July 8th, 2018

The parking lot was looking pleasingly occupied when I drove in to work last night. Not bulging full mind you, but a decent array of Sunday folks. As it’s my last shift prior to a short vacation I’m taking, I make a point of heading around to the schedule case to see if next week’s schedule is up yet.

It is! But mine is messed up. Figures. -sigh- Honestly, I had a feeling it might be, given the circumstances. I make a mental note to address that at the earliest convenience and I go grab my money. I return to the bar to find Vera pleased to see me, because that means she gets to fuck off and go home, more or less.

There’s two cocktail girls waiting to do the same thing, but the only supervisors currently on duty are tied up. Good how they schedule things, huh? Eventually one of our department heads (Pammy) just shows up herself and takes care of folks. She smiles real big when she sees me and is friendly. I friendly back, though probably not quite so severely. I still haven’t forgiven her for basically driving our former catering supervisor (whom I’ll refer to as Alice) to quit. Alice saved my bacon one summer and gave me catering gigs to tend bar for when no one else wanted to schedule me. So yeah. Pammy is kinda permanently in the land of ‘take a flying fuck through a rolling donut’ about that. (Thank you, Mr. Vonnegut.)

I’m tempted to ask her about the schedule but ultimateyl I decide against it. About 15 minutes later, Shelly comes back and I let her know about it and she vows to get it seen to. Cool. She also tells me that we have zero cocktail waitresses tonight because Haley called in, and Mary’s off duty tonight. Am I panicked? Nope. This is just more of an opportunity to have all the tips. I’m okay with this.

Around dinner time, Jerry the Older comes by to give me my Sunday dinner break, which works as usual. When I return, he tells me that I’m being sought for conversation by Teri, one of our supervisors, who has apparently been given the task of scheduling our stuff. This actually rather pleases me. She happens to be Alice’s daughter, and we get along well, so I’m kindly disposed. She basically is looking for some shift coverage for the end of the month, as Jerry the Older is taking some vacation time too.

The long and the short of it is working the service bar Friday and Saturday night, at the end of the month, by myself, with the big poker tour in house. Yes, please. I’ll take that action. As Gallagher once said, “I’ll take a check, thank you, Mr. Bankerman.” It’s only an extra day in the usual three says I work, but they’re all strung together, and the circumstances of those shifts have every reason to leave me much better off fiscally. She was pleased that I was interested. She also assured me that the Sunday matter was already attended to. Groovy.

I pretty much work the remainder of the evening without a break. Shelly offered, to be fair, but I told her I wasn’t going to worry about it. I had her cover the bar for 3 minutes near midnight so I could visit the restroom, but that was it.

In other news, the beer lines in the freezer are thawing nicely finally. Or Vera got on them hardcore after being shown. Either works, realy. Also, we had a small but odd run on frozen strawberry daquiris and pina coladas. Sunday is our Bloody Mary special, so frozen drinks usually don’t get much call.

Toward the end of the night, Mary showed up at the bar all dressed up nice. Her boyfriend (or benefitted male friend. Probably about the same really) was with her. He’s a cool dude. We chatted. Various other regulars came in as well, employee and not, and it was ultimately a very good evening financially. Mind you – had Haley been here it wouldn’t have been so rich. I’ll take the opportunities as they come.

Closing observations :

It’s almost a little comical watching Mary sit between her friend-boy and Jerry the Older, both of whom have spontaneously started talking basketball player stats around her. She’s interested in learning how the game works, but doesn’t care -that- much about it.
Shelly continues to impress me. I think we were all expecting not much given how recently she got hired on, but you know, I’m going to give benefit of doubt on this one.
Vacation time! Whee! Back next Thursday.

Next up : A week from Thursday