Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
I worked in a central London pub for three or four years and the staff and regulars (the ones we liked, anyway) had an excellent rapport without any tipping. Sure, many of the regulars bought us drinks - which we were allowed to drink while on the job, as long as we were sensible about it - but they did so because we were already friends; i.e. they didn't buy us drinks in order to become our friends. There were in fact several regulars who bought us drinks all the time (or tried to, at least) but whom we loathed because they were sad lonely boring twats trying to weasel their way into out affections so they could stickk around after closing time, or out of some misplaced hope of trying to get into some of the female staff's knickers.
We once had some really loud obnoxious Americans* in who tried to convince me that "it's traditional for the barman to buy every fourth round or so". I thought "On my wage? You've got to be fucking JOKING", and assumed they were just having a laugh with me.
As someone who spends more time on the customers' side of the bar these days, I can tell you that drinking in London is expensive enough without having to worry about tipping on top of a £3 pint of beer.
*PLEASE don't take this as a generalisation about Americans; Britain had been inflicting loud obnoxious people on the world since before America existed...
We once had some really loud obnoxious Americans* in who tried to convince me that "it's traditional for the barman to buy every fourth round or so". I thought "On my wage? You've got to be fucking JOKING", and assumed they were just having a laugh with me.
As someone who spends more time on the customers' side of the bar these days, I can tell you that drinking in London is expensive enough without having to worry about tipping on top of a £3 pint of beer.
*PLEASE don't take this as a generalisation about Americans; Britain had been inflicting loud obnoxious people on the world since before America existed...
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