Monday, December 18, 2006

Tipping Etiquette

Readers, your help with a dilemma, please.

The development I live in has staff (building manager, three regular porters, groundsman, two cleaners). They're friendly, have been very welcoming and are very helpful.

What is the etiquette for tipping at Christmas? (Not whether but how much and in what form?)

Any rules-of-thumb?

3 comments:

Andy Piper said...

I believe the correct way forward is to bake some delicious cookies and to hand-deliver them.

Or maybe that was an episode of Friends. I watch too much TV.

Anonymous said...

You could give cash together with something more personal such as home baked cookies or deent shop bought ones. Another idea is to scrap the cash and give a small food hamper from an exclusive emporium to each recipient. If that is too expensive buy some small baskets from IKEA and fill with food items such as wine, decent smoked salmon, cheese, crackers and any other food items you may know will be appreciated by each individual. Good luck !

Richard Brown said...

Thank you for your advice, everybody.

In the end, I wimped out. I spoke to the head porter and got hold of the names of all the other porters. Turns out there are eight in total - plus the cleaners, groundsman and manager.

So we wrote them individual Christmas cards and bought some very nice chocolates from Selfridges to be put behind the desk in the Porters' Lodge for everyone to share.

Hopefully this was OK!