AKICOLJ: Being nice to staff at conventions

[carbonel]

I'm not on the SMOFs list, or I'd take this there.

I'm the administrative person (hotel liaison, registration, treasury, etc.) for a cryptographic convention that's happening right now. Because this is a non-fannish convention, there's a lot of hotel catering involved -- snack breaks and a couple of meals, plus a reception last night.

I've been thanking everyone involved, but what's expected in the way of more substantial gratitude? Should I be tipping everyone? Or just the guy I'm specifically dealing with? Or would that be an insult to him? And how much is reasonable? This is a part of the hotel liaison job that I haven't dealt with in a long long time, so advice would be appreciated.

Comments

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I would not tip anyone in management. Your contract probably includes service charges or gratuities. You can ask your sales person or catering person where that money goes. If to servers and such, you're covered.

Non-contract services like bell captain or maid should be generously tipped.

K.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I agree entirely with this. It has been many years since I was doing something similar for non-SF conferences, but I doubt that the basics have changed much, and K. covers them nicely.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Especially if you hope/expect to do business with the same hotel for subsequent events, it is nice to give a gift basket of some sort to the sales/management contact at the end of, or shortly after your event. Nice snacks, coffee mugs & good coffee, and similar work well. And even if your staff is being tipped from the bill, if any of the housemen, bell staff, etc. end up doing something out of the way for you, I would tip them directly at the time. But with multiple food functions and presumably no sneaking of semi-licit additional snacks into a consuite or similar, I wouldn't feel compelled to tip for ordinary, expected service.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Ditto minnehaha K's and cakmpls's comments about not tipping management. The norm I'm used to is some sort of physical gift for management folks you're working with (like your sales rep) and tips (as K outlined). akirlu's gift basket idea sounds good.

Also, letters of thanks including specific praise that end up in personnel files are worth their weight in gold and then some.