Tipping

In Boston, as in New York City, I was reasonably generous with tipping. Apparently a union organizer who spoke at the opening American Sociological Association meeting session urged participants to leave tips for folks who clean hotel rooms. I usually put the “Privacy Please” sign up at hotel rooms I’m staying for more than one night, so that the staff only has to clean up after me after I leave (and now would only leave one tip). But my hotel roommate Jan didn’t seem to want to do that, and so I left tips there (every morning) too.

One of the many reasons to leave generous tips, I’ve found, is to put the staff in a good mood about you in case you lose something or something goes wrong. I now have more to lose. In addition to a big suitcase and eventually materials in an ASA Meeting tote bag, I – for the first time – was bringing four electronic devices that I had to keep charged and keep track of: my cell phone with its charger (nine months old), my digital camera with its rechargeable batteries, charger, and downloading pictures cable (seven months old), my electric shaver, and my work laptop with charger/power cord (which I haven’t taken out of town by plane very often).

Twice this worked out well. Friday night I had dinner with a former New School classmate at an Indian restaurant on the Boston Back Bay’s Newkirk Street (the two of us pictured in front of the restaurant above), and later I couldn’t find my cell phone or my checkbook. On an off chance, I stopped by the next night and the waiter – who remembered us and my generous tip – the next night, and he had retrieved both, and they were there for us.

On this trip I stayed in five different places in eight nights (!?). Once upon a time, I used to take loads and loads of different shirts, sports jackets, ties, and pants, to these meetings. But I now bring just one jacket, two ties, and two or three shirts. I used to wear pants over and over again before washing, but that’s been staining them. Plus back at home I’ve shifted to taking my shirts to be laundered by the dry cleaner and last summer when I had just had hernia surgery I was banned for six weeks from carrying more than 10 pounds (in NYC – with all of its subway stairs, etc.) – plus my neck/back/shoulder injury in Michigan two years ago stemmed from carrying too much weight.

For all of these reasons, on these trips last summer in NYC – as planned – I sent some of my laundry out to be washed from my hotel. This was more complicated on this trip. Not only was I on a relatively long trip (eight days), but also I was changing places to live and hotels it was hard to arrange. I went ahead and asked the Association for the Sociology of Religion Boston Park Plaza Hotel (my hotel room and the front of the hotel room pictured below) to do my laundry, even though I was checking out that day, to do some laundry, because I was running out of clothes and wanted to have some clean clothes for my presentation. (I later had the Boston Sheraton and the Chicago O’Hare Springhill Suites do a little bit of laundry. My hotel roommate Jan questioned this, saying I should just find a laundromat and do it myself. But this whole thing could take up hours and hours that I could otherwise devote to the meeting etc.)

It was a little complicated trying to figure out how to leave the Park Plaza my clothes even though I was checking out. But it become more complex and time-consuming after I walked back that night and they couldn’t find the clothes. I walked back to the Sheraton late (I had wasted more than an hour, but gotten lots of exercise with the mile plus walk between the two hotels past Copley Plaza (twice)). I had to go back to the Park Plaza the next morning anyway to see a session, and afterwards I had breakfast (for the third morning in a row at the Park Plaza) and asked about my clothes. At this point I was a little worried that I would not find them. I tipped the concierge who found them generously (they had been clean and ready all the time – the night before they just couldn’t find them), and (after I pitched for a discount) she helped persuade the front desk supervisor not to charge me the $70 for the laundry. Carrying all of my laundry, I think I treated myself with a cab ride back to the Sheraton.

Tipping didn’t help me out in the next lost and found episode. Arriving at the Lutheran Center near Chicago O’Hare airport for the Cooperative Congregational Studies Partnership meetings, I noticed that I was without my glasses (not powerful enough) and wooden glasses cases (which I love) and (again) without my cell phone. I ended up making a bunch of calls to the airlines (as the plane flew on eventually to San Antonio), airport, and cab company. But it was Stephanie who thought of trying to call the phone from Louisville. No one picked up. But apparently a passenger later on found it and the Southwest Airlines staff person looked back through the call history and called back the number for the most recent call (which was Stephanie from Louisville – when she had tried it earlier). This person said when she got to Atlanta she was going to havc the airline overnight mail. But we haven’t gotten it yet.

I’ve only had the phone for nine months and I am not completely bereft without it – I still have my calling card. It was a hassle at the Lutheran Center, where they no longer have a pay phone and all of the in-house public phones on the 11th floor block long distance calls (even calling card ones). Instead, I either had to borrow one of my CCSP colleagues’ cell phones or go down to the 9th floor research office and use one of their staff’s office phones (if I needed to call Stephanie or my work or the airlines about my lost cell phone). The phone still hasn’t arrived but we’re hoping it will. Stephanie and I have the same cell phones with the same form-fitting cases, which we both got from our nearby Radio Shack, and so – except for the cost – it wouldn’t be hard to replace. I may get the no cell phone experience again this fall if we succumb to hosting an exchange student and we lend it to him. The glasses were actually no longer powerful enough, but I love that glasses case (which is critical for having them last – not get lost or scratched – and Stephanie reminded me we got them as a combo at our nearby WalMart, and so maybe I can find them again there (with more powerful glasses).

Tipping helped me some times, but not so much the final time. Being generous with others makes them more inclined to go out of their way to help you. I do have to do an even better job checking every time I shift venues for the phone, camera, and glasses (and car keys when I havc them). The fact that I – for good reason – don’t have a wallet also complicates things in some ways (technically, I’ve got dozens of things in my pockets to try to keep track of). Being in a hurry (see “Catastrophes”) makes it tougher to stay on task with all of this.

P.S. I called the airlines earlier this week and they let me know it could take as long as two weeks to receive the cell phone, if the lost and found office mailed it to me. The next day – just more than a week after I lost it – we got it in the mail. The names of three members of the crew – including the person who called Stephanie from Las Vegas – were on it. But I’m not sure how I’ll tip them at this point. Thanks, Shereka McCall and AirTran colleagues!

-- Perry