Tip your bellman please

I've only worked at hotels for a million years and I am just now finding out how bellman make their money. Obviously people tip them. But I'm talking about the money that keeps them doing the bellman/doorman thing for life.

I always wondered about my last Bell Captain. He had like a family of five to feed, and I never saw him actually escort guests to or from their room. Yeah, he'd do stuff like check bags or whatever. He wasn't lazy or anything like that. He just delegated.

So how the hell do you feed all these mouths on $15/hour and a random $2 tip?
I was talking to an old friend who used to be a bellman and a doorman and who just got a new job as a bell captain and what do you know? Bellman get paid to do just about everything. If the front desk has to move a guest for any reason and the bellman has to bring new keys, the hotel is paying them to do that! Not all hotels, but the big ones do.

Another way they make cash is by porterage charges. This one I knew. If a couple who is getting married has their people stay at a hotel, and they want to have some gift bags delivered (and your damn right that if there any "extra" gift bags the hotel workers will distribute them amongst themselves unless they're lame bags filled with bottles of sparkling cider as opposed to champagne) there is a charge per bag for the bellman to deliver them. Or if a big tourist group that's coming in on a bus or something, and they are going to have 100 pieces of luggage, the bellman will get so much per bag to deliver. That makes sense, right? What doesn't make sense is that my friend who now works at this huge hotel said that last year the biggest delivery charge was $19,000. American money! Who has almost 20 grand laying around just to pay bellman???

Anyway, the other way they make their living is to basically extort it. My friend paid for his promotion at our last place! Bellman make good money but doormen make a shitload! When someone drives a flashy car they are not going to have it parked where no one can see it. That's ludicrous! They are going to pay the doorman to "leave it up front." That's easily understood I guess. But to get that job someone basically has to die or get fired. When my friend saw his opportunity for the doorman job he paid our Bell Captain $200 to get the job! Yeah, I know! Was my friend upset? No. Did my Bell Captain take his family out to Red Lobster that night? Probably.

But this does mean that you should not tip! They make like $5/hour like a server. No tips, no rent getting paid, and then they will have to resort to robbing people. And it will be your fault.