Voces del Prado

Tips

Luis Lapausa Arango, General Operations Service Technician (Carpenter), 1960-2008

A colleague advised me about tips: You see the French wearing a little lace here? They give you tips. Italians give tips, Germans usually do too, but Americans, no way... If you don't want to don't take them up because they're so stingy. Quite so. I remember a Sunday when I was 18, we used to go to the dance in the afternoon. A guy who was with me said, "12 noon and not a single tip." And I said, "Looks like it's going to be a terrible Sunday." So I went to see Sanchidrián at the shop and told him, "Give me some loose coins, I'm not getting anything." He went to his jacket and gave me some coins. I went to the elevator and made the coins clink in my pocket. It went so well that even soldiers started tipping me. What a turn of events! I got over a thousand pesetas that day, from 12 noon to 2 pm.. I said to myself, "Thank goodness. From 10 a.m. and for a couple of hours, nothing at all. Then they made my day." The men at the shop area were very nice, and of course they expected us to correspond. When I was upstairs they'd say, "Luis, whenever anyone wants a catalogue, you know where you have to bring them." When I said, "Hey, Sanchidrián, I need 25 pesetas," he would say, "Here you are but send us people down here to the shop."
Once there was a lady who made me feel quite embarrassed. I took her down to the restroom, when it was down where the cafeteria is located today, by the Murillo entrance. I went down with her and told Felisa, "I'm bringing you a customer." "Very well," said Felisa. And then when we went back up she gave me 1,000 pesetas. I was taken back and said, "No, no." And she said, "Yes. Take it." And I said, "Please no, it's 1,000 pesetas. That's my monthly wage." And she said, "Take it, please." She made me take the bill. And then I was telling everybody, "Look what they gave me." "You're kidding," they'd say, and I insisted, "It's true, look!"
At Christmas some of the guides gave us elevator operators some money, and it added up. Some of them gave us 200 pesetas, others 500. Then we would split the total between all the elevator operators.