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I am the floor supervisor in a nightclub. Basically I'm the 4th highest power in the building, I wear a radio linked to both management and security and am the first port of call for well over thirty staff who have problems. I work all over the club doing whatever needs doing and making sure it's done quickly and efficiently.
I am often found behind the VIP bar, as such one expects people with a certain amount of class and/or dignity to appear. However the club I work in is placed in a fetid resort town (whose heyday was probably the fifties) so what I actually get more often than not are people who just happen to have money. The problem with these people is they drink like fifteen year olds but pay with platinum credit cards. A couple of choice examples to illustrate my point:
Two weeks ago a pair of very well endowed young ladies came to the bar quite early on a Saturday, their order was two WKD red and two shots of apple sourz. I don't know where to start on how wrong that is, in the VIP bar (aka the only place in the club to get a decent drink) they ask for the tackiest of tacky alcopops and even tackier chasers, letting it slide I apologise and tell them we have neither of those products available. This is when the torrent of abuse started "What sort of fesking* bar is it that doesn't fzaking* have WKD or apple sourz, this club is shift*" keeping my cool I suggest alternatives, I pointed out our more interesting fruit liquers as chasers and suggested a rather good cherry vodka with soda. They were livid that I dare suggest they drink anything apart from their beloved pishwater* and stormed off to find my manager and have me sacked.
Last year I was serving on a rather quiet Friday night, a well dressed man in his thirties came to the bar and said "I would like your best single malt Scotch whisky, I can tell a single malt by smell so make it a good one.". Being a well trained barman I chose a particularly esoteric highland malt, aged 15 years and with a name any sober person cannot hope to pronounce, poured him a generous measure and presented him the glass and said "£9 sir". He looked at me in horror and asked for ice ice, which is fair enough, because many people enjoy a fine scotch on the rocks, two ice cubes later the man still had a look of abject horror. demanded to know why I hadn't put any cola into the glass. This was too far. I don't particularly like whiskey, but I know a good drink when I see one and to pollute almost a tenner's worth of fine scotch is a crime against alcohol. Making it clear I was acting under protest I put a dash of coke into his glass, he shot me an evil look and demanded a taller glass with more cola, essentially telling me he can't stand the taste of whiskey, doesn't know his alcoholic backside from his elbow and has more money than sense. I refused to serve him on his next visit to the bar. ^
I love the bar because a lot of the customers are very cool people but the morons who get in because they know the doormen or manager really get my goat.
Moving to tonight's stories which are barely 8 hours old. The VIP bar was rammed tonight from the moment we opened (it's Saturday, that's what happens), the bar supervisor was off ill so we only had 3 people on the bar, I was supervising and the customers were baying like hounds for drinks from when we opened at 11pm till about 3am, when I came off the bar for reasons to be explained.
At about 11.15pm SC1 appears, a large gentleman in a striped white shirt. He pushes his way to the bar and makes a great song and dance of slamming a large wad of new £20 notes on the bar. Eventually I get around to serving him and before I can even say "May I help you sir?" he's tearing into me about how he'd "been at the bar for an hour" and how he "knows the manager". I wait for his rant to finish (it's far too early to get annoyed) and politely ask him what he would like to drink. He orders about £20 worth of various bottled beers, and some sambuca.
I serve his drinks and add up his tab in my head, he goes mental at me for not writing his drinks down as management and makes a meal out of telling me he's known my bar supervisor for years and demands to see him. Gesturing to the radio earpeice I'm wearing and the large bunch of keys dangling from my belt I politely inform him that I am the supervisor of the bar this evening. This doesn't go down well, suddenly he's an investor in the bar, will have my job on monday and wants a bottle of free champagne if I value my job. The bar I work at is entirely owned by two brothers so I know he's talking from his backside.
I keep my cool and politely ask him for the £20 or so he owes, yet again he changes tactics offering me £15 and a pound tip. "Knowing the supervisor" didn't work, being "the boss" didn't work so I'll be damned if screwing my till and offering me such an insulting tip will.
I take back his four bottles, re-cap them and put them back in the fridge, the two shots I place on the back bar and I move on to the next customer. SC1 Is having none of it, he spits out his dummy and all the toys have been thrown out of the pram now, he grabs me by the shirt and starts bellowing in my face about how he is THE VIP in town and how if I don't get him his drinks NOW and for free he's going to beat the tar out of me. I simply held the radio "talk" button and let him rant away, two particularly burly doormen appear behind him while he still has me by the collar.
Needless to say SC1 one left the building rather rapidly and had was on the business end of some well deserved unnecessary force.
Now usually that would be the peak of the night, but for some reason tonight was official "Be a prick to the barman" night and it carried on.
Some time later (between 12 and 2, which is peak time where no member of staff is allowed to leave the bar for any reason, a very stressful time) I met SC2, a fairly pretty girl who came to the bar and ordered a vodka and coke, £2.90 was the cost, not exactly breaking the bank. "I'll give you £2" she said as she winked at me and simled. I explain that I will not give her a discount and ask for the full amount. She goes on for a little while about only having £2 all the while trying to be attractive (it seems the more a girl tries to be attractive the more she fails at it) and makes absoloutely no headway. Eventually she understands that I don't give alcohol away and pulls out her purse which is literally swollen because of all the notes jammed into it. I can't stand it when people go to such lengths to be petty over such a pitiful amount when they have the money to pay.
SC3 made me want to kill. I have made friends with one of my regulars, he in a fan of slippery nipples and as my speciality is building shooters we get on really well, he is always polite, he waits patiently to be served, he tips and is generally a very cool guy. Coming back from a break I see my friend is waiting to be served and go to serve him first.
SC3 must have only just turned 18, he was holding a bottle of the cheapest lager we had and had no patience or manners. Transcript of conversation goes thusly.
J = Me
CC = Cool Customer
SC3 = SC3
SC3: [Whistles and clicks, obviously either his servo motors are on the fritz or his pet dog has gone missing] {Mistake 1}
J: Can I help sir?
CC: Yes, may I have...
SC3: [Grabbing my shoulder] OI! I was next. {Mistake 2}
J: [To SC3] I'm sorry sir I've just come off a break and will be with you momentarily. [To CC] Sorry what was that?
CC: Two double vodkas, one with lemonade, one red bull, a bottle of Corona and three slippery nipples.
SC3: [To CC] Fucking arsehole, I'm next. {Mistake 3}
I turn to get the drinks, coming back to CC with bits of the order as they are ready.
J: That's Twent... (Didn't even get to finish the word twenty)
SC3: Get me two bottles of Stella. {Mistake 4}
J: [To SC3] Sir, I am in the middle of an order if you wait just another minute I will serve you but at the moment I am busy. [To CC] Twenty Four Seventy sir.
CC: [Hands over £30] Keep the change bud.
J: Thank you sir.
SC3: [Grabs my arm making me drop the money] Get me my beer NOW. {Mistake 5}
J: SIR (Shouting, but being polite while doing it) I am in the middle of a transaction and will serve you when I am finished. [Puts money in till, gets change and puts change in tip jar]
Need to go back to prose for this bit.
I hadn't even rectracted my arm from putting the money in the jar when something bounces off my back followed by a cold wet feeling. Someone had thrown a drink at me, soaking my hair and shirt. No prizes for guessing who that was. {Mistake 6} I turn on one heel with a face like thunder, pull my earpeice out and get ready for war. I Storm across the bar to where SC3 is stood and he takes me by the shirt (second SC of the night to do that for those who are counting) pulls me right up close and starts calling me everything from a fig* to a curt*. Then he makes a HUGE mistake. He pulls his right arm back. I hit him. His hand went straight into his jacket pocket and something large moved, so I bounced his head off the bar. He fell backwards and before I'd even radio'D secuirty there were four doormen escorting him out.
My manager paid me a visit and took me into the camera room, I expected to be hung drawn and quartered right there, the CCTV in the club can clearly see the dates on every coin in the till, and there is now a tape (DVD more likely?) of me decking some customer.
My manager sits me down and asks me what happenned, I explained exactly what had transpired, showed him the wet patch that used to be the back of my shirt and we watched the CCTV footage of him getting chinned in mid punch. I had to fill in a written statement, while I was doing that one of the four doormen popped his head around the door holding a bowie knife. Apparently that was the large thing in his jacket pocket I had spotted. SC3 is probably still in the cells, he's going to court for assault (even though the punch was never executed the video footage clearly shows him throwing the drink over me and raising his arm to punch), posession of an illegal weapon, and a few other things involving the knife.
I spent a good hour talking to my manager, the club owner and two policemen. On the plus side I was allowed to smoke inside while I did it.
All in all a very eventful night.
* = Creative spelling to avoid unnecessary profanity
^ = The spelling of whiskey varies wildly.
I am often found behind the VIP bar, as such one expects people with a certain amount of class and/or dignity to appear. However the club I work in is placed in a fetid resort town (whose heyday was probably the fifties) so what I actually get more often than not are people who just happen to have money. The problem with these people is they drink like fifteen year olds but pay with platinum credit cards. A couple of choice examples to illustrate my point:
Two weeks ago a pair of very well endowed young ladies came to the bar quite early on a Saturday, their order was two WKD red and two shots of apple sourz. I don't know where to start on how wrong that is, in the VIP bar (aka the only place in the club to get a decent drink) they ask for the tackiest of tacky alcopops and even tackier chasers, letting it slide I apologise and tell them we have neither of those products available. This is when the torrent of abuse started "What sort of fesking* bar is it that doesn't fzaking* have WKD or apple sourz, this club is shift*" keeping my cool I suggest alternatives, I pointed out our more interesting fruit liquers as chasers and suggested a rather good cherry vodka with soda. They were livid that I dare suggest they drink anything apart from their beloved pishwater* and stormed off to find my manager and have me sacked.
Last year I was serving on a rather quiet Friday night, a well dressed man in his thirties came to the bar and said "I would like your best single malt Scotch whisky, I can tell a single malt by smell so make it a good one.". Being a well trained barman I chose a particularly esoteric highland malt, aged 15 years and with a name any sober person cannot hope to pronounce, poured him a generous measure and presented him the glass and said "£9 sir". He looked at me in horror and asked for ice ice, which is fair enough, because many people enjoy a fine scotch on the rocks, two ice cubes later the man still had a look of abject horror. demanded to know why I hadn't put any cola into the glass. This was too far. I don't particularly like whiskey, but I know a good drink when I see one and to pollute almost a tenner's worth of fine scotch is a crime against alcohol. Making it clear I was acting under protest I put a dash of coke into his glass, he shot me an evil look and demanded a taller glass with more cola, essentially telling me he can't stand the taste of whiskey, doesn't know his alcoholic backside from his elbow and has more money than sense. I refused to serve him on his next visit to the bar. ^
I love the bar because a lot of the customers are very cool people but the morons who get in because they know the doormen or manager really get my goat.
Moving to tonight's stories which are barely 8 hours old. The VIP bar was rammed tonight from the moment we opened (it's Saturday, that's what happens), the bar supervisor was off ill so we only had 3 people on the bar, I was supervising and the customers were baying like hounds for drinks from when we opened at 11pm till about 3am, when I came off the bar for reasons to be explained.
At about 11.15pm SC1 appears, a large gentleman in a striped white shirt. He pushes his way to the bar and makes a great song and dance of slamming a large wad of new £20 notes on the bar. Eventually I get around to serving him and before I can even say "May I help you sir?" he's tearing into me about how he'd "been at the bar for an hour" and how he "knows the manager". I wait for his rant to finish (it's far too early to get annoyed) and politely ask him what he would like to drink. He orders about £20 worth of various bottled beers, and some sambuca.
I serve his drinks and add up his tab in my head, he goes mental at me for not writing his drinks down as management and makes a meal out of telling me he's known my bar supervisor for years and demands to see him. Gesturing to the radio earpeice I'm wearing and the large bunch of keys dangling from my belt I politely inform him that I am the supervisor of the bar this evening. This doesn't go down well, suddenly he's an investor in the bar, will have my job on monday and wants a bottle of free champagne if I value my job. The bar I work at is entirely owned by two brothers so I know he's talking from his backside.
I keep my cool and politely ask him for the £20 or so he owes, yet again he changes tactics offering me £15 and a pound tip. "Knowing the supervisor" didn't work, being "the boss" didn't work so I'll be damned if screwing my till and offering me such an insulting tip will.
I take back his four bottles, re-cap them and put them back in the fridge, the two shots I place on the back bar and I move on to the next customer. SC1 Is having none of it, he spits out his dummy and all the toys have been thrown out of the pram now, he grabs me by the shirt and starts bellowing in my face about how he is THE VIP in town and how if I don't get him his drinks NOW and for free he's going to beat the tar out of me. I simply held the radio "talk" button and let him rant away, two particularly burly doormen appear behind him while he still has me by the collar.
Needless to say SC1 one left the building rather rapidly and had was on the business end of some well deserved unnecessary force.
Now usually that would be the peak of the night, but for some reason tonight was official "Be a prick to the barman" night and it carried on.
Some time later (between 12 and 2, which is peak time where no member of staff is allowed to leave the bar for any reason, a very stressful time) I met SC2, a fairly pretty girl who came to the bar and ordered a vodka and coke, £2.90 was the cost, not exactly breaking the bank. "I'll give you £2" she said as she winked at me and simled. I explain that I will not give her a discount and ask for the full amount. She goes on for a little while about only having £2 all the while trying to be attractive (it seems the more a girl tries to be attractive the more she fails at it) and makes absoloutely no headway. Eventually she understands that I don't give alcohol away and pulls out her purse which is literally swollen because of all the notes jammed into it. I can't stand it when people go to such lengths to be petty over such a pitiful amount when they have the money to pay.
SC3 made me want to kill. I have made friends with one of my regulars, he in a fan of slippery nipples and as my speciality is building shooters we get on really well, he is always polite, he waits patiently to be served, he tips and is generally a very cool guy. Coming back from a break I see my friend is waiting to be served and go to serve him first.
SC3 must have only just turned 18, he was holding a bottle of the cheapest lager we had and had no patience or manners. Transcript of conversation goes thusly.
J = Me
CC = Cool Customer
SC3 = SC3
SC3: [Whistles and clicks, obviously either his servo motors are on the fritz or his pet dog has gone missing] {Mistake 1}
J: Can I help sir?
CC: Yes, may I have...
SC3: [Grabbing my shoulder] OI! I was next. {Mistake 2}
J: [To SC3] I'm sorry sir I've just come off a break and will be with you momentarily. [To CC] Sorry what was that?
CC: Two double vodkas, one with lemonade, one red bull, a bottle of Corona and three slippery nipples.
SC3: [To CC] Fucking arsehole, I'm next. {Mistake 3}
I turn to get the drinks, coming back to CC with bits of the order as they are ready.
J: That's Twent... (Didn't even get to finish the word twenty)
SC3: Get me two bottles of Stella. {Mistake 4}
J: [To SC3] Sir, I am in the middle of an order if you wait just another minute I will serve you but at the moment I am busy. [To CC] Twenty Four Seventy sir.
CC: [Hands over £30] Keep the change bud.
J: Thank you sir.
SC3: [Grabs my arm making me drop the money] Get me my beer NOW. {Mistake 5}
J: SIR (Shouting, but being polite while doing it) I am in the middle of a transaction and will serve you when I am finished. [Puts money in till, gets change and puts change in tip jar]
Need to go back to prose for this bit.
I hadn't even rectracted my arm from putting the money in the jar when something bounces off my back followed by a cold wet feeling. Someone had thrown a drink at me, soaking my hair and shirt. No prizes for guessing who that was. {Mistake 6} I turn on one heel with a face like thunder, pull my earpeice out and get ready for war. I Storm across the bar to where SC3 is stood and he takes me by the shirt (second SC of the night to do that for those who are counting) pulls me right up close and starts calling me everything from a fig* to a curt*. Then he makes a HUGE mistake. He pulls his right arm back. I hit him. His hand went straight into his jacket pocket and something large moved, so I bounced his head off the bar. He fell backwards and before I'd even radio'D secuirty there were four doormen escorting him out.
My manager paid me a visit and took me into the camera room, I expected to be hung drawn and quartered right there, the CCTV in the club can clearly see the dates on every coin in the till, and there is now a tape (DVD more likely?) of me decking some customer.
My manager sits me down and asks me what happenned, I explained exactly what had transpired, showed him the wet patch that used to be the back of my shirt and we watched the CCTV footage of him getting chinned in mid punch. I had to fill in a written statement, while I was doing that one of the four doormen popped his head around the door holding a bowie knife. Apparently that was the large thing in his jacket pocket I had spotted. SC3 is probably still in the cells, he's going to court for assault (even though the punch was never executed the video footage clearly shows him throwing the drink over me and raising his arm to punch), posession of an illegal weapon, and a few other things involving the knife.
I spent a good hour talking to my manager, the club owner and two policemen. On the plus side I was allowed to smoke inside while I did it.
All in all a very eventful night.
* = Creative spelling to avoid unnecessary profanity
^ = The spelling of whiskey varies wildly.
I now have a hell lot more respect for you.
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