Turns out I’m not the only one experiencing works problems. My roommate C. is a well practised bartender from Sydney with a particular knack to make some serious cash in the tips department. Behind the bar she adopts an ice cool demeanor which has the boys living notes left, right and centre in the hope she’ll throw them a smile in return – which she never does.

Unfortunately this practise has proven less successful here in London Town.

Here’s my theory as to why:

Firstly, Sydney/Aus pays its hospitality people fairly handsomely. If you have the energy to put in the crazy hours you can make a good living out of it. And especially if you’re a hot young something bartending is a killer way to make a tidy sum of cash for a lot less hours than your average office slave. Following this the job attracts some real cute girls and guys working in bars/clubs, even ones hailing from the Eastern Suburbs, part time art students or models.

The pay in London for hospitality, however, is pitiful. Not only is it less than the pay you’d get in Sydney (and considering things cost double as much in London this is harshly felt) but nobody, nobody tips. I never thought tipping was in the Aussie culture until I started bartending at the club and realised otherwise. This poor pay consequently attracts, basically, foreigners to hospitality roles. Half the accents you will hear in London aren’t English, but just about ALL the accents from the waiting/bar staff will be from elsewhere, because I guess that’s all they work they can get and the only ones willing to do it. South Americans, Eastern Europeans, Australians… there’s still class differences in England and here in London that’s extended to a cultural-class difference, with the ‘help’ now coming from other countries.

Thus, nobody sees hospitality as glamorous and exciting like in Sydney. It’s shit work for the ‘shit people’.

The second part of my theory involves, what I see, as Sydney’s inferiority complex. We like to think we’re a sexy, international, top class city, as beautiful and modern as the rest. We’re brash, we’re unafraid to be showy, and it’s proven each Friday and Saturday night as Sydney struts its stuff in the clubs each night. (Sydney really is very ‘dressy’). Thus, we like a bartender who’s haughty and beautiful, arrogant even. We respect her for this.

But London has nothing to prove. It, and everyone else, knows it’s sitting at the top of a pyramid of the world. And so when that girl from Convict Country doing something as lowly as bartending, decides to give some ‘tood – she’s quickly shot down with a “Who the hell do you think you are?” And the tip plate echoes it’s so empty.