Thoroughly Modern Brittanie
February 18, 2005 | 3:08 pm | Blog | When I was a Bartender | 0
This weekend marks one whole month since I was freed from the bondage of indentured servitude. (Throw that image around in your head a bit, you dirty, naughty reader).
Thanks to the utter generosity and complete support of my wonderful, understanding boyfriend, I quit my second job slingin’ Singapores at a local college bar.
A few weeks ago, when we had company at the house, C was giving them the grand tour, except for our house is really just a big loft-style condo, so the “tour” basically consists of him leading our guests around a big circle pointing out all his antique Polynesian kitsch.
On this particular tour, when he got to the “bedroom,” which is basically just our bed, pushed up against the wall, he said, “And this… this is where the magic happens. Or as Brittanie calls it, ‘rent.’”
Very funny. I think it’s safe to say I have never asked him for much, so the fact that he allowed me to move all of my things into his house, and all of my dog’s things as well, makes him a pretty remarkable man. I especially recognize this sacrifice, considering he is an only child who has lived alone as an animal-free bachelor for a better part of the last decade.
When I first moved to Houston, I had no money in the bank, no job and no permanent place to stay. I decided that the best kind of job to get would be a job where I made tips, since I wouldn’t have to wait for a paycheck.
I moved on a Sunday, went job hunting on Monday, and was hired by the first place I applied to. They asked me to start the following weekend. Score!
I should have known it would be drama from the start. Here are a couple of the warning signs I chose to ignore:
- For one, I may have fibbed a bit on my resume. I said I’d worked as a cocktail waitress, when in truth, all I’d ever done was serve over-priced fried seafood (in Oklahoma, nonetheless. NEVER eat seafood when you’re no place near the sea.) at a hokey themed restaurant that required me to wear a fishing vest complete with tackle.
- They called me in for three, count ‘em, one — two – three, interviews. For a job as a bartender. At a college bar. I mean, who do they think they are, the Playboy Mansion?
- During my third interview, one of the managers (how many managers do you need in a place with five bartenders, anyway?) actually tried to hit on me. I like to refer to him as “Soul Patch,” only because no one pushing 40 can really carry that off, no matter how hip they once were. None of his questions had anything whatsoever to do with bars, bartending, my resume, the job, booze or beer. I later found out that Soul Patch was a Serial Employee Dater, having sexed up no less than three of my five coworkers, plus some that were no longer there.
But you know, I digress. I was broke and they were willing to hire me right away. And to tell you the truth, if you take away the Emotionally Manipulative Boss, the Boss Who is So Obsessive Compulsive The She Labels Everything with a Brother™ Label Maker, The Boss That Wants To Get Into Your Undies, the drunken frat boys, the snooty sorority girls, the cheapskates, the jocks, The Guy That Hits On The Bartender Immediately After She Overhears Him Getting Rejected By The Girl That’s Sitting Right Next To Him, the drunk girl who hangs her panties from the longhorns every Saturday night I DON’T WANT TO CLEAN UP YOUR PANTIES ANYMORE DAMMIT!, the “It’s My Birthday, Whaddo I Get For Free” types, the “How Much Is…” types, the “Do You Have Any Specials…” types, the non-tippers, the 25-cents-on-a-five-dollar-tab tippers, the cigar smokers, the angries (Why are you so angry?), and the hungries (“Uh, can I, like, have some chips or something?”) and The People That Just Won’t Leave At 2 a.m. Alreadies, bartending was pretty fun. I liked almost all of my coworkers, I got to wear whatever I wanted, I got to say whatever I wanted — so long as it was out of earshot from the owner — the money was real good, and I loved my regulars.
After a while, though, I figured that I should put my degree to use and get a real job. Sadly, however, my degree, which equals roughly $40,000 in solid education, nets me a career in which I make only about half that much a year, pre-tax. I reconcile this in my head by saying that being a starving writer gives me so much more street cred, but apparently the company that financed my car could care less about my street cred.
I’ve done this before, moonlighting. In fact, I’ve done it my whole life. Ever since I was 16 I’ve had a job, sometimes two. I worked all the way through college, full-time, and still managed a 3.8 GPA. And as soon as I was out of college and in my first REAL job, I had to get a second job because my REAL job didn’t pay my REAL bills.
So my second job, bartending, made it possible to do my first job, writing. Without one, I could never have afforded to do the other and, you know, have a roof over my head.
But my part-time job was getting more and more stressful. Four shifts at the bar a week equaled about 40 hours, on top of my REAL 40-hour job. I was getting about 4 hours of sleep a night, getting to work at 9 a.m., working until 6 p.m., getting to my other work at about 7 p.m., getting home at about 3:30 a.m., over and over and over again. The only full day I had off was Saturday, and most of that time I was sleeping. Plus, suddenly, my bosses started to get medievally neurotic, making those late nights even less pleasant.
Still, I stayed at the bar. It was like a bad relationship you just can’t leave. Anyone who has ever worked for tips can understand this — you get addicted to the lifestyle. You always have money in your pocket, usually two to three hundred dollars, after a shift. If you are broke or need some quick cash, you just pick up a shift and bam!, cash money ho. No waiting two weeks for your paycheck, no credit cards, no waiting for checks to clear. Soon you wonder how you ever lived without all that money, and you laugh in that face of anyone who doesn’t carry at least three Benjamin’s in their wallet at all times. I, personally, am all about the Benjamin’s.
My bosses were getting worse and worse. Yelling at us for stupid things, like not putting enough ice in a drink, or then, putting too much ice in one. ONLY HIRING WOMEN (isn’t that illegal?) Don’t pour the Guinness like that. Don’t pick up the tips immediately. Smile more and don’t yell at the customers. Make more small talk. Quit talking already, customers are waiting. Why didn’t you talk to that person?!?
As I got more fed up with it, I started apologizing to my coworkers. “On the day I decide to quit,” I’d tell them, “I’m going to pick the busiest day, and just not show up. It’s supposed to be a big Up-Yours to The Man, but I know you guys are the ones who are really going to suffer, so I’m sorry.”
Poor C was sick of it too. He never got to see me, and when he did, I was always exhausted or cranky or both. I have lived in Houston for more than a year and have never been to any restaurants or bars, because I was always at work. So finally, we decided I should move in, that way I could live on just one job. That, so far, was the best day of my life.
In spite of what I’d told my barmates, I gave my bosses a three-week notice, just to be nice. Two weeks passed, they hadn’t even tried to hire someone. Three weeks passed, no replacement. On the night before what was supposed to be my last night, Soul Patch pulled me aside and said, “Yeah, umm, when do you plan on your last day being?”
“I dunno,” I told him.
“Well, you know, uhh, that when we hire the new person, we’re gonna want you to, like, stick around a week or so until she gets trained.”
“Umm, oh.. okay.”
And then I did it! One Friday last month, after I came home from my REAL job, I just didn’t go to work. I just didn’t show up. It was awesome, liberating, redemptive. That same night, another bartender called in sick, so they had half the staff they should have had, and the bar ended up doing $10,000 in business that night (which is HUGE in one evening. We used to think $7,000 was good). They were screwed, but they screwed themselves. I had given my notice.
One of the best things about that job was the overwhelming amount of gossip I was exposed to. Part of what made my last few weeks there so stressful was this new barback we hired. Steve annoyed the wits outta me, especially while I watched him talk on his cell phone instead of washing dishes and sit on a barstool smoking a cigarette while the other barback mopped the floor. When I called him on it, he’d mutter expletives at me under his breath. Luckily, the owners were on the verge of firing Steve when he gave his two-week notice. Perceptive little jerk, huh?
Anyway, I called an old coworker the other day to get an update on the gossip, and she told me that a week after Steve gave his two-week notice, he asked to rescind it. Fool! How you gonna take back a two week notice?