Fellow Bar Keeps…
Ever have a day, a week, a month, even more go by great at work and then things start heading downhill because you don’t “fit the mold” of the other bar personnel?
Yeah, me neither… But, if I did (hypothetically speaking) it may go something like this:
You help out the owners and managers starting out and then they start letting people go at their every whim and talking about them at every waking moment and in every managers meeting. Then we’ll promote those who spread their legs and do you ‘favors’ (male and female). Grow up, right?
Of course not; so, we’d start letting one of the managers, (we’ll call her Pera K. just for namesake) splurge and collect salary pay and hourly pay w/ tips of course by sticking those they don’t like on shitty day shifts, every day and taking all of the regular good shifts Wednesdays - Sundays. And, in celebration of that, she’ll get stinking drunk and call the colored workers stuck up niggers while she passes out and has to be carried out of the bar on the backs of two employees. It’s her day off but pshhhh, WHAT THE HELL! There’s no need to show a little reserve within ones place of business even if we’re in charge…
Next, we have a gent who’s kinda nice but, not a strong night bar man, we’ll call him Six-Four. He receives a ticket at his other place of bar business for serving an underager beer/liquor and gets a pink slip. He comes in and gets wasted with Pera K. and most of the other off duty supers. The next week, he has a strong arm shift after hob-nobbing. Hmmm… Six Four must live up to his name in another dept huh?…
Moving onto a supervisor who seems friendly; he speaks but tells horrible jokes. You chuckle anyway as to be light-hearted; his name is Noni Burma. A supervisor he is; doesn’t get invited to half of the managers meetings, takes racist comments from one of the owners and tells the staff what he doesn’t like (constantly) about the owners, other supers and certain staff. Yet, he doesn’t speak up. I guess its okay to be a pussy and not speak up for yourself in an economy such as this; I mean hey, who needs self respect when you’ve got a family at home and a boss who doesn’t realize he’s going to be bankrupt in under 5 years because his club bartenders are taking at least 5 shots an hour from 9pm til past closing… Ahh well.
Then there’s Ricardo Amante. Ricardo runs security and manages the bar. You can’t miss him; he’s the stocky Latino who tends to be followed by what I call the Blond Brigade. Never a shortage of them around; as long as there’s Latino and Black men along with free liquor, you can be sure to find these tricks sniffing around someones nut sack.
Moving on, let’s name some more of the things that are serious no-no’s that are always going to take place:
You come in to your shift 20 mins. late and immediately get on your cell phone for the next 10 mins. to “help drum up some business by calling my friends”
You pull a NCNS* (twice) togo to a basketball games and wonder why others are giving you that “funky” look.
You’re constantly 15 mins. late because you are not getting along with your spouse/significant other and feel the need to have a ‘talk’ right before work.
You can’t take out trash or get ice because that’s not “your job”
You don’t rotate product when restocking because that would require kneeling down on an ‘icky’ floor
You leave empty liquor bottles on the shelf so when the next shift’s BT grabs it they have to find the backup
You are OBLIVIOUS to the 6 people that have been sitting in the stools next to your 2 girl/guy friends because you think that your friends will tip you better on the $10 tab you’ve given them than whatever the 6 ppl can possibly muster up
You run your fingers through your hair, play with your teeth and then make a drink grabbing the drinking edge and squeezing a lime into rum and coke because you think “you’re clean”
You make a White Russian in this order: kahlua, layer it with half and half, then layer that with vodka, because ‘that’s the recipe’
You think that ‘a little bit of brown on the edges of your lime wedges is fine- after all, they’re still mostly green’
You refill your speed pourers daily with new on top of old and only wash them when they ‘look dirty’
You rinse EVERYTHING in cold water because your fingers are too sensitive and it’s the same as hot anyway
You don’t understand why a dull knife is actually more dangerous than a sharp one
You get stinking drunk after your shift and laugh as you fall off your bar stool all the while proclaiming loudly, I CAN’T AFFORD TO DRINK HERE AFTER WORK, WHOO HOO!!!!
You constantly butt in on your coworker’s regulars.
You’re the bars General Manager and you do so much coke in the other bathroom you have NO idea what’s going on until two-week later.
You regularly serve drinks in glasses with lipstick marks on them because you don’t do a thorough job washing glasses, and don’t check the glass before making drinks
These are all possibly true and can happen in any bar; anywhere.
The No.1 sign of a bad bartender out of all of them would be if you see any of your fellow bartenders committing any of the above you do nothing.
The No.1 sign of a good bartender out of all of them? Seeing any of the following and saying something about it and getting written up for bringing things to that persons attention…
