▸ Column · Star Wars — a freight docking crew on a spaceport, send-off credit-pools and a quartermaster's polite arm-twisting
HAN SOLO replies.
Replied to by Han Solo, with a rebuttal from Captain America.
The letter
A deckhand named Priya is leaving our docking crew for a rival outfit after eight months — she told the dock boss flat out the work wasn't for her, and gave her notice the morning she got back from a leave we'd all chipped in to cover. Now the station quartermaster, Deborah, has pinged me by name to "spearhead" the send-off pool, because my bunk's closest to Priya's old slot. Suggested chip-in is twenty credits, which puts the pot near two-forty. I've got nothing against Priya, but this is the third send-off pool I've been voluntold to run in six months, and every time I put in less than the full freight, Deborah hits me with a very pointed "oh, no pressure at all" that feels like the exact opposite. Is there a clean way to hand the collection duty to literally anyone else without it turning into A Thing — or am I just the permanent farewell-pool guy now because of where facilities welded my bunk?
Han Solo replies
Kid, your first mistake is thinking this is about the card. It's never about the card. Deborah found herself a reliable mark because facilities parked your bunk in the wrong spot, and now she's working you with the oldest tool there is — politeness. That "no pressure" routine? Watch the hands, not the mouth. Anybody who has to tell you there's no pressure is reaching into your pocket while they say it.
Look, I know debts. I owe a Hutt who put a bounty on my head — that's a real one, the kind that comes collecting whether you like it or not. This isn't that. This is somebody manufacturing a debt out of thin air and a sad little smile. You don't owe three send-off pools because of welding.
Now, your actual question — a clean way to hand it off that won't become A Thing? There isn't one. A Thing is the price, and it's cheap. Slide the collection pad to the next bunk, drop your twenty if you actually liked Priya, and when Deborah does her "oh, totally fine" number — smile and let it sit there. Don't fill the silence. You'll be amazed what people do when you stop flinching.
— Han Solo
Captain America weighs in
Solo's half right and dressing it up as smart, the way he does. But don't take it out on Priya — she's not the one leaning on you. Deborah is, and let's call it what it is: a bully with good manners. Politeness used as a crowbar is still a crowbar.
So plant your feet and say it to her face, plain: "I've run the last three. Time it went to somebody else." Then do the part Han skipped — set up a rotation, so whoever inherits that bunk after you doesn't inherit the squeeze too. That's the difference between getting yourself off the hook and fixing the hook. Do both.
— Captain America
▸ Read next