Bar Bitches (That's kind of a joke!)
2003-12-01 � 2:52 p.m.

I am going to rant a bit now, mostly to get some things off of my chest and to get the taste of my recent mental quandry out of my mouth (and in an attempt to leverage myself out of said state). Forgive me.

I have mentioned here before that I work in a bar, right? Well...one day a week I do. But I *do* work there. I work the door, asking to see everyone's I.D. before they get to go in. I do this so that the servers and bartender can focus on serving what can be a sizable weekend crowd without taking the time to make sure everyone is of age. That can get kind of hectic when you have a hundred, a hundred and fifty people in the place.

I am also around to keep an eye on things. When it gets crowded like that the servers, busers and bartender are maxed out just performing their standard duties; often they cannot spot "trouble" as it is brewing because they are too busy. We have a floor manager on the weekends, and he will help with this too, but it is the door person's responsibility. This isn't hard, really — we rarely have to eject anyone, and it has never been overly contentious. And I don't have to do it myself, so it isn't like I need to be physically imposing (which I am so not).

So, all that being said, I have any number of different little issues with the job.

Firstly, those people that give me a hard time about checking their I.D. Almost without fail, these are kids who are barely of age — anywhere from twenty-one to twenty-three. And of course, they are the ones that should be getting their I.D. checked, but they act like it's this big deal and they cannot believe that I would be foolish enough as to want to see their I.D.

Grow up. Hand over your I.D., don't get cute, and you'll get in the door faster. Sheesh.

There are variations on this theme. There are the people that like to believe that they are "regulars" and express disgruntlement if I do not remember them and ask for their I.D. There are the people who would like to think they are regulars but who are plainly not, because they exclaim, upon being asked for I.D., "What?!? When did you start asking for I.D. at the door?" I usually take great delight in telling them that it's been about ten months. I guess you don't come here as much as you thought, huh?

Then there are the people that really get under my skin. When I ask for I.D., they give me this look, up and down, and ask me back, "Can I see your I.D.? You don't look old enough to be inside the bar."

Now, okay — I look young, I know this. People are usually off by about four years when they try to guess my age. But you know what? You don't want to piss off the door guy. Being cute and/or clever is not a good plan because, guaranteed, the guy on the door has heard it all before, probably a few times already that evening.

And those people that ask me if I am old enough? Yeah — again, they're somewhere between twenty-one and twenty-three. I always take great pleasure in telling them, after I have inspected their I.D., "I'm a lot older than you."

The people that are nice about it are usually the ones who I wouldn't technically have to I.D. at all if I didn't want to (the law says that we only have to ask for I.D. if they look under a certain age; I ask everybody, whether they have gray hair or not). Sometimes they express a little surprise, but they happily produce the I.D. And then look! They were born in 1962 or something.

But all that is really peanuts. My big kvetch is with a certain segment of the regulars.

Being a regular isn't anything that's definable, of course. You just kind of become one through a process of accretion. Once I can pick you out of the crowd as someone who is in all the time, I'll quit asking you for your I.D. and just wave you through, right?

Where this becomes problematic for me is that I expect certain things from regulars. Sure, they all have their personality quirks, but they come in all the time, know all the employees names, get a bit better service, etc. Because of that, you should be more polite, more forgiving, moreamenable, etc. Don't use the fact that you come in all the time to be a cock to the help — it's rude and pathetic. Pathetic because it becomes obvious that you're basing a portion of your identity on the idea that you "matter" in this place which, really, is only a business. And one that can get along quite well without you, thank you very much.

So, the bar I work at, The Bonfire, is pretty much understood to have a pretty good looking staff (yours truly excepted, of course). It's all male (except for Vin, the daytime Vietnamese cook), and even I have to admit that most of them are better than average looking. Like, sevens and eights on a scale of one to ten.

The problem is that this attracts a certain segement of the female population to the bar. Don't get me wrong — I like girls, I really do. And I like that they come in all prettied up and try to chat with Tim, not knowing that he's gayer than a box of rocks. (It's totally hilarious to watch them try to work their wiles on him; he's not oblivious, it just grosses him out and they don't get it. Hee! He's more interested in me than he is in them!) Or with Billy, or Demetri.

Usually this isn't a big deal. The problem is with, like I said, a certain segment of the regulars.

You can probably see where I am going with this, right?

We have a set of regulars that are regulars only because of the pretty boys we employ, and who are constantly attempting, to put it bluntly, fuck them. They succeed in this to a greater or lesser degree depending on who they are and which of the boys they are trying to get with. This creates all sorts of problems and weird tensions, but what are you going to do?

My problem is that these females (and I am thinking of three in particular) act like they have aquired some sort of divine grace in the bar due to the fact that one or more of the employees has penetrated them. This is reflected in all kinds of bad behavior like I listed above, but also in that they completely ignore my existence.

Don't get me wrong — it would be easy to jump to the conclusion that I am jealous, but let me assure you that I am so not. These are not people that I want to have anything to do with.

But I expect a certain degree of respect, and from these women I do not get any.

When they arrive at the bar on a night that I am working, they just walk through the door without even a pause. No eye contact, they just look past me like I don't exist. No hesitation. Like they have a special pass. They ignore me when, at the end of the night, I am telling everyone to finish their damn drinks and head for the door because it is time to go home. They wait until they hear it from one of their preferred male targets. Like, they ignore me so intently that I would suspect that it was intentional if I didn't know better.

Here's a good example: last Friday, I was bussing some glassware and so I was behind the bar. I was attempting to get back out from behind it when there was a minor traffic jam: Jared who was also bringing in a load of glassware (and who has been proclaimed the "second hottest boy in Portland" by the female staff of the Portland Mercury; behind Billy, who also works at The Bonfire) was trying to get behind the bar at the same time. He backed up to let me through, and one of these damn females came up right behind him and asked him for a menu.

His hands were full of glasses, he was trapped between her and me, so I reached behind me and grabbed a menu, and handed it over to her past Jared.

She looks at Jared and says, "Thank you."

It boggles the mind.

They do other shit too, shit that none of their targets seems to notice. Several weeks ago, two of the three main offenders (these two are nearly inseperable and I have never seen either one in the bar alone) were sitting at the bar. A fairly large group of people was occupying the space around them. This group had in it a guy with a bit of a sense of humor — I had chatted with him briefly as he waited at the door for his friends to catch up. He was gregarious and his sense of humor a bit off (which made me inclined to like him, actually), but he wasn't offensive or inebriated.

Well, this group had been inside for only maybe forty minutes when out they came again. I was standing outside, not inside, so I don't know what happened exactly, but they were very angry. The man with the odd sense of humor kind of berated me, and told me that he had been kicked out. I apologized and they went on their way. I went inside to find out what was going on.

Come to find out, these two girls (one of them, actually, and I know which one), had told Demetri that this guy was being offensive and wouldn't leave them alone. Rather than actually check on it, Demetri told the guy to get lost.

It's too bad, because we lost the business of nine people for the sake of two, and they were gone a half hour later. The other group would have stayed there all night and spent a bunch of money.

It just riled me up, because the guy was even nice about it after he had been kicked out, even though he was a tad bitter. And no wonder! Even Demetri was kind of ashamed of himself, because when I asked him what happened he wouldn't tell me.

I hate them. They cause problems, and they aren't even close to polite. All of the other regulars at least give me a nod or a "What's up?" when they come through the door. These girls make it plain that I am basically dirt to them.

Bitches. The problem is, of course, that they are partially correct. As the last little example illustrates, they do have special privileges of a sort. I have considered forcing them to show me their I.D. when they come to the door, but I know they'd bitch and moan about it to Demetri, who would say something to George and then it would turn into a big drama when it needn't be. Plus it is petty.

Okay this has gotten a lot longer than I intended it to be, but I do feel a bit better. It's probably slightly incoherent because I don't have time to do any real editing, re-reading for clarity, but oh well.

Sue me!

-t

Currently Aurally Inducing: Hey Mercedes, "Boy Destroyers"
Selection of the Lyrical Vocabulary: "Quality time with the unkind is better than being alone."

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