March 30th, 2018
Friday night, and my second day back in the proverbial saddle.
I was actually looking forward to this as (a.) the band for the weekend isn’t particularly abrasive on the ears, so it’s a good one to come back in with, and (b.) I get to tend bar with another co-worker I haven’t seen in a while, so it kinda helps to feel like I’m getting all the boxes checked back off. The guy’s name in question, we’ll call Jerry. We actually have -two- Jerrys that tend bar, so I’ll simply take the page from Mr. Pitt’s book (Williiam, not Brad) and call him “Jerry the Older”. I imagine you can guess how I’ll refer to the other one.
I got my bag of money for the night, had the main cage toss me an extra $500 because it’s the weekend and I’d need the change, and got set up to go.
About an hour or so into the shift, we run out of something or other, and rather than wait for one of our bar backs to bring it along, I just pop over to the liquor room to get it myself. My badge, I’m pleased to see, still has the authorization to open up the door to the booze, so I’m stlll at least moderately cool, apparently.
On the way back, I see something that makes me twitchy – another zebra skin. More to the point, I see another zebra skin on someone I don’t even recognize. How to make part-time Hellrazor tense : Step one, spontaneously introduce new bar staff, ‘cuz invariably, when new staff comes in, the part-time gets dumped on, or loses his hours.
While I was a little tense that our supervisor for the night (whom I’ll call Charon, because she has a business-like gaze that would make the namesake ferryman blanche- but is otherwise completely awesome) brought the new zebra into the bar and we were steady enough that it was a good hour before I was able to lightly quiz Jerry the Older on the WTFs of the situation.
Turns out, she’s the bartender down the way in the casino, at the -actual- sports bar.
Where they don’t have to wear zebra suits.
Unlnike the main bar.
Which is not a sports bar.
Where we do.
-.-
…
Right. Train of thought. She’s apparently sick to death of the food service that comes with that job, which they never told her about, and has managed to successfully petition her way out to the main bar on a part-time basis. I immediately start planning for free time, because that’s just how this place works.
Regardless – I’m not a -complete- asshole, so I make sure I answer questions as needed and just let Jerry the Older take the lead on breaking her in to the bar on a Friday night. At least it’s not next weekend’s band, so again – a good time to do it if we have to, I suppose.
Beyond that, the night wasn’t particularly noteworthy. The band was entirely more country than I care for, but exactly what I expected them to be based on their other several dozen apperanaces, so it was all right, I suppose, and while we did have to split the bar take three ways instead of two, I still walked out with a solid bill to my credit, and under the circumstances, it was all right.
Closing observations :
- While I am a big believer that musicians should play what they like, at the same time, I’m a bit of a snob about it, and really don’t care for cross-genre polination, as a general rule.
- I’m willing to make an exception for Johnny Cash’s cover of “Hurt”, by Nine Inch Nails, however. That was so delightfully weird. It’s just a shame that this example doesn’t relate at all to the performance this evening.
- Or maybe it’s not. These guys are just not in the same league.
Next up : Saturday night