Our club's bar system isn't designed for efficiency. You can take efficiency and stick it right the hell up your own ass. You will get your drinks whenever the waitresses can be bothered between smoke breaks.
Our bartenders are, for the most part, very good. But The System™ is designed to account for each drop of booze and every penny of cash and all the safeguards and processes in place to protect the owner's every last farthing* make it impossible to get a mixed drink in under 15 minutes on a busy night.
Sometimes you haven't even seen a waitress in 15 minutes.
Your drink will take much longer than that.
(In this situation I would walk my giant ass to the bar but its surprising how many people are too lazy for that. They'd rather sit and complain to a Floor Douche about the shitty service than sully their hands getting their own drink)
Here is an approximate timeline of a random table of four's drink order/acquisition process:
12:32 Finally get table, argue briefly over who's going to sit in which stain on which chair, sit down.
12:41 Waitress finally arrives smelling of Newports and Red Bull.
12:43 Waitress finally understands drink order and sets off in search of the bar.
12:47 Waitress can't find bar. Opts for another cigarette and decides to try again
after smoking.
12:52 Tiny determined Waitress finally finds the bar in a sea of other people's
lower backs and places order with bartender.
12:53 Bartender receives order.
12:54 Bartender initiates Order Fulfillment Request #417 and slides her ID card.
12:55 Master Computer acknowledges order #417 prompted by Bartender's
card slide. Master Computer requests retinal scan to confirm Bartender
identity.
12:56 Bartender complies and the Master Computer verifies retinal scan. Drink
order passed on to Central Processing Center in Maguppi, India.
Central Processing Center approves transaction and sends back
Drink Approval #639
12:58 Drink Approval #639 appears on Bartenders screen. Bartender ignores it
as she tries to fill the tidal wave of bar customers who weren't as
patient as our example table.
1:06 Bartender finally fills Drink Approval #639. Waitress no where to be found.
1:09 Waitress finally returns looking for Drink Approval #639.
1:10 Waitress forgets which table it is for.
1:15 Frantically waving people at table turns out to be the very same people who
ordered Drink Order #417.
1:23 After returning from smoke break, Waitress complains to Floor Mammoth
that the table in question didn't tip.
1:23 Floor Mammoth shrugs.
That's pretty close.
We have these things called Champagne Servers. Or in Floor Guy code, Cunt: Sentient. Their job is to handle champagne service and to take care of the back rooms. This means they can make some pretty big money which I assume they use to set up mobile meth labs.
Most of my time on the floor is spent trying to find one to do her job.
Its fucking maddening.
Their names are Moonpie and Zongo-Zongo. They look like, in no particular order, a methed-out bipolar goth queen and an extra from The Road Warrior. They are contractually guaranteed 27 smoke breaks per 8 hour shift.
Apparently the Champagne Girl and Related Trades Union has a powerful lobby. There's no other reason for them to still work here.
Except for the possibility that no one else wants to...
And this brings me to The DJs.
What can I say? I love at least 2 of these bastards and yet they complain as loud as us Floor Maggots, but don't have to do any of the following things:
-Clean up puke.
-Clean up the coagulated blood puddle of a wounded patron/staff/dancer. Its like an afterbirth after its congealed for a few minutes...
-Fight bachelor parties.
-Complaining customers (Shut up. I know you deal with complaining customers, but not nearly as many as we do)
-Plunge toilets that have been clogged with toilet paper and then shit on top of. This generally only happens in the girl's bathroom.*
-Break up stripper fights.
-Sweep broken glass, dropped food, vomit, dead strippers, shanks, needles and broken hope from the floor.
Sure they have to put up with ISB, or Insane Stripper Bullshit, but so do we. We just make about 5 times less doing it than DJs do.
I hope this helps keep things in perspective for a friend of mine. Dude would give you the shirt off his back and not even ask why you needed it. But he is understandably fed up with his job and, much like me, drowns his hatred for it in soothing, welcoming alcohol.
Alcohol never says "I told you so."
DJ Abu Gharib and DJ Angry Tattooed Protestant. I love you guys. Don't leave me with The Sanjay Kid. I....I couldn't take it.
Fuck it. That's all for you now. You leave. You leave now. No pictures.
No make me use bayonet.
-The StripperHerder
*An English coin worth one quarter of a cent. Presumably these were used to purchase such things as: an apple core, a quick whiff of some knickers, a nub of coal, a seagull's asshole,
*Seriously. The girls bathroom is a motherfucking trainwreck compared to the men's. Fucked up shit goes on in there.
