When I was at boarding school, we had an ancient rule that was universally adhered to. It wasn’t Soggy Sayos or anything like that; it was the rule about the water cups.
For those who weren’t there, the dining room was a self-serve affair, pretty much like any cafeteria you’ve ever wandered into. Water and lightly flavoured cordial was available in jugs, which students would bring to the tables and pour into their individual cups.
It didn’t take long until you hit a dilemma; how do you decide among 6 (or more!) teenagers who should get up and leave the table to refill the jugs? The group of people you sat with changed each meal, so creating a “you do breakfast, I do lunch” roster would never have worked.
There were only two ways to solve this: the rule of law, or the rule of might. Rule of might, where stronger students would force weaker students to bring them water, was never going to work as a long term strategy. This isn’t 1780s Alabama; if you wanted to free yourself from the tyranny, you could just sit at a different table. So inevitably, the rule of law prevailed.
The rule was simple: the very last person to have a fully filled glass had to refill. Fully filled was clearly defined; all the glasses had a pattern on them, similar to the photo below. If the water level was below the pattern, it wasn’t fully filled.
All great policies have a pithy slogan, ours was: If you kill it, you fill it.
There were a few extra guidelines, if I remember correctly:
- Filling your glass half full was allowed, and meant that you were not “holding the bag” when it came to refilling. While allowed, it was frowned upon.
- If there was more than one jug in operation, you didn’t have to refill if you killed a jug, provided there were additional jugs in play. However, if all jugs were emptied, the unlucky sod had to fill ALL of them up (it rarely got past 3).
- Spilling the jug over = instant refill
- Saved by the bell: if the end of the meal was nigh (desserts were either finished or close to), you might be able to get away with it
- All disagreements were solved by arguing amongst one another.
It wasn’t perfect, but the rule of law, founded not by a higher authority but rather as an exercise in self-governance, worked really well.