There's an interesting inverse relation to the tipping of hotel staff here, because the work of the cleaning crew often goes on invisibly and they don't get an opportunity to ask you for a tip. Whereas these other people are not really providing service and then are explicitly asking for the tip to your face. That's weird.
I sometimes think it would be better if we got away from a tipping economy entirely and people got paid a better wage across the board. But people who collect tips as part of their work usually assure me that this is a better way and they benefit more from those tips. ?
Another weird thing is how people decide who gets what standard percentage. It doesn't seem to track the nature of the work very well. Like maybe we should tip nursing assistants before we tip people who box up your pizza.
(Because I can't stay on topic at all let me add: I recently was one of the last people off the plane at the end of the whole day and the night plane cleaning crew came on and started working before we deplaned. It was terrifying. There were like 20 people cleaning, all rushing as fast as possible as if they were paid by the plane vs by the hour, and they all paused to stare directly at me as I exited - but why? It was like they had never seen a passenger before and were horrified/intrigued. I said hi/thanks/bye as one does to a staring person and not one person reply or even twitched in response. Just wide-eyed staring, from like 20 inches away as one went past. It was so weird. It made me wonder if they were, like, mistreated somehow, kept in the airport basement or something. What the heck?! So weird, seriously.)
Re: Tip Hotel Staff?
I do leave a tip for the hotel cleaning staff. Like Phoebe, it's changed in recent years. It used to be about $5 each day when they would clean the room. Now that they only clean the room once per stay, it's usually $5 per stay at the end of the stay, since they have the same amount of work to do as they used to do in one day (change towels, change sheets, take out trash, etc.). But I agree that it would be nice to move away from an economy that has some people relying on tips to one that just pays everyone an equitable, living wage right from the start.
Re: Tip Hotel Staff?
Yeah. So I'm a generous tipper in most situations that are traditional- normally tipping 20-25 percent. But these new hits on tipping- like every time you make a square payment, or when you're just picking up your food at the sandwich/cafe counter, I tip nothing. It feels like extortion to me because the person is looking you in the eye and I feel like most people feel bullied into it. On top of that, I've learned that at most of these extortion points, most if not all of the tip goes to the business not the employees. If I stayed at a hotel for multiple nights, id leave a modest tip, but not for these one off business tips.