When I moved into my apartment building 6 years ago, the building superintendent (super) was an old guy who was awesome. You would always see him in the hallways cleaning and make the place look great. He was a cleaning perfectionist. A month after I was living there, he announced he was moving to Puerto Rico and retiring; taking over for him would be his daughter and her husband.  

I’m someone who tries to really show my utmost respect for people in the service industry. Whether that be a waiter, bartender, retail store clerk or cleaning person. They are doing jobs that need to be done, that I don’t want to be doing (and probably don’t have the work ethic to do, but that’s another story), and I respect them for that. I show that respect by trying to be nice by tipping well (when applicable) and expressing my appreciate (a simple thank you is always nice).

On the other hand, just like my bosses/clients expect me to do my job [well], I do expect people to do their job [well] too.

Since I’ve moved in, I’ve pretty consistently given a holiday gift to the super. I didn’t in 2003 cause I didn’t feel like they did anything to deserve it and mostly because it slipped my mind. It got so late in the game (mid-January 2004) when I finally remembered, that I figured I’d just skip it all together. Plus, I had given them my old refrigerator that year and figured that was all they really deserved.

So what exactly do they do and what’s their responsibility? Keep the building clean and accept packages. They do a fairly poor job of both. They aren’t around all day, so they rarely, if ever, accept packages. The place is always a dirty mess.

What do they get for being the super? A free apartment in a fairly nice building and I believe a small, but decent, salary.

Last year I decided to give them a holiday gift because I realized they were a little cold to me throughout the year and maybe it was because of the lack of gift. By cold, I mean no friendly greetings when I passed by them in the hallway and they would wait a long time before telling me a package was downstairs waiting for me.

I regret giving them something, because things haven’t changed. In fact, they have gotten worse.

I started to get really aggravated when I was throwing my Super Bowl party earlier this year. For the few days leading up to it, I realized the hallway were really, really dirty. We had a bunch of winter storms and the dirt/slush from people’s shoes took it’s toll. I had hoped they were going to clean up before Sunday afternoon, but Sunday rolled around the the hallways were still messy. It was embarrassing. If I had a mop, I would have cleaned it myself. I instead picked up the phone and tried to get a hold of the building president. I couldn’t get him. The next day I called the building’s management company and complained. No more than 10 minutes later, I smelled cleaner: they were cleaning the hallway. It was the first time I’ve seen that in a while and it was about time.

A few weeks later we were in the middle of another winter storm and I came home from the gym to find the super cleaning/mopping the hallways. I said to him that it seemed silly since it was going to get a lot messier that night [imply tomorrow would probably have made more sense especially since they do it so rarely]. He said it had to get done and continued on. That was at least a month ago and the last time I saw them cleaning. Lame, lame, lame.

Last night I got a call from my super to tell me I had a package downstairs waiting for me. When I got it, I opened and sent my friend who sent it to me a thank you note. He replied that I should have gotten it last Friday. I looked at the tracking and sure enough, the damn thing has been sitting down in front of the super’s door for a week! I’m not very happy. It might be early in the year to rule out a holiday gift, but so far they aren’t making a very good case for one. I’m also going to start stepping up my complaining to building management campaign when ever the building starts to look messy. It’s time for them to do their job.