June 16th, 2018

Saturday – a massively loud party band in the lounge, and me in the service bar. This is a good thing.

The parking lot looked… well not hectic, but busier than it has looked at least. There’s also a few busses in the back bringing tour traffic. So the night -could- be all right. I’m running a bit late in this case as I had family visiting and I took my own damned time getting to work, frankly. But our points are resetting to zero on the first of July so… fuckit. I’ll enjoy my family time.

On the way out, I pass by the convention center. There’s a big event brewing in there. It looks like a wedding reception. (and spoiler alert : it was). All the more reason to be glad I’m not in the main lounge.

So I get my weekend load of money and head over to the service bar. Jerry the Older is at his usual Saturday post behind the service bar and I setup on the ‘shotgun’ register. It’s pretty drearily slow, however.

Mostly Jerry and I chat, watch baseball (he’s a Cardinals fan and they were playing the Cubs), and wait on the occasional guest, and keep the cocktail girls for the evening (Mary & Haley) stocked with drinks to serve. We take our dinner breaks. Time rolls on. 8:30pm comes and goes and I’m even more happy that I’m down in the service bar. The lounge will be deafening at this point. Around 10pm, the phone rings. I glance at the caller ID. It’s the Lounge. Good. That means I can answer the phone in a more amusing way.

“Happy Harry’s Harlot Hut”, I quip into the phone.

It’s Cherry, down in the Lounge, who informs me (perhaps a bit too cheerfully) that she’s going home, and I’m being shunted down to the lounge for the balance of the evening.

-sigh-

Fuck.

Me.

-sigh-

Now… I don’t know what the deal with that was. I just know it cheesed me off. I also immediately hiked back to my locker to retrieve my earplugs because suddenly I’m going to need them.

I delay the departure as long as I can, but once tip money has been divvied appropriately I amble down that way, cringing as I approach the growingly obnoxious level of noise and eventually walk fully into the wall of noise that is our lounge on a Saturday night. The closer I get the more annoyed I feel until I have to be honest with myself and admit that yeah, this pisses me off. I’m not just annoyed. I’m full on pissed off. My next three hours have an additional component of reminding myself not to act unprofessional or take this out on my guests.

When I get there, the Lounge is not -that- busy. There’s maybe 2 or 3 people in line. I”m not entirely sure why the supervisor watching the lounge was in a panic about needing me there – but Norma lives in the food court typically so I’m not shocked either. It is however, loud as hell, and steady.

I slotted my money into the new cash register, and then walked around the corner to slow the earplugs into my ears, then took a couple of deep breaths and walked back around and started waiting on people. It was loud, ye gods it was loud, but not insane at least. Just very steady. Of course after an hour, the wedding party decided we were a more fun place to be than the reception room (which is a bit odd), and I was reminded very quickly why I just hate having wedding parties in the bar. They always want to do rounds of shots with their drinks, which we don’t allow, and trying to explain that to people through a wall of noise is… stupid. Thankfully Morgan was in the anchor spot in the Lounge so I realy didn’t have to deal with them much, and made it a point to avoid them as much as I could.

Morgan goes to take a half hour break 20 minutes after I get there, complaining that she hasn’t had one since 7:30pm. I just nod at her, with I’m sure my ‘whatthefuckever’ look on my face, ‘cuz I haven’t had a break in that long either – and now that I”m wedged into the Lounge on a busy night? I’m not -going- to. So whatever. Get the fuck out of my face, Morgan. Go take your break. Go fuck off. Stay fucked off for all I care. This could entirely just be my work mentality, but a Saturday night in the lounge with a major party band, and a wedding party incoming? You don’t goddamned walk off from the bar for half an hour and leave your coworker swinging in the breeze, ‘cuz even if it looks calm for a minute, it’s gonna get busy again in two. All the co-workers I’ve truly respected have had my mindset on this. When shit hits the fan and things go nuts? Break? What the hell does that word even mean? Breaks cease to exist.

Morgan’s respect bank is in negatives. She also smokes. That’s not to say I dislike smokers – some of them are perfectly nice people. I do dislike having them as my co-workers behind the bar, though, because the second things get too intense they have to go run off to have a drag and just leave me hanging.

At one point I caught sight of our barback Red serving drinks to a couple over the side of the bar (which we’re not supposed to do), so I have no idea why he was doing that at all, much less over there. I’ve also caught Morgan serving over the side wall now several times which just pisses me off. It took us -YEARS- to train these people that we don’t form lines over there and they’re ruining that. The same guy always came to the front of the bar for -me- though, so at least he remmbers that I at least don’t play that shit. I guess that’s something.

At any rate, the whole thing finally ended and 10 minutes later the band cut their ‘hold music’ off too, and the earplugs came back out again. If Cherry had to go for some legit reason? Fine. If this was some kind of bass-ackward way of taking advantage of the thing she ignored the other night? Then she’s currently used up her stock of credit in Hellrazor’s company store. That was some mean shit to do to me.

And yeah. I’m still pissed about that.

Closing observations :

I’m pissed off. I’m not shocked, mind you, but I am pissed off.
That’s really the only observation I have right now, I think. I’ll probably mellow in a few days. For now, though, both Cherry and Morgan can take flying fucks through a rolling donut for all I care.

Next up : Sunday