The upstairs/downstairs diaries: Does your super hate you too?
Over the past few months, BrickUnderground has written about two anonymous doormen who’ve broken the code of silence by posting online and largely unflattering accounts of the residents they were hired to serve. (Another doorman spills it online, Twittering doorman tells all)
It may be too early to predict whether this is the beginning of an upstairs/downstairs rebellion played out in a digital arena. But in a discussion unfolding on Habitat’s BoardTalk, a super now joins the sniping.
He posts an incensed response to a board member considering capping the electrical bill of its mediocre live-in super in order to save a paltry $650 a year on an operating budget of $1 million:
“No good super with self respect is going to put up with your non-sense. We get called at all hours of the night, when we are out with our familes we retreat back to the building to do the right thing, we make repairs that are not our or the buildings responsibility for the simple reason that we just want to SHUT YOU UP SO YOU COULD GET OFF OUR BACK!!!
And all the building politics we put up with and issues that do not concern us but we do the right thing for the interest of the building and the residents and now you want to nickel and dime the super for less then$60 a month is a spit in the face if that super had any self respect he would high tail out of there and allow you and the board to search and find a person WHO YOU AND THE RESIDENTS trust to live with you keep your spare keys and for less then $60 a month you want to create a negative atmosphere.
All I can say is that I hope it comes back to you!! but your probably so misreable and lonely, and you know what they say misery loves company...."
The other commenters ignore the rant. One agrees that supers can be “lazy” about electrical conservation and another details some cost-cutting measures imposed on their own super in a small “middle-upper class building” where eight owners have lost their jobs: The building capped the super's electric bill, cut down his phone service, and canceled his parking space.
To be continued...?
Related links:
Another doorman spills it online
Stiffed again! Doorman blasts bad tippers
Twittering doorman tweets no more
