Holiday Tipping in Large Apartment Building

I'm not sure food is the way to go.... at then end of the day people want cash (i think). one question, when you contribute to the fund does the staff know, ie- is there a card with the names of the people that contributed.
i will admit, this is a pickle.. i am struggling with my situation and not nearly as complex!

Food is not the thing to do....unless it's boxes of candy or food on the day of the holiday. That should be in addition to a monetary gift though.

Since you just moved in recently, you can give less. Basically, it's what you can afford...maybe $300-400 this year and next year $1,000 toward the holiday fund.

Here's your solution: Set up your own little "holiday tipping fund". Donate it to a homeless shelter or soup kitchen -- or any other charity that benefits people who REALLY need the money like the poor or the unemployed, rather than well-paid union workers with generous health and pension funds.

and hand out flyers to everyone in the building explaining what you did; and tell the staff on your way in and out, why you think they are lying cheating, holdup artists and why you are holier than thou.

report back. can't wait to hear how that works out for you.

CC, you're actually on to something!

Slip a card into the building's Extortion (Holiday Bonus) Box with a receipt from your favorite charity, showing that you made a donation in all of their names.

Their hearts will be warmed by your holiday spirit.

Cayeknight, I second Prada's comments. A few years ago, we lived in a fairly large rental building with many employees (although not nearly as many as 91- that's alot) which had a holiday fund collection box set up at the concierge desk. We put one check into the box to cover tipping for all employees. I think that you should give whatever amount you can comfortably afford- almost 100 building employees is a tremendous number to tip. I've not heard of giving food to building staff and I agree with Prada that if you choose to do so, then give food in addition to a monetary gift.

Cayeknight, I forgot to mention that I would suspect in a very large building such as your own that the individual building staff members have no idea how much was given by the tenants from each apartment. Maybe they somehow find out if a particular apartment gave no money towards the holiday fund collection-I don't know. If you give a few hundred dollars towards the fund, that's more than enough. Just give whatever amount is affordable for you.

NYCMatt...the people that work in my building are not union.

Prada ... at least they're WORKING.

Can you say that about everyone else in your building?

>>But then will they think that I'm being cheap? 3) The tenant I spoke to actually suggested just buying party trays of food for the different groups of staff (one for maintenance, one for concierge, one for doormen, etc<<

No, no, NO!! No one wants food. Terrible idea. Give cash or nothing at all. Actually, I kind of like Matt's idea...

My suggestion is $300 for the common fund for 1 bedroom assuming them do not provide any special services to you. If you like a few doormen or handymen in particular, $25 for each of them.

Ok.. I too have moved mid year into a large full service condo, but i am renting. staff is somewhere around 12-15 ... i was thinking 75 per doorman and concierge 50 per porter and 150 for the super... seem fair???

I have just closed on a coop with 45+ employees. The apartment is being renovated so I do not live there yet. There is no building-wide fund. So, what do I do?

if you are too cheap to tip during the holiday, dont live in a full service building

Take care of each staff member: buy him a nice bottle.

Again matt we are not well paid like you think we are. Try raising 3 kids on 1950 an hour in Nyc. Not very easy. Our health benefits are pretty good but the pension benefits are not that great. Im still trying to figure out why you hate staff so much when you choose to live in a building with staff.

agreed...you live in a big full service building than you pay the piper. this is an expensive city, it's the cost of doing business here

On behalf of all my staff in the building I made a donation to the Human Fund
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Human_Fund#The_Human_Fund

hey kevin - maybe you should be using your college degree to better use then if 20/hour does not cut it.

after tips it's probably 60k a year pre-tax. that's a lot for a job that does not need anything more than a high school degree.

sorry to be harsh but that's the reality.

"Again matt we are not well paid like you think we are. Try raising 3 kids on 1950 an hour in Nyc. Not very easy. Our health benefits are pretty good but the pension benefits are not that great. Im still trying to figure out why you hate staff so much when you choose to live in a building with staff."

First of all, I don't "hate" staff. I don't get where you're getting that. I live in a building where we pay staff salaries that THEY agree to work for. If at any time the "staff" feels their salaries aren't adequate, by all means they are welcome to leave and find employment elsewhere.

The fact of the matter is, as long as you limit yourself to menial tasks like opening doors for building residents, your pay is going to reflect the lack of skill and education it requires. If you need to earn more money, you need to work either longer hours (perhaps at a second job) or you're going to have to make yourself more valuable in the job market through education or improved skills.

It's not up to the building residents to compensate for your lack of initiative in trying to improve your financial situation. If you don't like making X dollars as a doorman, don't be a doorman. But in the meantime, you took the job as a doorman and agreed to the salary the doorman job paid.

Second, I'm sorry your pension benefits "aren't that great". But here's something you ought to try sometime: ask each building resident about THEIR pension plan, and see how "great" theirs are, compared to yours. I suspect the vast majority won't have even heard of a pension.

NYCMatt, you really are cheap!!
There is nothing else to say about you.

here's what is irking me.. in my pld building would tip the super and doorman i saw the most $100. they treated me like gold and it was nice to know for about 1k in total i had people that would watch out for me and my place.. that if i thought i left the curling iron i could call and someone would take a look.
last year i moved in to a new place on 12/23 and gave a few $100, and $50 tips... know what that got me
SH-T.
but i live in nyc in a full service building and that's the way it goes..

Matt is quick to address everybody's yearend bonus but has never mentioned his own. Mean cheap hypocrite, & that's just for starters. ICK.

I find it puzzling why everyone is so concerned with what value they receive from tipping the building staff. To me, it's just what people do when they live in a building with doormen, supers, porters, etc. My rental building has a staff of 19 and yes, some of the staff are more diligent than others, but overall I like living in a place where people know who you are and will help you if needed. Sometimes people are better than you think. In a building where I lived many years ago, we had a super who wasn't the best worker but when there was a fire in another apartment on my floor at midnight, the super really took charge of the situation and the cleanup afterwards. People spend thousands on dollars on vacations, etc.- why begrudge the staff that you see every day a few dollars at holiday time if you can afford to tip them. How much to tip and how to divide up the total amount among the building staff are definitely topics that are subject to discussion here.

"In a building where I lived many years ago, we had a super who wasn't the best worker but when there was a fire in another apartment on my floor at midnight, the super really took charge of the situation and the cleanup afterwards."

So in other words, he did his JOB.

Don't you do YOUR job during times of crisis, too?

when i had a job i did it well. and i received a generous holiday bonus, as was customary in my area of work. after fierce negotiations almost yearly for a raise that was consistent with the market.

you still haven't answered, matt, do you get a holiday bonus? do you deserve it?

AR, dahlink, Happy Holidays to you & yours. I finally got smart & put Matt on ignore; he's totally unlikable & full of blather. We KNOW he gets a handsome bonus & doesn't donate it to a worthy cause; but, my dear, he's so far superior to the rest of us. wink

Let's say if all the residents in OP"s building contribute $100 to the fund then each staff will get little over $1000. Isn't that not enough ?
I have seen people suggest me to tip $ 100 each. But in my building there are over 150 units. I don't think any doorman deserves to get $15.000 bonus.

hellkitty, the amount you tip is entirely up to you. in some buildings staff do get significant holiday bonuses. but you shouldn't, obviously, be overextending yourself to tip.

drdrd, and a very merry season to you and yours as well. matt is a strange bird. i don't have him on ignore because he rather frequently surprises me, he can be quite compassionate, although it is obviously situational.

I like reading Matt's comments as well and I'm sure that he has his reasons for his views on tipping building staff. He's not someone that I would consider using the ignore function for.

I think the passion these threads elicit are ridiculous. Unless you live in the same building as someone else, you're all in completely different situations. Each of your financial situations is completely different. Each of your morals/expectations are completely different. I realize the OP was asking for advice, and an opinion is fine, but it's just that, and getting worked up because one's opinion differs from someone else's seems silly to me.

I firmly believe that if you are great at your job, then you deserve a year-end bonus. At my job, I know people who get bonuses and people who don't, and those who don't are the result of not perfoming above average at their job. In my building, there's 2 porters, 2 doorwomen, and 1 super. The doorwomen arrive late and leave early more than they work a full shift. One takes frequent cigarette breaks, and is half-asleep during the morning shift; the other's head is down all the time because she is watching TV, never paying attention to who is coming into the building. In my 6 months in this building, no one has ever held a door open for me. My kitchen sink has been broke for 4 months and the super still hasn't fixed it. The porters sit around and chat most of the day. Therefore, I am not tipping anyone. Could I afford to give each person $50? Yes. Do they deserve it? Not in my opinion. If that means that they 'hold it against me' and don't treat me fairly, then they're not good people. If I didn't get a bonus and then started ignoring requests from my boss or co-workers, I'd be fired.

FYI, most buildings if not all give their staff a cash bonus in addition to what residents pay. The staff bonus is tax free as they never report to IRS. Most staff get tips during the year pretty much doing their job as well. In a large building staff actually works less since there is more staff. However, some think they should give same per staff in a 300 unit building as they give in 100 unit building. If so, the staff in 300 unit building would make 3X more for working less. There is a reason why there is no shortage for these job. You must know somebody to get these jobs.

I'm also struggling with the tip thing. Everything I google says that I should give like $25-$50 for each doorman and $75-100 for the super.

First, the super is a ghost. I never see or hear from him, and when I do talk with him, he's worthless. But regardless. Let's say that he's great. So great that in addition to the fact that I pay an extra 10% rent in order to pay the salaries of these people, I choose to tip them.

My building has 480 units. So if I give my super $100, and each doorman $50, and every other apartment does the same thing, the super is making $50k in bonuses this year? The doorman is making $25k? Are you fn kidding me?

Most people in the city making one month's salary bonus. Maybe 10% of their annual salary if it's nice. The "suggested" guidelines that I'm seeing are basically 50-75% of these guys' wages. It's insanity.

Especially with buildings like mine (where there are 25-30 names on the list) or the OP's building where there are 70. It's just asinine to assume that I'm going to give a $50 tip to people I have never seen in my life and provide no excess value to me beyond what I'm paying extra rent for.

I'm sorry, but my suggestion (and what I will do for the building I've lived in for three months) is to give $20-$40 each to the doormen I see every day, a couple handymen, and the guy who runs the mailroom. If I don't know, you don't get jack.

JPC- i am of the belief you should do what you feel is the right thing to do... Based upon what you have described and the current economic climate your tips are perfect.

What I feel is the right thing to do is that they don't get any tip. Unfortunately, I'd be a pariah if I actually did that.

I would just love a real, scientific survey that shows what people typically give. What the distribution is. Because even though everything I read online says that I'm really cheap, I don't buy it. I don't believe that people are actually giving $150 tips to doormen. Or $50 tips to 10 different doormen.

"What I feel is the right thing to do is that they don't get any tip. Unfortunately, I'd be a pariah if I actually did that."

And this is precisely why the whole "tradition" should be thrown out: people being coerced into forking over money out of fear and intimidation.

The legal term for this is "racketeering".

JPCrecom - there are choices other than "pariah" and "martyr"

If you only believe what you want to believe, I'm sure you'll be just fine.

JPC- i agree in that i wish people would say what they give rather then pontificate the merits of blah blah blah.
i will be honest- i own and tipped about $900 in total. doorman $125 the high, $40 the low. staff from $25-$75.
anyone that wants to jump all over me and tell me i should have done xyz, go ahead.

I agree as well. Last year we gave a total of $600-700 to our building staff. After reading the many discussions on holiday tipping, I realized that I was unintentionally undertipping so I increased my tips for our 2 bedroom rental. We gave a little over $1000 in total to the building staff of 19. I gave my favorite doorman $100, most of the other doormen $75 and the few parttime doormen $50. I gave each of the two handymen $75, the super got $150 and the porters and elevator operators various amounts from $40-$50. This will be the last time that I will be tipping the staff for the holidays since we're leaving the building when our lease is up. I've gotten to know most of the staff over the past 6 years and I really like most of them and find them very easy to deal with. Hope this helps, JPC.

JPC - we *do* have these threads pretty consistently, where members tell exactly what they give. Unfortunately, they're often derailed by one member who doesn't accept points of view that differ from his own, and would rather dramatically stamp his feet than let the other members get what they need out of this online community.

There are some numbers to be found in this thread if you ignore the posters who can't seem to follow the plot:
http://streeteasy.com/nyc/talk/discussion/15978-holiday-tipping-no-beatings-please

JPC, if you are fortunate enough to make six figures (and if you are on this board you probably are) then at some point you've probably gone out for a nice expensive meal at Gramercy Tavern or Bouley or Nobu, and after three hours of eating, you've tipped $50. The point is that people who wait on you all year round deserve at least that.

We tipped most of our doormen at our old building $50 -- last year they got $100, but we were only there half the year, and frankly it's been a terrible year for my business. But then we tipped in our new building. When you spread it all out with super, handymen, porters, mailman, etc. I think this year our total pot was just under $800.

ali r.
{downtown broker}

I can't believe I'm going to agree with that bum-basher, Matt. But he has one point dead on: These turkeys can NOT start whining about their pensions...who the eff gets a pension in corporate america anymore?? We get a 401(k), but that's a gov't law. The employer may - or, increasingly, may NOT - match your contribution to said 401(k). Other than that, for most of us, the only "pension" we'll get is what we can save for retirement. I'm sick of fed'l gov't employees, schoolteachers, etc whine about their pay when they leave work at 4pm (instead of the 7 or 8pm I routinely do), and then get REE-DICK-U-LUS!! pensions, not to mention getting cashed out $85,000 for the 714 "sick days" they never took. What. A. Joke.

These fancy pensions have been phased out in most cases; "gov't employees" --- "civil servants" etc., etc. who started their jobs in the past ten years or so mostly DO NOT get pensions. They get 403(b)s.
But on the topic of tips and the OP's quandary, here's an opinion: She should bite the bullet and carry around lots and lots of twenties, and give one to each of the workers when she bumps into them this holiday season. Yes, even if you've already given to the general fund.

Hugh - here's a hint. Reread the thread, including your post, and try to honestly identify who is "whining" about pensions.

""civil servants" etc., etc. who started their jobs in the past ten years or so mostly DO NOT get pensions."

Not if they're union -- which most of them ARE.

Heh. Every major media company of which I am aware (including the one which employs me) provides a "fancy pension."

I can't speak for people in other industries, but anyone who's engaging in this conversation and employed by a media company is almost certainly getting a pension and a nice fat bonus for 2009, and can't exactly claim the high ground when attempting to compare how they've got it *sooooo much harder* than doormen. Naturally, I'm just speaking for those in media - not sure if any of the active participants in this thread fit that bill.

What's wrong with Matt's comments? It may not be completely accurate, but he has a point. Is that what you do to everyone who doesn't share your point of view? Put them on ignore? How very biased and narrow minded your world must be.

TIPs are supposed to insure proper service and there is a difference between doing the job and doing it well. If you think your service is proper then TIP. It's a nice touch. Yes, it is somewhat expected, but if you can afford to live in such a building I'm pretty sure you can afford to TIP something

That having been said, I live in a co-op building with 15 staff members and there's a fund which gets distrubited evenly among all the staff. My husband and I have lived there for a year so I was thinking $300?