Economy puts a pinch on holiday tips

With the holiday just over a week away, Gail Diabo, a concierge at 101 Chestnut Street's Beacon Hill apartment building, has yet to receive any tips and expects to take home a meager fraction of what she usually gets. (Globe Staff Photo / Mark Wilson)

As concierge at 101 Chestnut Street, an iron-gated Beacon Hill apartment building, Gail Diabo earns her pay by helping residents, notifying them when guests have arrived, and carrying their packages and luggage. Come Christmastime, residents file past her desk, acknowledging her work with checks tucked inside cards and envelopes. She counts on the money to pay for everything from Christmas presents to household bills.

Not so this year. With the holiday just over a week away, she has yet to receive any tips at all and is expecting to take home a meager fraction of what she usually gets.

"Everybody's trying to make everybody happy with less than what they had," she said.

With the economy in tatters, the time-honored tradition of handing a generous holiday tip to the help is going the way of the 401(k), sapped and battered into a thinner version of its former self. Concierges, house cleaners, letter carriers, and dog walkers are lamenting fewer and smaller tips than in past years, adding a blue note to a Christmas season already made paler by economic uncertainty.

"The tips are smaller," said Clara Benites, manager of Sister Services Inc., a maid service based in Brighton. "Instead of money, usually they give us gifts like chocolates, coffee, gift certificates, cookies, candies, popcorn. It's just because of the economy - they want to save the money. They can't afford to buy more, so they give us food or drinks."

Tips have been long a part of the social and economic dance of the holiday season, with some service-sector workers counting on tips the way that corporate executives count on fat year-end bonuses. Customers who receive holiday cards from newspaper deliverers or personal trainers know they are expected to return the gesture, with a little something tucked inside.

Even mail carriers, who are technically forbidden from accepting money, are accustomed to finding envelopes of cash along with the plates of cookies and fruit cakes put out by appreciative residents along their routes. They, too, have noticed a drop-off.

"I don't know what it is. Maybe they're waiting to see what their bonus is at work, maybe they get a bonus every year, and it comes out on the 15th," said Dana Salo, who has noticed fewer baked goods awaiting him as he delivers mail in a wealthy waterfront neighborhood of Rockport. "It is slower . . . In my 25 years, in my lifetime, this is the worst economy."

Marsha Epstein, who runs American Nanny Company, a Newton au pair service that she said caters to many doctors and Harvard professors, has been fielding an increasing number of phone calls this year from parents agonizing over how much they have to tip their nannies. Many, she said, want to give a tip that is socially acceptable but still within the bounds of economic reason in the midst of a recession.

"I do have clients calling me to ask what are the norms, and what should we do this year, and what I always respond is give as much as you can, but it should reflect the performance you feel you've gotten," said Epstein, adding that a week's salary is appropriate, which can range from $500 to $1,200. "I think also nannies would probably understand that this year is different, but again there's no reason why an employer can't show or express their gratitude or appreciation for a job well done."

The dour economy may be giving cover to some customers to cut back on their tips, even if they could afford a more generous sum. Some are simply anguished. Sally Wheatland Fisher, a Beacon Hill resident who was walking yesterday with her father, Richard Wheatland, said she is trying to decide how much to tip her dog walker and hairdresser this Christmas.

"I hope I'll have the heart to tip more, not less," she said. "Of course, the fearful part of me wants to give out less. I do think about it, but you have to be fair to people."

Perhaps not surprisingly, there are those who are determined to invoke the Christmas spirit and tip even more generously this year, saying they want to strike a blow against gloomy times. Beacon Hill resident Linda Berger said she was happy to give her building superintendent a gift certificate to Beacon Hill Bistro for twice the amount she has given him in past years.

"I feel the need to make things better, not worse," she said.

Even some victims of the recession are taking that vow in hopes of keeping their economic pain from spreading. Andy Freilich, who lost his job in the financial services sector three weeks ago, said he is determined not to cut back on the tips he gives to his newspaper delivery person and building superintendent.

"They shouldn't suffer," he said.

Still, just about everyone who works in a service job is planning for the worst. J. Alain Ferry, who owns Petpal, a pet-sitting service that caters to customers in the Back Bay, Beacon Hill, and the South End, said a lot of his clients have been laid off and some have cut back from 5 days a week to 3 days a week of pet care. Overall, business is down 30 to 40 percent from last year, he said.

"What it boils down to is it's going to be smaller pieces of a smaller pie, which is a shame, but that's reality," he said. "We realize everyone's feeling the pinch this year, and that's going to be passed along when people start counting out the bills that they're going to put in the Christmas cards for us. There's going to be one or two less 20s in there for us, I'd imagine."

Michael Levenson can be reached at mlevenson@globe.com.