Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves
The economy is in the toilet. I didn’t need a failed $700 squillion bailout plan to tell me that. The $80 weekend at the bar was a pretty good indicator.
In times past, on a Game Day weekend, I could bank a small bundle. It was not far fetched for me to reel in $300-$400 for a 4-6 hour shift, after tip-outs. It’s not a bad gig, and is one of the reasons I still work at the bar. This past weekend was completely different. Yes, $80 was all I made, after a 7 hour shift. Granted, that is still more than $10 an hour, and a lot of people would be happy with that, but when you’re used to making a bare minimum of double that, it kind of sucks.
I usually get the best shifts, as I have the most seniority. Now, 12:30 games are not optimal, but there is usually a good drinking crowd before and after, so working through the game is usually best. So let it be with Turtle. I had a fairly inexperienced crew working with me, but then again, most of the employees are relatively new. We’ve had a spate of turnovers lately. It turned out to really not matter much at all.
It was slow. Very slow. Too slow to have 2 bartenders and a barback on at the front bar. Heck, one bartender could have handled it quite easily, and still been fairly bored. I don’t really blame management for not cutting anyone, as there was no way to tell if it would ever get busy or not.
There are several reasons why it was so slow. The Gators losing didn’t help much. In most college towns, if their team loses, folks go out and console themselves with drink. If their team wins, they go out and celebrate. Either way, they go out. Not so much, as far as Florida is concerned. Everyone goes home and mopes. The “after the game crowd” is minimal, at best.
Another reason is the economy. Why spend frivolously? Gas is almost $4 a gallon. Hotels are expensive. People just can’t afford to blow a couple hundred bills for a weekend of fun. Even those that are willing to spend tend to cut back in some areas, and tipping is usually the first area hit.
One of the biggest reasons we didn’t make any money, though, would be Little Miss “S”. She is one of the newest employees, and one of the most enthusiastic. This can be a good thing, under the right circumstances. It can also be very annoying to her coworkers. Y’see, “S” has a major problem with “Camping the Door”. She will hang out by the door and greet customers as they come in, and take their order. This means she’s taking the majority of the business in the bar. Let me put it this way: her sales were higher than any other employee at the bar, for any shift. In fact, she doubled what the three of us at the front bar sold in the same shift. She took home more than double in tips than what the three of us made combined. She was also supposed to “tip us out”, as we made all of her drinks (so we know, intimately, how much she was selling, and we weren’t…). After 40 minutes past the time our shifts ended, she still hadn’t reconciled her bank, and hence, how much she should tip us out. I ended up giving up waiting and stormed out, pissed off. (I got a message later that she’d left $10 for each of us – which is completely unacceptable. The standard is 20% of tips earned.)
The main reason I was pissed, beyond her, essentially, stealing from me, was the fact that she was also completely drunk. Trashed. Hammered. Were she a customer, she would have been cut off long ago. She was doing shots with all of her customers. Every time she’d ordered shots, she was having one too. And trust me, she’d ordered a LOT of shots. Yes, a shot or two during the course of a shift is allowed. A shot or twenty is not. This is not the first time she’s done this, either. In fact, it has become a rather regular occurrence on the nights she works. Not only is it morally bankrupt, it is a liability to the bar itself.
Oh, well. She no longer works there anyway. She torqued off far too many people and there were complaints from just about every person who worked there. She’d claimed that it was no big deal and that she’d only had a couple of shots, but that is complete hogwash, and the manager knew it. The tips are still going to be down for a while, due to the economy, but at least we don’t have to deal with her any longer.
In times past, on a Game Day weekend, I could bank a small bundle. It was not far fetched for me to reel in $300-$400 for a 4-6 hour shift, after tip-outs. It’s not a bad gig, and is one of the reasons I still work at the bar. This past weekend was completely different. Yes, $80 was all I made, after a 7 hour shift. Granted, that is still more than $10 an hour, and a lot of people would be happy with that, but when you’re used to making a bare minimum of double that, it kind of sucks.
I usually get the best shifts, as I have the most seniority. Now, 12:30 games are not optimal, but there is usually a good drinking crowd before and after, so working through the game is usually best. So let it be with Turtle. I had a fairly inexperienced crew working with me, but then again, most of the employees are relatively new. We’ve had a spate of turnovers lately. It turned out to really not matter much at all.
It was slow. Very slow. Too slow to have 2 bartenders and a barback on at the front bar. Heck, one bartender could have handled it quite easily, and still been fairly bored. I don’t really blame management for not cutting anyone, as there was no way to tell if it would ever get busy or not.
There are several reasons why it was so slow. The Gators losing didn’t help much. In most college towns, if their team loses, folks go out and console themselves with drink. If their team wins, they go out and celebrate. Either way, they go out. Not so much, as far as Florida is concerned. Everyone goes home and mopes. The “after the game crowd” is minimal, at best.
Another reason is the economy. Why spend frivolously? Gas is almost $4 a gallon. Hotels are expensive. People just can’t afford to blow a couple hundred bills for a weekend of fun. Even those that are willing to spend tend to cut back in some areas, and tipping is usually the first area hit.
One of the biggest reasons we didn’t make any money, though, would be Little Miss “S”. She is one of the newest employees, and one of the most enthusiastic. This can be a good thing, under the right circumstances. It can also be very annoying to her coworkers. Y’see, “S” has a major problem with “Camping the Door”. She will hang out by the door and greet customers as they come in, and take their order. This means she’s taking the majority of the business in the bar. Let me put it this way: her sales were higher than any other employee at the bar, for any shift. In fact, she doubled what the three of us at the front bar sold in the same shift. She took home more than double in tips than what the three of us made combined. She was also supposed to “tip us out”, as we made all of her drinks (so we know, intimately, how much she was selling, and we weren’t…). After 40 minutes past the time our shifts ended, she still hadn’t reconciled her bank, and hence, how much she should tip us out. I ended up giving up waiting and stormed out, pissed off. (I got a message later that she’d left $10 for each of us – which is completely unacceptable. The standard is 20% of tips earned.)
The main reason I was pissed, beyond her, essentially, stealing from me, was the fact that she was also completely drunk. Trashed. Hammered. Were she a customer, she would have been cut off long ago. She was doing shots with all of her customers. Every time she’d ordered shots, she was having one too. And trust me, she’d ordered a LOT of shots. Yes, a shot or two during the course of a shift is allowed. A shot or twenty is not. This is not the first time she’s done this, either. In fact, it has become a rather regular occurrence on the nights she works. Not only is it morally bankrupt, it is a liability to the bar itself.
Oh, well. She no longer works there anyway. She torqued off far too many people and there were complaints from just about every person who worked there. She’d claimed that it was no big deal and that she’d only had a couple of shots, but that is complete hogwash, and the manager knew it. The tips are still going to be down for a while, due to the economy, but at least we don’t have to deal with her any longer.
posted by Turtle at 10:12 AM
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