July 21st, 2018

It was a very off-kilter feeling day.

To an extent, a return from vacation is often like that, but there was more to it I think. The surface read, as I walked into the back of the House, was feeling that as ever, vacations are very pleasurable, and entirely not long enough to boot. It also probalby didn’t help that I had been running a bit late and as such, didn’t grab dinner prior to coming to work, so I was hungry.

Either way – once I”d clocked in on time, I nonetheless took my time getting out onto the floor. Technically, the rule is that you’re supposed to be ‘at your station, ready to work’ about 5-10 minutes prior to start of shift’, but after 9+ years of -not- consistently doing that and hearing little more than the occasional non-official mention about the subject, I’m not exactly living in fear. I went to the cage. I got my weekend money. I went to the bar and got signed in. Cherry’s out on Saturday nights, and with our being one bartender short now thanks to Morgan’s previously mentioned indescrion, the service bar is shut for the evening s that the main lounge can have two of us there. Just me and Jerry the Older. He informs me that we’ve now started using an old-school timeclock again to punch in and out for breaks. I suppose I should be pleased they don’t go in for tracking anklets or something.

I was pleasantly surprised to see Joan walk in not long after. I’d heard she was coming back to the land of cocktail service, but wasn’t sure when, so that was cool. Heley called in so it was just Joan and Mary on the floor, but they’re pros at this, so no worries.

Shelly cornered me early into the shift to ask if I could do a couple of extra days, cover some PTO things for other people, and I agreed to the couple they proposed. I feel it’s only fair, really. No one pissed and moaned realy about my last week and a half off, and looking good and helpful for our new supervisory staff is not a bad thing.

Side note – the floor mats were still together and arranged nicely, so either Dougie hasn’t bothered to clean them in the last two weeks (which I’d believe), or he did and just did the job right and finished it (which I wouldn’t believe) or Shelly decided that it was a thing that needed to happen after the other night, and just did it herself. The latter is easily the most probable option.

This was also Jerry the Older’s last shift prior to -his- two week vacation starting, so that was good for him, I suppose. Rumor on the street is that Red is bucking to get shifted into the empty Barkeep slot. The downside to this is that then we’d have no barback wahtsoever that was worth a damn. (Looking at you, Dougie.) I suppose we’ll see. One thing I like about Red as a barback is that I don’t have to interact with him constantly. He’s a good hand, but I don’t want to have to talk to him every minute of a shift. He can get on the nerves. Still, if the powers that be do it, they do it.

Pammy cam visiting for a while, chatted with a couple of guests and some of the supervisors, and then buggered off again, which suits me. I work -very- hard to not indicate how much I really don’t care for Pammy these days. She basically forced out our former head of catering, Alice, whom I had a huge amount of respect for and loyalty towards. Pammy has a permanent place on my shit list for that.

The band this week is one of our regulars, but not one of our happy regulars. They say they do a lot of things, and they probably do, really, but they lean into old country more than anything else. I can’t think of another band that packs a pedal steel guitar as a regular set piece, and they’ll break out a fiddle now and then too. They’re not a band that needs earplugs though, so I left them in my locker over break, and just grabbed the 90 cents I needed to buy myself a Butterfinger to take the edge off the hunger.

Jerry the Older got his break done too, and we settled in for a night of fun country music. Whee.

Now there were a few amusing factors to be had in all of this :

We had a 250-head wedding reception in the house, and with the service bar shut down, we saw many of them ahead of time. Nice enough crowd really, aside from a couple of bozos insistent on brreaking the rules and being lippy about it when called on it.
We had a lady on the dance floor most of the night, whom I’ll call Fish, who at one point, was doing this… I’m not even sure. She’d start standing and clapping, then slap her knees, then get down on her knees and slap the dance floor, and then lay prone on the dance floor, and slap it. This bit’s all to the rhythm, mind you. Then she’d roll onto her back, kick one leg to the side, both legs up in the air, one leg to the other side (that bit decidedly not on any rhythm whatsoever) and then would reverse the previous steps to stand back up again. She did this for the entire song. I pointed it out to Jerry the Older and neither of us could make any sense of it, but we called her Fish for the rest of the night.

Thankfully that offset some of the irritations of the evening. I really enjoyed my week and a half where I didn’t have to breathe in any cigarette smoke. Everyone tonight kept insisting on sitting right behind my cash resister and lighting up. I was about ready to douse people in Sierra Mist by the end of the night. My throat did not appreciate it at all. It still doesn’t, 12 hours later. Also I was having to curb some serious OCD tendancies.

Still, for all of that, and the general slowness of the night, we made some pretty good money, so hey. That’s all good.

Closing observations :

I’m still just recalling Fish. I … I’ve got nothing. I understand dancing can be very individualized. We used to watch a couple that was constantly off-rhythm. (Her always faster, he always slower, and doing it simultaneously together), but Fish was in a class all by herself.
The next couple of weeks look interesting on the schedule. I may actually be the only bartender even scheduled for next Saturday. -That- should be amusing. Bet you money though, that Shelly grabs herself a cash bag and pitches in. Please, Gods of the Bar, don’t let the casino jade her too quickly. The helpfulness is very nice.
It says something about the place in which I work that they’ll make rules about clocking in and out for breaks now and then, but utterly fail to provide you an accurate timekeeping device with which to accomplish this. Much eye-rolling ensues.
This may just be -returned from vacationness-, but I’m once again feeling like this is not the job I wish to be doing for the rest of my life. Mind you, I could also just be having that returning annoyance that working 2-3 gigs is necessary in order to make ends meet. I need to come up with a good 80k a year gig that I can do from my home. I’m open to suggestions. Just sayin’.

Next up : Sunday