I think all management is clueless!

Yesterday I was at work and I saw one of my former co-workers coming out of the cuban restaurant next door to the hotel. Now, for the life of me I could not remember this guy's name but I recognized him instantly and he recognized me. After waiving to one another he started walking towards me and we shook hands and asked one another how each other was doing.

Where you working these days?" I asked.

"I work the front desk just down the street at the Stay Hotel." He asked.

"Oh yeah? I said. "I heard it's nice there. What's it like working there?"

"It's OK I guess." Was his reply.  "How about you? How's work here going?."

"It's totally fucked here man." I stated coldly. I don't think anybody here really knows what the fuck they are doing. It's like the blind leading the blind. I have no confidence in any of my managers or co-workers for that matter. It's amazing we get good reviews online. I honestly don't know how we keep it all together."

"Same thing at the Stay man" he says while nodding in agreement. "Nobody has a clue."

"Really? That's comforting to here. I'd love to work at the Four Seasons or the Mandarin Oriental so I could know what a REAL hotel functions like." I said envisioning a happy hotel work environment where employees are liked by their managers and co-workers and all employees respect their managers because they are fair and have been trained properly by a competent corporate office.

"I don't think it would make any difference" he said quickly shattering the Beaver Cleaver-like work environment I was envisioning.

"Why is that?" I asked inquisitively.

"I think all management is clueless in every industry across the world. Take a look at the Wall St. crisis for God's Sake." He continued to carefully explain himself. All businesses are run by people and all people are by definition, imperfect. Businesses are built upon human relationships which are by and large, very confusing. Corruption, favoritism, resentment, bad decision making; these are all common traits that define human relationships. Whether you are at the Waldorf Astoria or the Best Western downtown, you are going to be disapointed in your leadership because they will always let you down simply by being human."

"That's a very interesting point." I say

Looking into the lobby of the hotel he asks "who's working behind the front desk today? Is that Natasha?"

"Yeah, unfortunately." I reply. "That one is the worst of them all."

"I'm gonna go in there and kick some game, hopefully I'll be able to hit that soon." He says.

"I'd wish you good luck but I don't think you'll need it." I say.  "Bagging that girl is about as easy as a game of 'Whack-a-mole."

As he went inside I found myself thinking a lot about the words we exchanged. I've often dreamt about leaving R&B hotels to find someplace with a more competent management staff. However, high seniority, a comfortable schedule and undeclared cash tips always leave me where I am. Listening to one of my former co-workers talk about how incompetence runs rampant across our industry and the world at large, leaves me with happy feeling.

My life as a tipper: Part I

So far I've written a whole lot about my life being a tipped employee so now I want to talk a little about my life as a tipping customer. I’m going to put myself under the microscope as it were. Now, let me just give you a little history about my upbringing as a tipper.

I was raised in restaurants. From the age of 8 to 18 my parents owned a nice café called "Stevie’s" on the main street of a small town in the Pacific Northwest. "Stevie's" served wonderful, high quality sandwiches during the day and fantastic, homemade pasta and sauces at night. Prior to opening "Stevie’s," my dad was an executive chef and my mom managed the front of the house of several restaurants. I was always the little kid you see in the back corner of the restaurant scribbling in coloring books or playing with a Transformer. Sometimes I would get to hang out in my dad’s office and play on the computer but since this was 1985, computer games weren’t much more entertaining than a coloring book.

At about 5 my parents put me to work just to keep me busy. By the time I was 9, I was working the lunch shift at "Stevie’s." I could work the register, make milk shakes, bus tables, wash dishes, make salads, shit, I even worked the grill sometimes. I guess you could say I learned the value of an honest days work at a young age. There weren't a whole lot of tips coming out of "Stevie’s" so I never really considered them as part of my income.

When I was in college, the restaurant industry was an easy job to get since I had so much experience. I started out bussing tables and by the time I got my degree, I had also graduated to server. Since I had earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in French, there weren't a whole lot of job openings seats when I graduated. Apparently French speakers aren’t in high demand in the current U.S. job market. Besides, I was a musician. I didn't want a 9-5 job. I wanted a flexible schedule and quick easy cash so I could make rehearsals and gigs. Say what you will about waiting tables but quick easy cash and flexible schedules are the two things waiting tables is good for.

I eventually got a job as a banquet server (in which all money is made off of the 18% gratuity added to all large checks in the U.S. to ensure nobody is ever stiffed on a party of more than 6) at the Seattle property of my current company, which made it easy to get my current job as a bellman upon moving to New York City. Basically since college, I have been in a tipped position. In turn, as far back as I can remember, I have been a good tipper.

Since I was a child, I was taught that you tip a Waiter 15-20% based on the quality of service. These days I tip between 10-30% but I typically rest at a solid 20%. When I do tip, I tip in cash since learning about how little restaurants pay their employees and how badly server's tips get taxed. Leaving a tip on a credit card means that your server will only see about 75% of that gratuity. I'd like to think I'm a good tipper, at least in the top 10%. 

That being said, if you fuck up my experience at your restaurant, I will let my tip do the talking for how I felt about your service. I know how to wait tables and I know the industry. If the restaurant is full and you have a lot of tables, I understand the feeling of "being in the weeds" and will grant you a large margin of error. I don't expect flawless service when you are exuberantly busy. I will allow for extra time to get my food and get checked up on and still tip a good 20% if you made every effort you could. However, if the restaurant is empty and you are forgetting things or copping an attitude with me when I ask for small things like sides of mayo, I'm gonna tip 10%. I know the difference between someone who is busy and overwhelmed and someone who is just being a cranky bitch (or jerkoff depending on gender.) I will never stiff a waiter unless they have offended me beyond belief.

It wasn't until I got to New York that I really learned how to tip in other facets of life. For example, I tip NYC Cabbies about 10% of the fare. If they are nice, their cab is clean and they don't complain about having to take me to Brooklyn or lock all their doors and ask me where I am going first, I will probably tip 20%. However, most cabbies in this city are ETREME ASSHOLES and will either be coarse and rude when you tell them where you are going or talk on their phones in a language you don't understand the whole way (or both) and to me, that is not worth more than a dollar or two of compensation for their efforts. In addition, if your cab isn't clean and smells like B.O, that doesn't really help your chance for extra money. 

Working as a Doorman on the streets of New York City, I deal with the cabbies of this town every day and let me tell you, they are a special bunch. Of course there is always exceptions to the rule. I have met some very genuinely good guys who drive cabs over the years. But, for the most part, they are self serving, greedy people who are on a lack of sleep, too much caffeine in their system and have been sitting in New York city traffic for the better part of 12 hours. Would you believe me if I told you that one time I caught a cab driver shitting and pissing in a jar in the back seat of his taxi? It’s true! I told him all he had to do was ask and I’d let him use our bathroom. Better that than him using our loading zone as a port-a-potty! Cabbies are not the best people to have to work with. I’ll go further into depth on my relationships with NYC cabbies at a later date.

In New York, ordering take out is a huge part of a restaurants business so every business has a Delivery Guy. Now these are the most shit upon tipped employees in all of New York, perhaps the world! I take pity on these guys and normally tip them about 20%. Most of these workers are illegal immigrants or at the very least, employees whose English skills aren’t strong enough to actually work in the restaurant. They may not wait on you and use their charm and wit to make you smile like a server in a restaurant does, nor do they clean up after you when you are done. However, these guys risk life and limb riding their bikes or mopeds through New York City traffic to bring you the food you are too lazy to go pick up yourself. Same thing goes for grocery, cigarette, weed or beer delivery guys (all of which exist in the greater New York area.) Oh yeah, if you order delivery during a fucking rain storm, tip the guy an extra 10% on top of what you normally tip him. How much would you want to get paid to deliver someone’s food to them in the middle of a rainstorm? It goes for getting a taxi in the rain as well. (See earlier blog post “Is it hard to get a cab?”

NYC Bartenders, tip them $1 per drink. If they comp drinks for you or buy you a shot, you better take good care of 'em!

That concludes part I of the series of my life as a tipper. Be sure to stay tuned for my next lesson: "Tipping while at Hotels!"

Cheap CEO

Now, it comes with the territory in my line of work that you have to deal with some pretty cheap people on a daily basis.  Sometimes the cheapest people you deal with, are the ones with the most money. For instance, my friend used to work at a upscale hotel in Midtown and Dwight Freeney of the Indianapolis Colts was staying at the hotel. During his stay Mr. Freeney requested a very rare and expensive bottle of tequila be sent to his room.  Knowing this man was a V.I.P.  the hotel managers made several calls and finally located a bottle of the rare agave drink in a liquor store the lower east side. They called the football player to let them know they had located a bottle of the tequila in the city and that it would be comped and delivered to his room within the hour. They gave a bellman money for the bottle and cab fare and sent him downtown to go pick it up. About a half hour later he returned with the bottle and delivered it the the defensive lineman's suite. The mammoth athlete arrived at the door with and accepted the bottle from the bellman with a thank you and a $3 tip!!!

A $3 TIP!!!!!! This is a guy who signed a 6 year, $72 million contract in 2007 with a $30 million signing bonus. Now I'm sure taxes are a bitch but I'm also pretty sure that a guy making $12 million a year can afford more than a $3 tip. I have found that professional athletes, for the most part, are pretty bad tippers considering the money that they make. This story of a cheap NFL athlete, while shocking and absurd, has nothing on what happened to me last week.

At the Times Square Marriot Marquis last week, there was a big convention for hospitality industry.  All the big wigs of the hotel business throughout the country were in town, including the CEO from my company's home office in San Francisco. The man is know as Leon Khackiss and after a week of free hotel rooms and comped meals in New York City, it was time for this mogul of business (who I happen to know for a fact makes an easy 7 figures a year) to check out of his hotel room. My "kiss ass" of a general manager, Rufus Benniss, arranged for a beautiful 2011 cranberry colored Masarati to pick him up and take him to the airport.  As the car arrived with his name in the passenger side window, Mr. Khackiss was shocked and surprised at the ride. He had no idea that my GM had set it up and thanked me for arranging the car.  Since I didn't have any knowledge at the time that Rufus had arranged for the car either, I took credit for it.

"Wow, what a beautiful car." Leon said with a big smile on his face. "Thank you so much Dylan."

"No problem Mr. Khackiss sir." I said back to him. "I'm glad we could send you back home in style."

As I open the door for him, my co-worker Soo-Soo grabs his bags and puts them in the trunk. Leon pulls out his wallet and as he flips through several $20 and $100 bills,  he stops and pulls out two $1 bills and says to us:

"I know it's very meek. I know it's very meager, but spread the wealth." As he says this he takes one of the bills in each hand and gives it to each one of us individually. As we accept the shitty tips with a look of shock on our faces, he hops in his free Masarati to head back to his beautiful home in the bay area.

Now, let's just analyze the situation for a second.  This man is the CEO of a major hotel company. He makes over a million dollars each year, plus bonuses, and stays at all of his properties for free.  His meals are comped as are his rides to and from the airport. I'm pretty sure his airplane tickets are free also (or at least tax deductible.) The only expenses he incurs on these business trips are personal shopping and tips. To top it off, we are HIS employees! He is making upwards of 25x my annual income and he can't even take care of his own people. It's not like $10-$20 would send his life into a tailspin. He is familiar with the industry and knows damn well that tipped employees get paid less than all other employees at the hotel. In addition, he knows damn well how fucking expensive it is to live in a city like New York.  He must have some sort of concept that the doormen and bellmen who work at every hotel of his depend on tips to pay their rent and buy their groceries (and drugs and alcohol as well.)

I can tolerate a European man giving me a dollar for bringing his family to their rooms when they check in or for grabbing them a taxi and loading up their bags when they check out because they simply don't know any better. However, for the CEO of of my hotel's corporate office to tip $1 is so fucking insulting that I don't even know how to fully express my frustration. I hope I've done a semi-decent job of it here.

I hope someone out there feels my pain! 

Tipping Rules (Stolen)

While searching online yesterday for more people who are doing blogs similar to mine I stumbled across this web page: Tips

This page has several pages for all sorts of service industry employees but I found myself reading the following and laughing my ass off about it:

 Lets start with some basics for the beginners:

• The Bellman IS the most important staff member in any hotel. The bellman has the ability to make or break your stay, making it either enjoyable, or a living hell. How you tip him/her is tantamount to the outcome of your stay.
• If you carry your own bags when you stay at a hotel, you are a loser. You probably went out and bought suitcases with wheels on them just just you wouldn't have to part with a few precious dollars as a tip to a bellman. Many Hotel's Bellstaff's are currently installing small devices in the floors of their lobby that will melt any and all suitcase wheels that pass over them. So you better use a bellman any way before those cute little wheels become a black smear on my lobby floor. I wouldn't want to have to bother housekeeping with cleaning up your ignorance.
• Don't even bother to ask if you can borrow a Bellman's cart. This is comparable to approaching a Taxi driver, telling him you need a ride to the airport, and when the driver says "hop in", you say "No, I just wanted to borrow your car". See the similarities? If you borrow MY cart, how the fuck am I supposed to make any money? Get a clue.
• Don't make the assumption that just because we're polite to you means that we like you. Its our job to suck up to schmucks like you because we works for tips. Nothing is worse than sucking up to real loser upon check-in, working your ass off, only to receive a ONE DOLLAR TIP! That will NOT help me make my Mortgage payment this month.
• If your room is not ready upon check-in, and you wish us to store your bags, TIP US! You should tip your Bellman EVERY TIME he touches your bags. We like to rummage through the bags of non-tippers to see EXACTLY what you might be carrying in your luggage. Don't even think about locks, I haven't met one that will hold up to a sturdy paperclip.

Now, this guy may be a little abrasive and not really ground in reality but he makes some good points don't you think? To read more (including a bellman tip sheet) please visit bellman tips.

That's all, just thought I'd share! And if there are anymore of you service employee bloggers out there, make yourself known. I will most definitely put you on my blogroll!

Little Helpers

Yesterday one of the housekeeping managers was called into work on her day off.  She had no where to bring her daughters so she brought them to the hotel and left them in the care of the hostess at the restaurant.  After pizza, french fries a couple sliders and an hour or so of coloring in their coloring book, the young girls started to get restless and run around the restaurant with reckless abandon. The restaurant was closed for lunch so the children's energy wasn't affecting any of the guests. Who it was affecting was the hostess who still had the task of taking room service orders and setting up the complimentary iced tea that the hotel offers for free during the summer time.

Mallory, the hostess, was starting to get a little too busy and she couldn't keep up with the girls for much longer. It was about 1:30, one of the slowest times of day, so I decided that I would intervene. I like kids and I enjoy playing with them so long as I don't have to make them feel better when they start crying.  I started out by offering the 3 and 5 year olds rides on the bell cart around the lobby. They soon grew tired of these and wanted to ride on the cart in the elevator.  I needed to deliver bags to one of the rooms of our regulars who was still at the office so I figured they could come with me.

I loaded up our regular's bags on the cart and told them to hop on. We got off the elevator and I dragged the cart full of luggage and children towards the suite. As soon as I opened the door the kids hopped off the cart and went running around the suite. I unloaded the bags and set them up on luggage racks in the room. The girls tried to help but the bags were way to heavy for them and couldn't even lift them off the cart.

As we left the 5 year old says "Boy your job sure is fun. Do you have fun doing your job?"

"No, not really." I replied. "But it's fun sometimes."

"Well I had a lot of fun and I wish I could do it all the time." She responded

"Well it's a lot more fun when you're the one getting pulled around than when you are doing the pulling, but I'm glad you had a good time."

"Yeah, I had a great time" chimed in the 3 year old.

The whole scenario struck me as funny as we descended in the elevator and I dropped them back off in the restaurant.  Maybe my job really is fun. Maybe it only seems like work because I think of it as fun, as something I have to do and not because I want to do it.  But that's just like any job right? All in all, two little girls spent 5 minutes helping me do my job and they thought it was pretty damn cool.  I think that's more than a lot of people can say and that alone puts a nice big smile on my face.

Take extra special care... of your Bellman!

I'm constantly amazed at the things people say when I'm storing their luggage.  They will always say things like "Oh, please be careful with that, it's got my laptop in it" or "can you take extra special care of that bag, it's fragile" or "Can you make sure nothing goes on top of that bag, it's very expensive." These same people that request my special attention to their precious luggage, stiff me!

I understand the desire to have your valuable handled with finesse, I do the same thing when I have to store my luggage. The difference is, I tip people when I ask them to do something special for me. It is a scientific fact that service industry employees listen better and are much more adept to helping you out when you are in the process of giving them money. Think about it. If you ask a guy to get you a table right away in a very crowded restaurant as a favor, he'll probably just say you should have made a reservation. If you ask for a table in a crowded restaurant and slip the guy a $20, chances are he's gonna take extra special care of you and get you the table that you wanted very quickly.

If a guy slips me $5 while he's telling me that his bag is fragile and he would appreciate it being treated as such, chances are I'm gonna put that fragile bag on a high shelf in the safest part of the bell closet. If a guest asks me to take extra special care of their stuff and doesn't take care of me, chances are those bags are gonna get thrown around the bell closet like a god damn beach ball. What incentive did you give me to give you extra special service? 

I'm sorry folks, but this is New York City. The only people who get extra special service and attention in this city, are the ones who pay for it!

It's always Sunny in....

A few years back, when I had only been in New York about 8 months, Danny DeVito stayed at our little boutique hotel in Times Square.  I didn't know it at the time but his new show "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" had just concluded it's second season.  The second season was the first season as a cast member for Mr. DeVito.  I didn't know it at the time but the other stars of the show (Rob McElhenney, Glenn Howerton, Kaitlin Olson and Charlie Day) began showing up in the lobby accompanied by film crews and began doing interviews right there in the lobby.  Had I known who these people were, I'm sure I would have been much more excited than I was.  


During his stay with us, Mr. DeVito was super cool. He would come down to the lobby to hang out with the staff and bullshit with the girls at the front desk about what songs he had just put on his iPod or where he was going for dinner that night before his ride showed up.  I'll say one thing, he has an incredible amount of confidence for someone who is so small and strange in his appearance.  But I guess that's exactly what makes him such an intriguing star.  It's easy for someone like Jessica Alba or Brad Pitt to be a star because half the time, they don't need to say anything in order for people to want to watch them.  Good looking stars need only smile or show some skin for people to ogle and fawn over them.  I think Josh Hartnett is a terrific example of this point. Movie stars that aren't physically flawless must carry something else about them that draws people to them.  Stars such as Mr. DeVito or Paul Giamatti carry an allure that is accompanied by confidence and acting talent that defines them so much more than their physical attributes.


But I digress from my story. The next day that the front desk calls us on the radio.  "Front desk to bellman." 


"Go for the bellmen" I reply


"Room 1504 needs help with luggage." The front desk responded.  Now it was well known throughout the hotel who was staying in that room for the week.  Since I was the new guy on shift I asked the guys with more seniority if they wanted to help Mr. DeVito down. 


"Naw, you go ahead" said Lenny the brutishly handsome Puerto Rican Bellman that had been working there for 5 years already. Lenny is incredibly nice and gentle but dumb as a freaking newel post. Behind his back we often call him the Big Dummy. "I checked him" he said slowly. "You can check him out."


"Gladly" I replied as I grabbed a bell cart and headed towards the elevators. The elevator stopped at the 15th floor and I got out and headed towards his room.  I knocked on the door and said "Good Afternoon, Bellman here!" in a upbeat and chipper voice.


The short and stalky man answered the door and let me in.  He had only two pieces of luggage that he probably could have handled on his own but instead allowed us to do our job of doing the work for him and let our guest take it easy during their stay.  You'd be amazed how many people these days struggle with bags all the way up to their rooms because they are not willing to let someone else take care of them while on vacation. Either that or they are not willing to part with the $5 it would cost them to tip someone to load their bags on a cart and take them to their room.  "No thanks, we can handle it. It has wheels" is the common response to our question when our guests need help. But, once again, I digress.


After I load Mr. DeVito's bags on the cart we make our way to the elevator.  While waiting for the elevator I make chit-chat with the movie star.  I ask him a question that my mom has wanted to know for years.


"So, I need to find this out for my mom. How tall... is Arnold Schwarzenegger?" 


"He's about 6 feet tall." He replies very cordially.  "You know, Sly Stallone is only Five foot eight.


"You know I'd heard from somewhere that he is very short." I shoot right back.


"A lot of these guys in Hollywood are much smaller than they appear." He informs me. "A common trick is to have them stand on a box during certain shots or put lifts in their shoes. However, this has never been a problem I've had to deal with." He says standing at 4'9". 


As the elevator arrives I say "Well, you seem to make the short thing work pretty well for you." As I say this he shoots me a charming smile.


With the elevator making it's decent to the lobby I ask "What are you working on these days?"


"I'm doing a show called "It's always Sunny in Philadelphia." He replies. 


"Yeah?" I say. "I haven't seen it yet. What's it about?" 


"Well" he says. "Think of it as a real life South Park show set in the city of Philly."


"That sounds hilarious." I say "I'll be sure to check it out. I just moved up here from Philly." 


"Well then I'm sure it will carry extra weight with you" he says as he slips me a $20 and heads towards the front desk to go check out. I take his bags outside and load them into the trunk of the limo waiting in the loading zone.  I head back to my post at the front door and open it for him as he heads out to his ride.


Devito. We look forward to your return." I say as he walks by me.


"Thank you Dylan" he shoots right back. "and be sure to watch the show." he says as he climbs into the back seat of his stretch limousine. 


Well, Mr. Devito never stayed at our hotel again but based on his recommendation I started watching "IASIP" and I have become a life long fan.