March 27th, 2021

So I walk in last night expecting to :

• A.) Work the lounge again
• B.) Talk to the bossman about some scheduling topics that are becoming more pressing.
• C.) Make some decent money.
• D.) Be generally treated like a human being for the entire night.

Spoiler alert : Only one of those 4 actually occurred.

There. With the dramatic tension set, let’s move on:

 

As I walked in, nobody supervisory was lying in wait for me to tell me that our guy had called in again and I was down at the service bar or something, so… hey, cool. Guess all is normal. I walk past the lounge to see our other barkeep busy at work and a nice crowd going. Cool. I go to get my money and get intercepted by one of our cocktail girls.

SHE tells me that our other guy called in again.
This is my shocked face.  Allegedly feeling icky after vaccination shot. And hey – maybe, you know? I don’t know. His call-ins happen so often it’s getting hard to give them credence anymore, though. But whatever. Saves me an awkward hike later, so I trot back in the other direction and go get my money from the -other- cage office which is closer to the service bar.

I get installed and set to work seeing what we need. The usual night supe comes by to see if my list is ready and it’s not -quite- there, but almost. He couldn’t wait around for it, though. Apparently we had supervisor call-ins too, or something. He said he’d send the barback.

After the last few shifts with him, I’m less than enthused – although to be fair, after the previous evening’s spontaneous bitching session with our bossman about him, he -did- step his game up for the rest of the night, so. -shrug-

He does turn up fairly quickly, though. I had decided I’d wait to just shut down and get it myself until I actually ran out of something and he beat me to it, so good on him.  I hand off the list, give him some instruction on a couple of finer details that I need handled and off he goes. I start serving people and mentally start timing our barback.

First few hours go okay. Money’s kinda blech, but at least the evening’s peaceable. Barback is… not bad. Gets back on time, actually seems to be stocking things faster, and is taking my points of fine detail instruction pretty well. I take my break, listen to all but… 2-3 minutes of a philosophy lecture and resolve to finish it on break #2.

Here’s where things derail:

 

So I’m juggling a line of people and our cocktail girls. As I’m serving one of the servers, this lady just shoves her way pas the line and goes up to the front of the bar. She proceeds to attempt to bypass the bar altogether and order directly from the cocktail girl rather than me because I’m busy and she’s too entitled or… some such garbage. I dunno. The cocktail girl who knows better declines, and tells her why then turns back to me. I finish their stuff and head back to the bar front proper. Now, the line is not as I remember it. That happens. People get impatient, or annoyed with rude bitches that cut in front, or … what have you. Not being sure who actually was ther first, I do what is the typical thing. I just quickly ask “Ok, who’s next?” The rude lady and the guy at the front of of the line both agree that it’s her, and so.. h’ok then. I start waiting on her.

As an aside – this is typical practice. My eyes aren’t 360, ya know? If I don’t know, I’ll ask and let them tell me. They can work that out themselves and I’ll go in that order. This practice causes typically 0% disagreement. Every now and then there’s debate but almost never does it cause problems.

Stupid bitch on the other hand decides to get extremely butthurt that I deigned to think that she could be anything other than at the front of the line and proceeds to give me all this drivel about her experience as a bartender and blah blah blah. I lip back at her because that’s just common. After she’d commented that she’d been tending bar for 20 years (as if that somehow gives her authority over me), I note that I’ve been doing it for 12, etc. It doesn’t get better so… I take her money, hand over change, off she goes.

Yeesh.

Imagine my delight when she shows back up 10 minutes later. She states that she gave me a $100 bill, and I’d given her incorrect change. She’s fairly reasonable sounding here. Says she understands if I have to call the camera people in the sky and do what I need to do. Alrighty. I do that. Because… you know? I’ve been bit in the ass by taking someone’s word for it over a $20. I don’t take ‘word for it’ on a $100. That’s a get-me-fired- error for guessing wrong and while I make mistakes, I don’t gamble on that one.

I come back, let her know that surveillance is looking into it, I’ll let her know as soon as they get in touch.

Now – pausing again – I’ve done this before with others. While they don’t like having to wait, they’re cool.  This lady however apparently expected me to just take her at her word. In the 15 minutes we waited for surveillance to do their thing, she spends the entire time ranting and raving about me as if I wasn’t even standing there.  I mean the ENTIRE time – ranting at everyone who will listen, both in person and on the phone – and doing so, so loudly, that I have to plug an ear just to hear the orders that are coming in.

So the entire polite ‘I understand’ thing was just garbage, obviously. It was just passive aggressive bullshit on a hook that I didn’t swallow down and now she’s pissed about it. Good gods. By the time surveillance calls back the second time (the first was a clarificaiton), I’m about ready to throw things at her. I’ve never been treated with that level of disrespect in my 12 years behind the bar, whether I screwed up or not.

Now – the long and short of it here? I did screw up the change on a $100. Yikes. But you know? We roll with the punches. Fine. I have to eat a little crow but I can do that gracefully and move on. The cameras saw me give her a $20, 3 $5s, and a $1. $36 bux.

That’s a weird thing. I can only assume that my focus got shifted by her aggressively bitchy entitled self or something. Whatever. So minus the cost of the beer, I owe her another $60. That’s easy math. I get 3 $20s out of my drawer, politely comment that a mistake was confirmed, apologize, set the 20s down and move on. She seems okay.

Well, for a minute.

Halfway into my next guest she notes that I still owe her money.

The -fuck- I do.

I attempt to explain the math. She doesn’t want to hear about math. She just cares about her memory.

She starts ramping up again. I – who am at this point quite decidedly done with her stupid abusively bitchy ass – decline to give her another 20 bucks, because I’ve got word from the camerafolks on this and that’s that. She just starts going off. Going to call this person, that person, blah blah – going full on “Karen” on me. At this point I retreat from the bar because I’m gonna punch her and I grab the phone (because of course my radio is dead and fuckered), and summon a supervisor over here STAT.

One of our executive host people (who claimed later to have no clue who this was) comes up to try to settle her down because that’s sadly their job. Poor poor people. I put up my closed sign because I’m done with the abuse. One of my supervisors comes up and I give her the brief of it. The bossman comes up ( Oh wow – you actually ARE here…. ) and I half blow up at him. I note that I’m getting off the floor and that I am thoroughly done. Note I’ll be in the back if I’m needed and I fuck off out of there.

It was either that or I was going to start throwing barstools and that would have been embarassing for everyone.

Ultimately I go outside, well away from the smokers and let the cold night air start cooling me down. I eventually pop back inside for my phone, then go back out.

I truly have no interest in returning to work at this point. Eventually the bossman comes looking for me and I wave him over. He tells me that not only have two surveillance -AND- security confirmed that I was right about now owing her anotther $20 but she’s been ordered away from the bar. Tells me to take time and cool down.

I really wanted to just fuck off and go home for the night, honestly, but I don’t have enough ‘budge’ room in my attendance points ot take the hit so I calm down thoroughly and start walking back up to the front. It takes me some time to talk myself into it and I’ll spare you the solliloquies, but eventaully convince myself to open the door and walk out.

I start doing my thing again, but I don’t want to be there at all.

Now – for the most part – the night went all right past that point except…. here’s fun. Stupid bitch ACTUALLY had the gall to come back to my bar. She was… impressively meek. I suspect our security folk may have spoken with her. I said almost next to nothing. She got bare minimum civility and that was it. As I told my supervisor later about it, my choice was either throw a bottle at her or serve, and she made the behavioral choice that resulted in service. Otherwise? I’d probably be writing this several days later after some orange jumpsuit time, and for me? That’s impressive. I’ve never been paused by a cop for much more than a traffic ticket. Never detained.

Toward the end of the night one of our regulars sits at the bar. He likes me… for some reason… not always a bad thing really but he loves to just yammer on and I really didn’t wanna listen to him. Still – he’s not aggressively annoying. We discuss the return of smoking briefly. A Lot about his work, common topic for him. He ultimately manages to wrangle about $10 in tip money out of people that weren’t going to tip me. So, ironically – unlike my Karen for the night (who didn’t leave me even a dime despite her grandiose of claims of 20 years experience – which means – guess what? Absolutely jack shit to me, lady. It doesn’t make you my god or worthy of worship….) my regular helped me out and balanced the scales a bit. He’s not bad, I guess, when we’re leaving politics off of the table.

Good general advice, there.

 

Oh – and the above? It was C. Money was decent.  Anybody who guessed that wins…   I dunno. A free dinner once you’ve paid for it yourself.

 

ANYway. I have way too much shit to do today. Take it easy, folks.