But while I was there, I noticed something odd. Bartenders are generally friendly, gregarious individuals. So imagine being at a small bar, with only a handful of patrons, watching a sporting event on TV and trying to strike up small-talk with the bartender – which only resulted in nervous laughter or awkward silence. I found this to be queer, and upon further discussion, we determined that the most likely reason for the bartender’s apprehensiveness, was that the members of the club, in general, treated him like shit. Now, this is not typical – treating your bartender like shit.
Why don’t people generally treat bartenders like shit? Well, there are a couple of reasons that immediately come to mind:
1. If you treat a bartender poorly, he will ignore you, and you won’t get served.
2. If you treat a bartender poorly, he will call the bouncer, and you will be removed from the premises.
So, commerce in general requires a modicum of mutual respect and tact in order to continue. That is, generally, if the bartender treats you poorly, or gives bad service, you’ll take your business elsewhere, and he’ll be out of a job. If you treat him poorly, you’ll be going thirsty. But, what if you can treat him poorly – and – control the terms of his employment? I don’t want to go so far as to characterize the members of the club with malice – I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, but something was seriously awry. One of the many jobs I’ve held was as a golf caddy at a local country club. In retrospect, the words and actions towards the hired help were similar in both circumstances. A common ground having been established, I came to a simple conclusion.
The relationship between bartender and member, or member and “the girl who works the beer-cart at the turn,” is no longer one based on commerce, it is one based on command and an undeserved sense of entitlement; the bartender is simply a tool in the employment of a corporation that has granted exclusive privileges in return for a sum of money. It has ceased altogether being a commercial, transactional relationship. The help is, for all intents and purposes, a servant class, and they will be treated and objectified accordingly. The staff’s only recourse to this is to quit, either en masse or frequently and in sufficient numbers so as to cause financial ruin. But because most of the jobs are seasonal, I’d suppose there is a high rate of year-over-year turnover; most people dissatisfied with the work environment, may be willing to stick it out until the end of the golf season, when they go back to school, and simply find a better job the following summer (or winter.)
There is not a very good market test because there is a disconnect somewhere between ownership, control, and transaction; those with a controlling interest – the members – are the vast majority of the clientele, and the members have been granted a certain set of powers and privileges that they can use or abuse. I’m not trying to make a universal, qualitative judgement about this sort of behavior – although to be candid, I deplore it. I’m just trying to explain how the behavior of men towards their bartender or server could be so radically different in the closed, country club environment. And that’s what I came up with, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely – according to Acton, and although the club members don’t have anything like “absolute power,” the power they have is far superior to that commanded by any run-of-the-mill market participant.
