Tipping

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Convention staff, Rules to live by:

  • Tip early. Tipping after the fact does nothing to improve the service you get as it might not be the same employees next year. The only exception here is employees with suits on, who get non-cash gifts instead of tips.
  • Tip specifically for the kinds of things you're concerned about service for. If you've got a lot of room setup changes, tip the guys doing the setups at the start of the con. If you're doing complicated things with power and internet then tip those guys because chances are you'll want them to come back to tweak something. If it's set-and-forget then other things like trash removal and filling water setups are more important.
  • Tip $5 at a time. Less is cheap. If that means you run out of tip money before the con even starts it's still better than handing out singles all weekend.
  • The Hotel Liaison (and maybe ConChair) should tip for things they didn't see happen. The area head might not be there, or might be busy, or might not have tip money. Arisia's rule for div heads, not just hotel liaisons is if you see a non-suited hotel employee doing or on his way to or from doing any task at all, tip them $5. Chances are few enough people have tip money that you won't be double tipping. Even if you narrow this down to only tasks (a) you want to tip for; and (b) you're pretty sure the area head isn't there to tip for, you want the hotel staff to learn your face.
  • At a 25c/attendee or even 50c/attendee tip budget, the challenge is to avoid looking really, really cheap. Small conventions can tip proportionally less than large ones, and not all conventions need to buy the hotel's loyalty though its employees, but you should still be aware that to be considered a "good tipper" your convention should be tipping $1/attendee or more.