▸ Column · Star Wars original trilogy — a low-paid hand aboard a freight hauler, the quartermaster's collection-tin passed at shift briefing
HAN SOLO replies.
Replied to by Han Solo, with a rebuttal from Leia Organa.
The letter
I crew a freight hauler for lousy pay — barely enough to keep my boots patched. Every shift briefing, our quartermaster Denise passes a credit-tin around for somebody's life event. Somebody got hitched. Somebody's kid finished flight school. Somebody bought a moisture farm. Last cycle we apparently chipped in for a deckhand two decks down I've never laid eyes on who adopted a tooka cat. The tin goes around right in the open, so everybody clocks who passes it back empty. I've been quietly dropping in five, ten credits each time. I don't care that my own service anniversary slid by with nobody saying a word — but I just did the math and I've sunk near eighty credits this quarter on strangers, while Denise runs the whole tin and somehow her own husband's name-day haul pulled two hundred. Is there a clean way to start passing it back empty without becoming the crew miser, or am I locked in forever now that I've set the pattern?
Han Solo replies
Let me tell you how this racket works, 'cause I've run a few. It ain't a card collection. It's a tribute tin. Denise passes it around in the open during briefing so everybody sees who hands it back light — that's not generosity, sweetheart, that's a shakedown wearing a friendly bow. And the tell? Her husband's name-day pulled two hundred. Watch the hands, not the mouth. The hands are in your pocket.
Now this "obligated forever" thing — drop it. There's no ledger. I owe Jabba and believe me, I've tried real hard to make everything about the math so I could justify whatever I wanted. Doesn't work, and it doesn't lock you in either. Five credits a few weeks running doesn't sign you up for life.
Here's the part I won't dress up: the people you actually give a damn about? The one who'd cover your shift when it cost them something? Give to those, direct, quiet, when it means something — not 'cause the room's counting. That's the only kind that's worth a credit.
The tin, though? Look, I'm not the guy who gives speeches. I'm the guy who lets it pass on by. Be that guy. No announcement. Just stop.
— Han Solo
Leia Organa weighs in
Of course you'd tell them to quietly let it pass. Slip out the side hatch, look out for number one — Han, it's practically embroidered on the Falcon. But here's what you skipped: there's another deckhand on that crew making the same patched-boots wage who also can't say no with the whole room watching. Quietly opting out saves you. It saves nobody else. Denise is using the quartermaster's chair to tax people who can't refuse — that's the abuse, and silence lets it stand. So don't just pass the tin back. Say it out loud, evenly, in the briefing: this stops being mandatory, or it stops. I've given harder orders to harder rooms. You can manage one tin.
— Leia Organa
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