An Open Letter To The Mayor Of Bristol.

[I've sent this to the Mayor via the Bristol Council website. I honestly have no inclination to take it further, as any response on his part would be PR bullshit, but maybe it'll get me fired from work and I get to add "argument with the mayor" to my CV under "reason for leaving last job."]

 Dear Mr. Mayor,

 I feel I should open with a confession: I didn't vote for you. Pretty generally, I don't vote for anybody, as I've long been of the considered opinion that anyone who is involved in politics is ultimately in it for their own gain and glory, and has inevitably lost touch with the common man.
 Thank you, then, for proving my point for me last week during a meal at the restaurant I work in. I won't name the venue, but after a long night for me and the rest of the staff, I was less-than-shocked to notice that you and your friends didn't deign to leave a tip.
 Granted, you were there on business. I know that you yourself, as a successful architect, are probably short of money. Architecture is a notoriously hand-to-mouth business, and by the time you've priced up marble slabs and concrete pillars for other people to install, you can scarcely be expected to put your hand in your pocket for the minimum-wage staff who are waiting on you. I imagine this is also the case with your friends and colleagues, who I'll assume were a procession of extremely well-dressed vagabonds and hobos who had been saving up all year for the meal.
 It's not that I or the other staff need tips, you understand. We get paid. Tips just help with little things, like paying for parking, which I'm now forced to do as you've eliminated basically any free parking spaces I might once have used. As my working day habitually stretches for ten to fifteen hours, this means my driving to work and parking usually costs me the better part of twenty pounds.
 I could, of course, take the bus, but as mayor you probably haven't used public transport for a while, and as such may not be aware that to travel by bus in Bristol is staggeringly expensive. My local route charges a minimum fare of £2.70, even if I'm only traveling one stop. I admit, the need to travel one stop might come off as lazy, but years of standing up for twelve hours a day and running up and down stairs fetching wines for wealthy architects have left my knees in surprisingly poor condition for someone my age.
 Still, I shouldn't expect someone of your stature to understand the plight of the working man - it's not like you're a trustee of a Marxist think-tank, like, say, the Marxist think-tank Demos. Of which you actually are a trustee. 
 Nonetheless, maybe your objection is more along the lines of social pressure. Tipping automatically has become customary and can be seen as a sort of socially prevalent emotional blackmail. Indeed, the large corporate function I served tonight seemed all-too-willing to leave a generous tip, but again, they were only a group of neuroscientists, the saps. Their work saves lives and has implications for the future of humanity, and doesn't even begin to have important consequences like changing parking restrictions or causing massive traffic jams as a glorified publicity stunt.
 In summation, I hope you enjoyed your meal and the drinks that came with it. I also fervently hope that one day I can be as successful as you, just so that I can avoid the kind of hectoring, blinkered champagne socialism you've so obviously fallen victim to.

 Sincerely,

 A Proletariat Barman.