In my experience, when you’ve worked certain jobs (specifically, service-based ones), you tend to do certain aspects of them even as the recipient of the service. I was a Waiter throughout most of high school and ever since then, I can’t bring myself to leave dishes all over the table. As soon as plates are empty, I collect and stack them (with food and silverware on the very top plate) to make it easier for whoever is going to be picking them up. After becoming a hotel Room Attendant, I started doing easy things I knew would be helpful and while stacking plates at a restaurant has never led to me not leaving a tip, certain things at a hotel have. Sadly, no cash for housekeeping is one of them but before we get to that …
When the DND is ignored
Whoever is in charge of housekeeping should really be checking to ensure any and all late checkouts are noted and relayed to the Room Attendant cleaning a room. This doesn’t always happen and is definitely not the Room Attendant’s error. What is the Room Attendant’s error is ignoring a ‘do not disturb’ sign left on the door.
If check-out isn’t until noon, and there’s a ‘do not disturb’ sign on the door, housekeeping should not be knocking on the door at 9 am to see if the room is free to be cleaned. This happened to me recently after a delayed Spirit flight resulted in a 3 am hotel arrival and I can’t express just how frustrating that was.
When I’m Barely in the Room
I’m not a fan of connecting flights, certainly not short ones that leave me running from one gate to the next. My stamina anxiety isn’t set up to deal with that stress. I find those overnight “in-between” ones to be worse. The kind where they’re too long to stay in the security portion of the airport until the next one but too long to dare think about just waiting around in the non-secure part, especially if you have bags you don’t want to be stolen or rifled through.
When I have those, I tend to get a room at a neighboring hotel with a shuttle but the only things I use are the bed, sink, and toilet. I’m there for 3 or 4 hours and leave about 10 minutes worth of work.
I should add that in one scenario you’re probably getting paid somewhere around $2.13 an hour (though I truly hope it’s gone up from there) and in the other, though still not a lot, it’s quite a bit more than that. Usually somewhere between $12 – $15 an hour. A tip in the room for a Room Attendant is a really pleasant surprise (except those times you should DEFINITELY leave a tip) but it’s not expected or relied on for the bulk of their pay like a Waiter.
When There’s No Cash For Housekeeping
I try really hard to make sure I take cash with me for the express purpose of tipping but sometimes, I’ve found myself in situations where I either forgot to get cash, thought I had cash in my bag or had to use the cash when I’ve wound up at a “cash only” establishment. Either way, I end up with no cash for housekeeping.
In these situations, I do the one thing I know actually means more to me than finding money in a room – I go beyond picking up after myself.
You may or may not know, but Room Attendants are generally given 30 minutes in a room to get everything that needs to be done, done. Knowing this, there are 3 things I always do when I’m unable to leave a cash tip. I consolidate my trash, gather my soiled towels to be placed on my dirty sheets, and collect my linens from the bed, wrapping them around my soiled towels, and leaving them in a ball.
These 3 things singlehandedly shave several minutes off the time the Room Attendant would need to be in the room and almost works better than a tip when they’re being timed and need all the extra minutes they can get.
The Wrap Up
If I’m being honest, in all of these situations I do the 3 things mentioned above because it is such a time saver for housekeeping and I know how much that time means. It can be the difference between going from room to room with no break for food and being able to take 15 minutes for a quick snack.
What do you do when you’ve got no cash for housekeeping? Do you do extra cleanup? Leave a sweet gift? A thank you note? Comment about it below and, as always, thanks for reading!
