August 2nd, 2018

“Let me explain – no there is too much.  Let me sum up.”

We’ll just write off my missing week or so with a quick recap of major salient points :

• Poker tour came by with all of its pomp, snarkiness, and rainfalls of dollars.
• Our newly returned Joan is now our once-again departed Joan after deciding to just skip out the door rather than take a pee test. I’ll let your imagination do the likely math on that one.
• Haley continues to be drama on a stick, and smiley all the time regardless.

That about covers it. Moving on.

Thursday night arrived with all its boredom intact, though with a slightly busier crowd than the parking lot had led me to expect.  Mind you – that means like…   6 people an hour instead of the 3 I’d expected, but I had a couple of good business spurts, and covering the lounge breaks was as generally lucratie as Thursday nights get.

Haley didn’t show up until late, which had Mary on the verge of popping an anxiety pill, because even though Mary is irritated by Haley’s general attitude and work ethic, she simultaneously lives in fear of Haley just bailing on us, which would then stick Mary with closing shifts. Whether she hates that on principal, or because she can’t get off at 10 and then drink for the rest of the night is up for debate.

Shelly continues to be a decent interim supervisor, and I’m enjoying her tenure. She’s taking an active role in trying to do ‘new’ stuff with the bar, such as proposing some drink specials, which most people haven’t bothered to try to do. She’s also pretty free about spilling the gossip of the day, which I’m not sure is such a good thing, but she’s not nearly as bad as some I’ve seen here, so… eh.  She’s not going to be closing up the Lounge for a while now though, as Rickie is returning from maternity leave tomorrow and will be training a new graveyard supervisor, who can do that kind of thing.  As to the why of a graveyard supervisor (which is Norma’s beat) – I honestly don’t know. There is some scuttlebutt around that Norma basically bullied an employee into resigning, but there could be entirely no (a.) truth to that or (b.) connection, regardless.

Jerry the Older returns from vacation this weekend, which is nice.

Red continues to campaign to promote up to bar staff, though I imagine they won’t let him until / unless we have a good barback covering his place. At least, I hope they won’t. He’s really the only barback we have, if you ignore Dougie’s half-assed nonsense.

Anyway though – the bar was quiet, with baseball, football, auto racing, and MMA dominating the TVs.  And for a quiet Thursday, the tips were decent. No complaints.

Closing observations :

• At one point, Haley asked what was wrong, and wondered if I wanted a hug. I politely declined. Not because she’s unattractive, or that I’d not enjoy one particularly. It’s just that in Haley’s case, the old addage about “Don’t stick it in crazy” should, I think, extend to hugs.
• August is a weird mixture of doldrums, and hectics.  Those are going to come in the form of our monthly convention center show (this weekend) and the annual powwow that the tribe puts on. (later in the month.) Should be… amusing, given our short bar staff.  Oi. Or whatever the equivalent native expression is.
• This will represent the second (and hopefully final for a while) 4-day Thursday-Sunday run, now that everyone we have is basically back on board. Smart money says it -won’t- be final for a while given the way things are going. Time shall tell.

Next up : Friday night