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Guest Room Service






If a visitor brings no maid of her own, the personal maid of the hostess (if she has one—otherwise the housemaid) always unpacks the bags or trunks, lays toilet articles out on the dressing-table and in the bathroom, puts folded things in the drawers and hangs dresses on hangers in the closet. If when she unpacks she sees that something of importance has been forgotten, she tells her mistress, or, in the case of a servant who has been long employed, she knows what selection to make herself, and supplies the guest without asking with such articles as comb and brush or clothes brush, or bathing suit and bath-robe.

The valet of the host performs the same service for men. In small establishments where there is no lady's maid or valet, the housemaid is always taught to unpack guests' belongings and to press and hook up ladies' dresses, and gentlemen's clothes are sent to a tailor to be pressed after each wearing.

In big houses, breakfast trays for women guests are usually carried to the bedroom floor by the butler (some butlers delegate this service to a footman) and are handed to the lady's maid who takes the tray into the room. In small houses they are carried up by the waitress.

Trays for men visitors are rare, but when ordered are carried up and into the room by the valet, or butler. If there are no men servants the waitress has to carry up the tray.

When a guest rings for breakfast, the housemaid or the valet goes into the room, opens the blinds, and in cold weather lights the fire, if there is an open one in the room. Asking whether a hot, cool or cold bath is preferred, he goes into the bathroom, spreads a bath mat on the floor, a big bath towel over a chair, with the help of a thermometer draws the bath, and sometimes lays out the visitor's clothes. As few people care for more than one bath a day and many people prefer their bath before dinner instead of before breakfast, this office is often performed at dinner dressing time instead of in the morning.

 

Tips

The " tip-roll" in a big house seems to us rather appalling, but compared with the amounts given in a big English house, ours are mere pittances. Pleasant to think that something is less expensive in our country than in Europe!

Fortunately in this country, when you dine in a friend's house you do not " tip" the butler, nor do you tip a footman or parlor-maid who takes your card to the mistress of the house, nor when you leave a country house do you have to give more than five dollars to any one whatsoever. A lady for a week-end stay gives two or three dollars to the lady's maid, if she went without her own, and one or two dollars to every one who waited on her. Intimate friends in a small house send tips to all the servants—perhaps only a dollar apiece, but no one is forgotten. In a very big house this is never done and only those are tipped who have served you. If you had your maid with you, you always give her a tip (about two dollars) to give the cook (often the second one) who prepared her meals and one dollar for the kitchen maid who set her table.

A gentleman scarcely ever " remembers" any of the women servants (to their chagrin) except a waitress, and tips only the butler and the valet, and sometimes the chauffeur. The least he can offer any of the men-servants is two dollars and the most ever is five. No woman gets as much as that, for such short service.

In a few houses the tipping system is abolished, and in every guest room, in a conspicuous place on the dressing-table or over the bath tub where you are sure to read it, is a sign, saying:

" Please do not offer tips to my servants. Their contract is with this special understanding, and proper arrangements have been made to meet it; you will not only create 'a situation, ' but cause the immediate dismissal of any one who may be persuaded by you to break this rule of the house."

The notice is signed by the host. The " arrangement" referred to is one whereby every guest means a bonus added to their wages of so much per person per day for all employees. This system is much preferred by servants for two reasons. First, self-respecting ones dislike the demeaning effect of a tip (an occasional few won't take them). Secondly, they can absolutely count that so many visitors will bring them precisely such an amount.

 

ToC

" In small houses breakfast trays for women guests are carried up by the waitress." [Page 426.]

 


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