<p>alwaysamom, it’s hard to imagine that anyone on CC is older than me…
But I worked in a “fancy” steak house, so maybe that’s why we were paid the exorbitant sum of $1.09 per hour.</p>
<p>I leave the tip on the nightstand, usually half under the lamp or telephone. I leave $2 a day when I am traveling alone, and not making much of a mess - more if the whole family is staying. I usually leave the tips at the end of my stay, but reading this thread I see reasons to leave daily tips. I have wondered about how this is handled since multiple people are cleaning on different days. I assumed that tips were pooled and shared.</p>
<p>dmd77, waiters are NOT paid minimum wage. The restaurants are allowed to consider the “average” tip when calculating the hourly rate. S3 is currently making a little over $2 per hour. When people are significantly under tipping or sneaking out on checks, he can average less than the hourly wage. One night he had a huge party of 20+ people and 2 snuck out while 2 were arguing about their check (nothing was wrong). The only thing that allowed him to make any money that night at all was the manager took pity on him and compt’d it so he did not have to cover the skipped checks. Of course he did not get any tips on those, though.</p>
<p>Singersmom: I said that in Washington and Oregon, waiters are paid minimum wage. [BlueOregon:</a> Federal Minimum Wage Would Reduce Oregon’s](<a href=“http://www.blueoregon.com/2006/08/federal_minimum.html]BlueOregon:”>Federal Minimum Wage Would Reduce Oregon's - BlueOregon)</p>
<p>Your location is in Virginia. I was referring to Washington STATE.</p>
<p>yeah, many people I’ve roomed with thought it was strange, too. </p>
<p>little do people know that housekeeping folks get paid less than minimum wage on the assumption that they’ll be getting tips. when i say that, they always react with disbelief, and im ususally the only one paying it.</p>
<p>a few times the housekeepers left a nice note.</p>
<p>i figure it’s the least I can do for someone who works day in and day out doing demanding labour for people who are wealthier than them. </p>
<p>that and when I’ve been on model UN trips in cities I always give some of my change from meals to homeless folks on the street.</p>
<p>Having grown up with a mother that lived on tips (quarters, dimes, and nickels, hardly ever paper), and having done YEARS living on tips, and now D lives on tips, we ALWAYS do a $2 per person per night tip to housekeeping, and as stated above, I put the tip next the bathroom sink, folded into a piece of paper on which I write “THANK YOU HOUSEKEEPING!”</p>
<p>I think it’s a “dying” courtesy but one I feel needs doing. Last winter when I rented an apartment in NYC with my best friend for a week, she made my day when she found the young woman who cleaned our unit twice while we were there, and gave her $20. Then again, my friend also lived on tips for years!</p>
<p>momof3sons…I worked for $1.35 an hour plus tips. Pathetic!</p>
<p>I have been more careful about making sure to leave a tip for the maid at the hotel ever since we read Nickled and Dimed with our mother daughter book club when the girls were in 7th or 8th grade (an eye opener for the girls and a good refresher/reminder for the moms).</p>
<p>^yeah, i agree with that. it’s a necessary read for privileged, college-bound kids. </p>
<p>we all need to appreciate our blessings.</p>
<p>dmd77 I stand corrected for the few (Alaska, California, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Minnesota and Nevada, plus the territory of Guam.) states for which it does not apply. For most people, the $2.13 per hour applies. We have never lived in the part of the country where the min wage plus tips applied. It would be a good law for everyone.</p>
<p>I’m proud that when my kids travel on their own now for school events, etc. they tell me that they’ve tipped (w/no reminders from Mom). If I ask, their response is “Well, DUH, Mom. Of course!” </p>
<p>We had S1 & S2 read Nickel and Dimed and The World is Flat the summer before 9th and 11th grades. Made for lots of interesting conversations, an appreciation for hard work and the importance of a good education as a way to improve one’s options in life. Before he was laid off last summer, S2 worked in catering and in the warehouse and got a real education.</p>
<p>I was a hotel maid for a summer in a resort area when I was in college. We were paid a true pittance (hotel put us up in rooms in the unheated basement - - in May on an island in Lake Michgan - - and charged us for the privilege). They said we would get tips to make up for the low wages, but tips were few and far between… I would say that 1 of every 20 customers tipped us. Sometimes our manager would come through and go ahead of us to “check” every room to see if the customers were gone; I always suspected she was swiping the tips meant for us (so maybe it wasn’t really 1 in 20 at all!). They told us not to take food left in the rooms because “it might be poisoned”, but it was obvious that some customers were leaving it for the maids. Fudge was a very common treat left for us :)</p>
<p>intparent: any chance you’re talking about mackinac? if so, i vacationed there with my family a few times while we were growing up. (resort area, island in lake michigan, fudge…perhaps the Grand?)</p>
<p>i’ve also never heard to tip housekeeping. i’ve worked plenty of service jobs thus far though (i’ve run the gamut of holiday retail help + restaurants + banquets/events) and will DEFINITELY start tipping housekeeping. thanks!</p>
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<p>I already pay way too much for the food (or in this thread the hotel). Why should I be expected to pay their employees as well? I’ll guarantee the CEO’s salary doesn’t come from tips… s/he probably makes a nice little profit.</p>
<p>I’d be curious… do you guys also tip your mechanic? the register clerk at the store? a nurse? a physical therapist? the list goes on and on…</p>
<p>I always tip $5 a night.</p>
<p>hops_scout: Tipping hotel housekeepers is considered a social norm, while it’s not for the other occupations you mentioned. Employers are able to pay hotel housekeepers a menial wage because new hires are told they’ll get tips. The reality is that two-thirds of hotel guests don’t tip housekeepers.</p>
<p>A year or two ago, NPR aired a segment about a writer who went undercover as a hotel housekeeper. She found that hotel housekeepers rarely stay on the job more than a year. Why? They’re poorly paid for physically demanding work. They usually don’t get benefits such as sick days and health insurance unless they’re part of a union. The worst part, however, was the way hotel housekeepers were treated by guests. The writer said she felt invisible, at best.</p>
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Because the entire structure is set up this way and unless you live in those few states that enforce minimum wage, $2.13 an hour is not enough. If you don’t like this, then join the fight to get legislation to mandate the minimum wage for waiters and all in the service industries. The others you list are not comparable since they get minimum or professional wages whose foundation is not based on tips. . And do you tip your barber or hairstylist? Bellhop? Taxi driver? that list does on, too. And yes I do. If you are not going to tip your waiter, go to McDonald’s where the counter staff gets minimum wage or more. .</p>
<p>Yes we always leave a tip, $5 per day. I didn’t know about leaving a note though. Well that makes sense if you do a daily tip. If it’s at the end of the stay, I would think it less necessary.</p>
<p>We always tip, but when we suspected that the manager was “checking the rooms” in advance of the housekeepers, we searched out the cleaning person to give the tip to her directly.</p>
<p>Kristen5792, it was Mackinac Island, but not the Grand Hotel (maybe the fudge was the giveaway 
). </p>
<p>I do leave a tip daily (not at the end of the stay), because you might have someone different clean the room each day. Then the last person gets the whole tip.</p>
<p>I assume it was an exception that our manager snitched the tips, I don’t think it happens everywhere.</p>
<p>hm, i hadn’t considered the whole managers-taking-the-tips business. i’ll try to give it to the folks directly from now on :)</p>
<p>We always leave the tip at the end of the stay, but maybe now that I’ve read this thread, I’ll start leaving it daily, allowing for a change of staff. I’d never heard that mentioned before.</p>