I laughed at how fitting a combination this was when I saw it on the wall of a thrift store in San Marcos, Texas. El Borracho y el corazón. The drunkard and the heart. Big and stumbly and obnoxious, but coming from a good place. Yep, sounds about right.
I may have had another moment of well-intentioned buffoonery earlier today when I basically told people it’s cool to underpay me. There’s more to it than that, of course, but that’s the gist.
I’m not exactly sure where the post came from. It started out in my head as “Tipping is weird, wouldn’t it be better if it went both ways?” but at some point after I started writing it, it turned into a whole manifesto inviting people to “untip” me if I don’t deliver a satisfactory product.
True, there’s always the chance that people will take advantage of this and try to get free photo shoots or tutoring sessions out of it. But I have faith; people are generally fair and decent folks. I can’t see anyone wanting to rip me off after spending two hours working with me.
Besides, I’m only in town until the end of March; it’ll be more of a social experiment than anything else, really. Which isn’t to say that I won’t continue accepting untips when I’m settled and gigging again, I just don’t know when that’ll be.
So for now, a two month exploration into untipping. Who knows, maybe it’ll have to positive an outcome that it’ll encourage other folks to do the same.