Just the tips

This is a list? composite? of everyone who worked in my building in downtown New York City in 2004, the year I lived there.  I was given this in early-to-mid December, and I thought, yay — I no longer have to do that rude thing where you don’t use a person’s name when speaking to them.

Once I got to work that next morning, people told me that this was for tipping purposes. People in NYC tip usually up to $50 to their doormen for the holidays.  But most people I worked with weren’t total divas/babies like me and didn’t need a staff of tens to run their buildings, so it was no big whoop to them to shell out $50 or $100 if it was two guys.  But I HAD to pick the building with the awesome view and the parquet floors that was attached to an Equinox gym that I never went to.

As sometimes happens, no one offered me any sound advice on what I should do about this, so I ended up spending WAY to much money on these people (I actually interacted with but four of them regularly).  What you see by each person is how much I tipped them.

And yes, you’re seeing that right — I shelled out over seven hundo!   Sweet Rutger Hauer that’s a lot of damn money!

But, can you really put a price on guilt avoidance?  On not being thought of as mean?  On that not-at-all-overrated feeling of giving until it hurts?  And who knows, maybe Spesa Smajlaj was working for me behind the scenes somehow… Maybe Michael Cosgrove fixed a lamp in the lobby that ended up not falling on me or something.  That hair I’m sure I shed in the hallway didn’t sweep up itself, Walter Namecek had to do that.

I actually shelled out a little extra for some cards to put the tips in, ’cause I wanted to make it special, come on, it’s Christmas.