Tipping

Well there is a few things to address here:

Firstly, let me say that I came to your country never being a great tipper. Indeed, I rarely did. Only in instances of extreme drunkenness that I did. But it wasn't a case of being too responsible or too stone cold sober to tip usually, it was more of a realisation that bar workers get paid quite handsomely in Australia. In fact, usually $20 and more on weekends and I had a pretty good idea over the years from tipping threads on BA that UK people don't tip much if at all.

So I came to London in search of a pub job as what most Aussies seek. And found myself working at a pub after 3 weeks of looking for work in Westminster, won't go any more specific than that. It was part-time, offered as such...14-20 hours a week but on the jov it proved to be around 30 hours, each shift whether you worked 7 or 4 hours was around £15 which deducts board and food as it was live-in. So at the end of the week my take home pay was around £70-80. So I worked it out at less than £3 an hour...

Tips for the week which was around £100 maybe more or less was all collected in a single jar and I never saw a cent from it until my last week there being 3 months in. I was the junior out of the lot so I suspect the manager and others got their share and I got the rest. I mean of course leading up to that I dilligently put all the tips in the jar without pocketing any of it even when I was alone on the bar...in hindsight I probably should have pocketed it. But I'm just too honest I guess...

Anyway, I would always lend preference to serving patrons who had tipped before (even if not on the night) or had bought us a drink (and that did happen often although we would just put the value of the drink in the tip jar) than someone who hadn't even if the bar was full and others deserved to be served first...its just goes to the simple point that I and others are struggling to make ends meat that it just made more financial sense to do it. By and large the English were stingy, the Americans were great aleays liked serving them but no surprise in that...but Brits just don't tip as its ingrained in their culture not to despite their being compelling reasons now with the class gap that is definately appearing to begin now...

 

Well you make a good point. One of the reasons I suppose that our pub and perhaps I failed to attract tips, putting aside any potential bad service standards as a cause, was the high prices that we charged. And probably goes to the point that it was mostly the foreigners that tipped whilst the locals, who had a greater appreciation of our prices compared to other pubs, didn't tip in as much.

Well the job is fairly simple and routine, I agree. I mean going back to the Australian context in which I come, that I used to criticise hospitality workers on that side of the liquor industry ledger as I felt that, as we were paid the same base rate, that I used to do far more work in liquor retail than I thought my fellow liquor workers behind the bar did and they got and sometimes expected to get tips to boot.

But after experiencing what I did in London behind the bar with the wages being so far behind what the Australian standard of pay is and a greater appreciation of the level of work they do (well at least in the UK context; as Australian pubs have a different culture and patronage) that in all honesty I thought I was wasting my time working for such a pittance. And eventually I did decide to cut my stay over in London short because of this even though I planned to stay for longer and have got the right to stay for as long as I like with my dual passport status.

I guess the lesson in all of this, when I do go back, is to do 'professional' work. And I expect to be in a position to be able to do this as well. Because whilst the ale is damn good drinking and the English are, on the whole, generally nice and good people to get along with (they sure enjoy the banter), that they are rather oblivious to anything that may be happening behind the bar which shows in their lack of tipping.