April 7th, 2018

I was told once by one of our original bartenders at the casino (like all the others I was hired with, gone to the winds of time by now) that Friday night was your amateur party-goers. The main event happens on Saturday. While there are certainly exceptions to that rule, it was definitely in play last night. The parkinng lot when I arrived had a tell-tale bulge of cars in a pattern around the doors that I associate with ‘quite busy’ and with a moment’s thought, I recalled (with an inner groan) that we were also hosting one of those ‘Dead-Classic-Rock-Guy’ Tribute shows that’s so much in vogue around our place. Not so much a groan because I might get dragged into working the show (but Dear Gods Please No) – but just because you never know the crowd that will associate around them. It apparently wasn’t a tiny one.

Walking onto the floor proper, there was definitely a greater than Friday rumbling in the air, so I decided I’d just load up for bear as it were, and be done with it. See – standard cash bag for a bar register is $400. This amount is woefully inadequate even on the slowest of days, so I make a habit of getting what’s known as an ‘addition’. Basically I’m just buying more money up front for my cash register. During the week, $200 in my preferred denominations covers me. On Friday/Saturday, I just get $500 and it usually covers me. However with last night’s band, I ended having to run back to the cage midway through for an extra $400 so I just said “Fuckit’ and got $900 more on top of my $400. Let’s not screw around if we’re gonna have a night like that. I actually had so much on me that I needed an escort -to- the Lounge, rather than from it, according to money rules.

With earplugs already slotted in my side pants pocket, ready to go, I got to work.

Service bar is also open tonight, and we have our full complement of cocktail girls on hand. Which is only two, and that’s kinda sad for our floorspace, but hey. Nobody called in. 😀

We’re not slammed, but we -are- quite busy with the line we have and getting prepped for the evening. We sliced up a good dozen limes, a couple of oranges, got our liquor list made to stock up for the anticipated night, and so on. It all gets done. A couple of my old favorite regulars are on hand for the show in the convention center, and I was able to catch up and say hi, ever so briefly.

About an hour shy of showtime in the Lounge, I send Abby off to go get dinner. I’m honestly not convinced it’s gonna slow down enough for me to even go eat, and I’m the senior guy on this line, so I’ll take the hit on that one if it happens. Off she goes. When she returns, we’ve slowed to a pre-show lull and I go take my half hour to sit and center before the onslaught begins.

30 minutes later, I’m back in the lounge, and it’s gotten busy. Granny Nobs is helping Abby get the line clear, and we get the lights turned down and the house TVs off for the band, and it’s showtime. I decided to try and see how the band sounded without the plugs, so I did the first couple hours without them. They do sound better that way – I mean, they always do. The earplugs I use are great and are musician-grade things to help me actually hear my people better in the cacophny, but I was feeling the music, so, hey.

Mind you that didn’t last – it never does with these guys, honestly, but it’s also more of a stress-protect. Too much crazy and noisy eventually starts to sap at my patience, and good lord, we have full-moon grade idiocy on hand with our guests. Some people just get oblivious to the fact that there are a.) other guests and b.) you might possibly have something you need to do that doesn’t actually involve them (the nerve of us!), and I try to be patient, but now and then you get a guy who’s so insistent about it, that you just have to say something. Given we’re in an environment that makes 90% of all communication null and void, that’s challenging. However, a raised index finger and a very sharp look got the message across to one guy, to the point that he was actually apologizing profusely when I did get to him. Don’t piss off your bartender until you’re done drinking, as one of our department heads used to say.

Eventually, while the music and the show was good, I needed that space that the earplugs provide me, and I dashed around the corner, tossed them into the ears, took a few deep breaths to calm down again, and then went back out to face the music, so to speak.

Abby is continuing to learn Lounge, and had an even busier night than the previous. She’s making mistakes (accidentally tacking a $1,000 worth of tips onto a credit card transaction. Oops) – but she noticed it immediatey and got it taken care of. Good job, that. She’s asking lots of questions, which I approve of, and is still just flabbergasted that I refuse to take breaks when we’re slammed like we were. At the end of the day, she’s a good hand, though, and I don’t mind her riding shotgun on a busy night, really. She weathers the crowd pretty well.

One of our former supervisors was on hand in the crowd – a guy that actually got hired in the same training class as I. I’ll call him Neo. He actually had a lady friend with him (which seriously we haven’t seen in forever). Our senior cocktail girl was cackling about it at the end of the night, and is promising to make such fun of him about it. (They’re realy good friends… so much so that people keep asking Neo if the two of them are dating – they’re not, but it’s pretty damn funny)

Anyway – finally the show wrapped up, we processed last calls, and shut down the bar. A couple of the band came by the bar to chat and grab a quick drink. Their lead guitarist was just shaking his head and laughing when I told him I’d just passed the 9 year mark. They’re good dudes, though. While the crowd is nuts, the musicians are pretty awesome.

Cleanup and whatnot took a while, given the circumstances, but it all eventually got done, and I made sure to register a complaint with Granny Nobs about our dayside barback’s inability to properly secure our floor mats together. I did nearly kill myself on the things half a dozen times this weekend. I doubt it’ll get much done about it, but I’m also planning on having a word with our daytime barback myself to impress upon him (politely) the hazardous environment he’s subjecting us to. I -will- get the book thrown at him if he can’t be bothered to give a shit, but I’ll try it the polite way first. That’s only fair.

Beyond that, we were groovy. I joked around with the cute girl working the employee window at the cage, collected even more money to take home than the night before, and called it a good night’s work.

Closing observations :

The new singer that’s with the band these days is definitely a different sound than the Asian lady who used to sing with them, but she’s growing on me. Or she’s improving. Maybe both.
My wife has often told me I don’t facially hide it well when I think someone’s a complete idiot. Given how well that apparently translates in an environment not at all condusive to verbal communication, it must be so.
I’m apparently booked for the service bar the next couple of Friday nights, which rather pleases me. It’s my favorite weekend venue. Something to look forward to.
Abby tried to go look into acquiring one of my bottle opener rings, but the website has gone down, sadly. I’m poking around to see if they’re still lurking about, but it’s looking increasingly like my -precious- (and you may completely say that in Golum voice) is a very unique item.

Next up : Sunday night