by Jacob Tomsky
Money. Cash on the desk. Most guests put money in the wrong hands. If you really want your stay to improve, whom do you think you should tip? The bellman? The doorman? The concierge?
If you tip any of the above, those employees will, sure enough, come directly to the front desk to ask for a favor. Why people tip the middleman is beyond me. It’s a business maxim: whenever possible, bypass the middleman.
Think of it this way: Who is doing the typing? Who’s assigning you a room? Who burns your keys? Who knows the availability of every room in the property today, tomorrow, and three months out? Me. Your cute little hero, the front desk agent.
We can improve your life with a keystroke. We can keep your secrets and flood your room with wine.
Guests who really know tip the desk: nada más.
So there you are, walking into the lobby, defenseless, a doorman hunting you down for a fiver he feels you already owe him and a bellman waiting in the jungle to get a ten. Those animals work for tips. Dropping money on them is extremely normal, so unless you make your presence felt with a brick, it’s not going to elicit much more than a smile and a thank-you.
But drop a twenty, a baby brick, on a front desk agent, and something has shifted. It works because, for us, it is a commitment. We become indebted to you. That’s what I learned as I unwrapped that fifty-dollar bill and slipped it casually into my back pocket. Now it was mine. The first reaction, if I may borrow a phrase, was “an initial feeling of elation.” The second, surfacing a moment after, was a feeling of obligation. No agent will pocket a tip and just say thank you, not one who has a soul (and yes, we do have souls—except for overnight agents). We have to earn our tips. I will do whatever I can to make you happy. A bellman doesn’t even have a log-in to the property management system. I have control over every charge applied to your CC, and immediately I will make it worth your while. Even if I can’t find an upgrade proper, I will put you in the very best room of your category.
Here is one of the top lies that come out of a front desk agent’s mouth: “All the rooms are basically the same, sir.”
Bullshit. There is always a corner room, a room with a bigger flat screen, a room that, because of the building’s layout, has a larger bathroom with two sinks, a room that fits two rollaways with ease, a room that, though listed as standard, actually has a partial view of the Hudson River. There is always a better room, and when I feel that twenty burning in my pocket, I will find it for you. And if there is nothing to be done room-wise, I have a slew of other options: late checkout, free movies, free minibar, room service amenities, and more. I will do whatever it takes to deserve the money and then a little bit more in the hope you’ll hit me again.
Some people feel nervous about this move. Please don’t. It’s not a drug deal. There is nothing more awkward than people who tip with a twenty folded down to the size of a Tic Tac in their palm. Just hand over the money. To everyone else it looks as if you are asking for change, that’s it. And damn do we appreciate it. We are authorized to upgrade for special occasions. The special occasion occurring now is that I have a solid twenty to get drunk on once I snap off my name tag for the night. That’s special enough for me! Having a wonderful, generous guest staying with us: clearly another special occasion, one that merits a view of Central Park in the spring with no additional rate increase.
Plus, though it really saddened me to think it, screw the Bellevue. I mean, after years of service I had come to really love the property. I might have complained before about its wildness and lax attitude toward service, but now it was as if an invading army had come to occupy our city, altering it drastically. Not only did the occupying army create a spontaneous and intense love for the city it was in the past, it made me hate what the city had become, what the new regime had made it. Why “upsell” a guest into a suite running a hundred dollars more a night when I could “personally take care of the increase in rate” and accept a twenty-dollar bill in gratitude? We blamed upgrades on keystroke errors or covered them by claiming a guest had just received a big promotion. And just like in a prison, there were too many inmates doing too much dirt to put a handle on. The minute managers started investigating upgrades, we were already comping breakfast. As soon as they cracked down on free breakfast, we started giving everyone 4:00 p.m. late checkouts. When the directive came down to kill all late checkouts, we began slicing off hundreds of dollars in minibar revenue. After they required we authorize adjustments over fifty dollars with management, we were back to comp upgrades and free breakfast.
In my own way, I reinvented the game. I stopped waiting for savvy travelers to dispense a well-directed ten into my wallet. I learned how to hustle it, how to extract it, how to make them want to tip me. Starting small, I utilized the whispered-upgrade technique, where I lean over the desk and whisper, “I might have something special for you,” just loud enough for his trophy wife or prostitute to hear. If I can make the right guest feel the right kind of special, then out comes the money clip, the hundred peeled off cleanly and pressed into my hand. We call this “the crinkly handshake.”
My skills sharpened. I realized the size of the tip given to the doorman indicated the possibility of a tip to me. If you tip the doorman large, you are here to play.
And I am here to help.
Eventually, I developed a list of regulars, a list of names, big hitters (which every bellman has as well). On top of that, I would still size up arrivals for new “generous” guests and developed an eye for potential. Wearing sunglasses in the lobby and a wife with too much Botox? Hitter. An Italian in from New Jersey just for the weekend? Hitter. The morbidly obese? For some reason, hitters.
“Never forget a twenty, Tom,” the Gray Wolf said to me one day. He never did. If a bellman came up to the desk after a standard check-in and asked for the last name, writing it down in a little book he kept in his vest pocket, it meant at least a twenty. He would lock in that guest’s name and use it as often as possible when the guest came through the lobby. Some bellmen request an arrival list every day, scan the printout against their own personal lists, and then wait for the right guests to come into the lobby so they can position themselves for a well-placed front. They even started to ask for my assistance with this. If a fifty hitter was in line to check in, I might be asked to slow down or speed up my process, essentially lining up the right bellman with the guest he had intimate knowledge of. The bellmen loved me because I would always comply. Hell, I thought it was fun. I had my average check-in time down to less than thirty seconds by this point, every single step in the process streamlined, which allowed me to speed up and slow down at will. The only time I ever mentioned the restaurant or location and hours of our gym was when I was stalling a front to let the family of five Kayla was checking in head up with Ben, setting up Trey for his regular. In addition, getting this inside information from the bellmen helped me directly. Certainly, while servicing a proven hitter, I had the opportunity to throw a little something extra in there.
“Mr. Hansen, I see this marks your fifth stay with us?” Meanwhile, Ben, since he is up for the front and wants Hansen, is giving me the hurry-up motion from across the lobby, in his case like a third-base coach waving the runner home. “Such loyalty does not go unrewarded. Not on my shift, sir.” Upgrade. We share a crinkly handshake, baby brick to me. The keys go to Ben. Ben gets fifty dollars in the room.
We all worked together. “Mr. Palay, Mario the doorman put in a good word for you, asked that you be taken care of. A doorman’s will be done. I’ve got you in a Central Park suite, and please allow me to deliver wine on Mario’s behalf.” The guest turns around toward the street because he doesn’t know who the hell Mario is. But Mario knows who he is. Five months ago, out of nowhere and, according to Mario, for no reason, this gentleman handed him a crisp hundred-dollar bill. If Mr. Palay, the moment after handing him the bill, had taken a quick look at the doorman’s face, it might have looked as if Mario were giving him an intensely focused scowl. But what Mario wa
s doing was memorizing his face. Five months later that memory work was about to pay off because Mr. Palay was now looking out the window and there Mario stood, giving a knowing salute to Mr. Palay.
“Break this hundred for me.”
“How would you like it, Mr. Palay?”
“Twenties. Keep one for yourself.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said, removing one of the five bills and handing over four. Mr. Palay, while I burned the keys, walked all the way back to the street to pop a twenty on Mario.
What’s more is the Gray Wolf (of course) saw the whole transaction go down and approached me quickly the moment Mr. Palay walked outside to tip.
“Working with the doormen now, Tommy? You slick bastard. Hand to God, you’re like a son to me. What’s left?”
By this he meant what was left to offer the guest once he had him up in the room.
“Upgrade and wine done. You’re a go on the late checkout, Wolf.”
“Here he comes. Set me up.”
“Mr. Palay, this is my colleague Alan. He will take you to your suite. I also placed my business card in your key packet. Don’t hesitate to contact me if something comes up. Enjoy your stay and welcome back.”
Just recalling this hustle gives me the chills.
Alan came down five minutes later smiling. He handed me a five off what I assume was a twenty, but you never know. The hustle is now complete, and that five on top is the icing. Alan was good about that, kicking back on an effective setup. Other bellmen will take your assistance, jump in on your hustle, and then come down and say, “Sorry. He stiffed me. Do you believe it?” No, I actually don’t believe it.
Does all of this seem morally corrupt? Well, consider this: the guest dropped a total of sixty dollars in ten minutes, for which he received an upgrade, wine, and a late checkout. He is more than satisfied, and of course so are we. What was in it for the hotel? Well, I’ll say it again if I must: the Bellevue, well, the new Bellevue regime, could blow me. But even still, Mr. Palay will never stay anywhere else, believe me. These guests fly from hotel to hotel in Manhattan, always trying a new property and looking to find a home for their gigantic expense accounts. He has a home now. Mr. Palay will now clock over fifty nights a year with us, quite a sight more than the five bookings in the previous year. We just generated forty thousand dollars in new revenue for our property. What did it cost the hotel? An upgrade, which costs the same to clean as any other room, totaling zero dollars. A bottle of red that runs for seventy-five dollars on the room service menu but is purchased in bulk for four dollars a bottle. The late checkout jams up housekeeping but at no loss in revenue.
We turned four dollars into forty thousand dollars.
You see? We were kind of doing our jobs. Mr. Palay loves the Bellevue. Won’t stay anywhere else. Two years later we will have all met his wife and his kids and his mistress. He can’t wait to come back, drop a few twenties, and talk with Mario about sports and even connect with the Gray Wolf about child rearing.
You may have noticed from my extended check-in verbiage that I’d started to take my hustle one step further. I now had a business card. Did Tremblay shell out for employee business cards to make us feel special and part of the team? Yeah, no. Just a blank Bellevue Hotel business card with my name, e-mail address, shift schedule, and, in some cases, cell phone number handwritten on it.
Street hustle.
Now I could remove a business card from my pocket, where I kept at least five pre-written at all times, and say, “Mr. Uzzaman, please, if you ever need anything, do not hesitate to contact me. I can even make all of your future reservations if you’d prefer, ensuring the best rates. I receive e-mails on my smart phone instantaneously, so if you find yourself having to cancel last minute or need a complimentary bottle sent up, even if I am not at work, I will handle it.”
How much do you think service like that is worth? I was getting bricks like a contractor. And it wasn’t always about the money, either. I took personal care of CEOs because they were CEOs and, hey, you never know what kinds of kickbacks might come from them. My e-mail contact list was littered with leaders of industry. I would train home to Brooklyn and find a large company-logo’d box filled with hundreds of bags of potato chips waiting on my doorstep and inside a personal note from the CEO promising to ship a box like this anywhere at any time. Assorted flavors. Great for throwing a party. I even sold some at work, two bags for a dollar.
This year’s Hustler of the Year Award goes to … Tommy “I’ll personally take care of the increase in rate” Jacobs.
I was reinventing the game, attending movie premieres all over the city with tickets for the show and after party waiting for me at Will Call, placed there by my contact at Universal Pictures.
I also met some plain old normal extremely wealthy people. The first time I checked in the Bekkers, we became immediate friends. Two simple coincidences occurred simultaneously to spark our lasting acquaintance. First, we all loved the South. Though Mr. Bekker and his fiancée no longer live there, they met and fell in love in North Carolina, a state that, through my childhood relocations, I also share a deep love for. They now live in Cape Town, South Africa, an international city that has always intrigued me. Mr. Bekker was, in fact, born there and it lingers in his English, but his fiancée is North Carolina to the core. The second simple coincidence? He was extremely forthcoming with bobos.
Fast friends.
They would just flutter from his fingers and fly into my back pocket. Then his reservations would flutter on up to the sixtieth floor: a comp-upgrade luxury suite. Soon enough dark bottles of wine would walk themselves up to the door, surrounded by truffles and fresh fruits, and waddle their way onto the dining room table, the dining room table itself being a unique feature of the upper-floor luxury suites.
So, sure, the money certainly helped, but I grew to love those two, and they loved me. And they loved each other. Randomly one fall, I received an emergency e-mail from Mr. Bekker, requesting the recipe for a certain cocktail served in our lounge. It was an emergency because his fiancée remembered and loved the drink, and he intended to surprise her by making it the signature cocktail for their North Carolina “society wedding.” He listed a few of the ingredients he remembered, and with this info I started grilling the bar about it. It was a spring cocktail and no longer on the menu. Thus, I had to wait until the following week when the mixologist returned from vacation. As soon as I saw her strut through the lobby, I laid down the ingredients and two minutes later had the full recipe on a napkin. It was even called the Belle of the Ball. Perfect. I thanked her and mentioned it would be the featured cocktail at a huge society wedding in the South, trying to explain how important those could be and the kind of news coverage they receive.
“I know. I’m from South Carolina.”
That was it right there. South Carolinians can be ice-cold sometimes. She wasn’t even flattered about her cocktail creating such a lasting memory. And that is her JOB. She’s a mixologist. That’s what she was doing with her life. I even promised to introduce her to the Bekkers when they returned.
“I don’t care,” she said.
“Well, you might. He is very generous and would most likely drop a hundred on you, probably more, just for creating the drink, not to mention helping him re-create it.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
What a doll. No bother to me, though. No worry on my wallet. I e-mailed the recipe over to Cape Town and made them both very happy. After the wedding, I got a letter from the new Mrs. Bekker, on a beautiful piece of monogrammed stationery (but of course), thanking me for my help. Knowing my interest in South Africa, she also offered to accommodate me lavishly for as long as I should choose if I ever made the trip over the ocean. How wonderful is that? It was so sweet, and, you know, at this time I was really considering getting the hell out of town. Maybe even for good. I sent her a handwritten letter, thanking her for the offer and explaining that I might actually take them up on it. In fact, I inform
ed them that perhaps, after saving up a bit more money, I might relocate to Cape Town, find affordable housing in the city, and burn up my savings, just as I had before in Paris and Denmark.
A month or two later (international mail is something else) I received a response: she was thrilled about the idea and would assist me in finding a place to live, and certainly they were happy to put me up while we found a place together.
Goddamn it, I love the Bekkers! They are both so sweet and wonderful.
And look at that: now I had an escape plan.
The paparazzi. What a ragtag bunch of idiots. They were twenty-deep outside, pushing their unshowered bodies against each other, holding cameras high overhead, hoping to get a decent shot of something.
We had celebrities running around all over the lobby. I could write another 250-page book on all the action I’ve seen firsthand, like listening to a young, rail-thin Nickelodeon superstar actress complain to her mom that they never feed them anything but cucumber sandwiches on a Nickelodeon set. Whoa. For reals. That girl was starving. I almost gave her a bag of chips right then and there.
And guess who stayed with us after the transition? My man Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys. Probably because he was mentally accustomed to the Bellevue and it was easier not to stress him with a change in location. I’m certain the increase in rate was not even a bother.
The hotel was at capacity because Elton John was having his sixtieth birthday party, and it promised to be a gay affair (come on, like Great Gatsby gay), and we had a large slice of the celebrities lodged in our rooms. The lobby was looking like a freaky circus as they headed out to the party. We had the D-list invitees too and also gay dudes who were not celebs but more like made men, the Velvet Mafia, I believe they are called, all of them scooting past my desk, and they all had the backs of their sport coats riddled with rhinestones: sparkly lion heads and glittery anchors.
Anyway, here comes my man Brian, utilizing his top-level invite as he damn well should, all tuxed up and looking sharp. Well, looking like a freshman on his way to prom, but he looked good, though shy, but as if some lucky girl were going to find him rocking back and forth quietly by the punch bowl and fuck his brains out in the back corner of the cafeteria. So the handlers swung Brian by the desk on the way out to get a fresh key, just in case Bry Guy had been floating his in the toilet or whatever. I was busy with another guest, so they approached my co-worker, new on the job, a guy with a sweaty-hand condition, you know, constantly wet and everything he handles at the desk develops a gritty crust all over it. You’d come back from lunch, and it seemed as if a snail had crawled all over your terminal. So, anyway, he’s all, “Who? What room? What is the name registered to the room?”