Hey folks. I’m currently on a two-week trip home to Florida for the holidays. Last night I went out to the Melbourne bars, kicking things off at Friday’s (one of Melbourne’s hot spots) and ending at Main St, an indoor/outdoor bar that draws the full cross-section of Melbourne residents, from 15 to 50. It was there that Non-Sterger Jen, a high school friend, FSU grad, and blog reader who I am mentioning here out of my own free will and not because she begged me to, reminded me that its been a while since I’ve last posted. So I thought I’d take a break from sitting on the couch, wish you a very happy holiday, and share with you a little holiday tale.

Like many people living in New York City, I live in a building with a doorman. Or rather, seven of them. Plus a half dozen porters (no clue what they do), five maintenance men, a couple handymen, and a super (…and a partridge in a pear treeeeee.) All in all there’s about twenty different people working in my building, and over the last week, they subtly left a little note by our mailboxes with their names and instructions for leaving holiday gratuities.

Having lived here for a few years, I’m quite familiar with this practice (which according to Non-Sterger Jen, is not common in Washington, DC), but not a big fan. While on the one hand they have been incredibly helpful - fetching cabs for us, unlocking our door when we’ve forgotten our keys, etc - the act of tipping them for continued great service seems too much like a bribe. I’m not overly great friends with any one member on the staff, and there are too many in total to try to reward equally and significantly. Delivery of this gratuity further complicates things. Handing over a lump sum of cash to any one individual seems risky - he could potentially run off with the whole thing - but seeking out twenty different people to hand them individual tips is just way too much work.

Nonetheless, my roommate and I agreed that we’d conform to this tradition. We settled on an amount - $200 between the two of us. Not a small amount - I wasn’t planning on spending $100 on any one member of my own family - but enough to give each of them a decent ($10) tip for the holidays. I was supposed to figure out the handoff and take care of the payment, and my roommate would pay me back.

Shortly before I left for Florida on Thursday, I went down to the lobby to figure out how to handle the gratuity. I took a closer look at the note by our mailbox and discovered that not only was there a drop-box for gratuities to be split evenly, but that they also accepted checks. Yes, they went so far as to establish a bank account just for this purpose and accepted checks made out to “[building name] Staff X-Mas Bonus Fund”. A little shocked, but relieved I didn’t have to go withdraw $200, I cut them a check and took off to Florida.

My roommate, who is a hometown friend, also came back home last night, and met us at the bar. At one point, he got up to get a new drink, and asked if any of the others in our group needed anything. I requested a beer and told him to take it out of the 100 bucks he owed me.

“What 100 bucks?”
“I covered you for the doorman tip.”
“You did?!”
“Yeah, why?”
“I left them my own tip!”
“You’re joking?! Why did you do that?!”
“Because I thought we were each taking care of our own half.”
“I was supposed to be covering us both!”
“Why didn’t you tell me?!”
“I thought we agreed on this!”
“You mean we just gave them 300 bucks?!”
“DAMN IT!”