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.

Just a heads up

Do you ever wonder what happens to your car when you valet it?

Sometimes the company has to park it a few blocks away. Sometimes they "leave it up front" for a little while maybe as a coutesy, which should be highly tipped for, or maybe cause they're being lazy.

Sometimes these guys get you a damn parking ticket and don't say a word.

Also, the guys they've got parking cars are either young or foreign. If there is a new scratch or dent, it probably was them. If your change is missing or worse, well...

But the worst things that can happen sometimes do. The following things have happened:

- a car got backed into a building.

-keys were left in the ignition of a very expensive automobile, car stolen.

-two indentical rental cars were given to the wrong people.

-a set of keys was left in a car that had already headed home. The driver was four hours away before he realized. Mucho money was paid out.

So I'm just sayin, if you must valet, for the love of God, keep a spare set of keys on you, have car insurance, and don't leave valuables in your car.

The rat, the girl, and the hallway

My new job doesn't allow for nearly enough free time to browse the internet let alone blog about hotels. It's a shame because I often experience things that remind me of my past hotel life. Without getting into too much detail I am working for the same company that I worked for 5 years ago, but I'm getting some of the exact same guests I got for the past 4.5 years. (I know that doesn't make much sense.)

So I will be getting into some celeb stories soon, believe me I dying to tell, but I am just being careful and thinking about how I'm going to publish them without getting anyone pissed off.

For now, you can take a little journey with me as I recall cornering a rat.

I mentioned my boyfriend is a hotel person? I think so. We got to live at his new resort, the same one where the drunk couple stole a golf cart and got arrested for a DUI.
So this same resort is kinda in the middle of nowhere. I was enjoying my last few days of hanging by the pool and using the sauna. I was walking down the hall when I pass a couple who mentioned there was a rat, not a mouse, in the hall. They were so blase that it took me a minute to register. I walked a bit farther and sure enough a rat, not a mouse, was sniffing around. This is by no means a dirty hotel. I jogged towards it to grab the nearest house phone and call my friend, who was the manager at the time, to let them know. The rat, not a mouse, ran away from me and I realized I could just keep walking towards it until it dead ended. I did that, and this is a very long hallway might I add, and it found a way into the game room. I just stood there in the doorway with a threatening look on my face. At no point did I think I had the option to just walk away. Nobody besides that first couple was witnessing this. It was just me and the rat, you know? He was scared of me. I just felt bad because I knew he got in by accident and we both sensed his ultimate demise.

I didn't wait around while the guys who came decided what to do. I had done my part. I had kept the hotel from comping a shit load of people.