I had an interesting revelation last night in the pub. It involved tipping. Now different countries have different rules towards tips or cultural approaches shall we say. The American version probably more well known than most. The Yankee gods of capitalism have created a system in which you are guilted into paying half the waiters wage on top of the meal or drink you’ve just ordered as you know they’ll be paid nothing otherwise. In parts of Asia tips are not part of the culture, I’ll never forget the two Canadian guys throwing tips around in Burma despite it being culturally not a done thing and then wondering why they were being over charged for other things. Mediterranean cultures vary but usually you leave a few coins as you feel. In Spain during the Civil War the anarchist trade union the CNT banned the use of tips and I never fully grasped the significance behind that until last night.
The barman in this little village pub was probably in his fifties, went about his job without any fuss and certainly without flair in line arguably with the pub itself. Happy hour had finished fifteen minutes earlier but he decided anyway to give me the happy prices for the two pints, which he didn’t need to but went out of his way to do anyway. From the coins I gave him I was due fifty pence back in change but I found this issue of whether I should let him keep it as thanks for the prices a difficult one. He was a man and I was a man, but it was more that we were two blokes, by tipping him it would demean him, and there seemed to just be something unspoken that this would be an affront to his dignity. Certainly the village pub atmosphere played a part, but I may have given a woman or younger man the change in that situation. It is also possible that it was purely this guy in particular and the energy that he gave off but it allowed for an experience and understanding that was original and unique for me.
There is something about the word undignified that makes me uneasy, it seems somehow snobbish and pretencious, but there is something about being tip hungry that seems fitting for such a word. Of course anyone, including myself, who has worked in hospitality will have at some point sniffed out a tip. As I said though I don’t care much for dignity, I’ve never lacked the version that without would dehumanise and subjugate, and have never allowed pride to prevent me acting as I feel, unless I’m too proud to admit it now of course. In Republican Barcelona people were achieving self-determination breaking the bonds of a previous life without dignity. To accept tips would have been to accept your position as a second class citizens in a hierarchical society again. The village pub in northumberland is not anarchist antifascist civil war Spain and this isn’t about proud dignity either. Times have moved on from then but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn a little from the past and see how it can relate to the present; man to man et al.
Observations and Misunderstandings 