I remember having jobs that required you to be there at a certain time. Jobs with companies that made things, that took raw materials and created highly specialized machined parts for other, more complicated machines. Factory jobs, warehouse jobs.
Occupations like these move like clockwork. One shift ends, another begins. The machine has no sense of sympathy for flat tires, phantom babysitters or drug hangovers.
These sort of jobs had things called "time clocks" that recorded what time you punched in at, and "Human Resource Directors" who looked at what time you were punching in at and frowned a lot. At several of these jobs from my past, you were only allowed x amount of late clock-ins per year. If you were consistently late there were a number of disciplinary actions the company would take and then, if you continued to arrive late, they would fire your perpetually-tardy ass.
These places took punctuality and call-offs seriously. They had well defined parameters of what time you were allowed to miss, how many times you could be late to work, and just what the fuck constituted a 'sick day'. They didn't take any shit from any lowly
Then there's the titty bar trade.
In the surreal, immersive world of the nudie bar business, when you arrive at work means virtually nothing and there are absolutely zero consequences for being late as long as you're within a half hour or so. Even at Suzy's Chancre Showroom, where Management loved firing Floor Guys, being late rarely had anything to do with it.
Let's take my co-worker Keen Kenny Dean for example.
Kenny consistently arrives to work a half hour late. Every day, every shift, with the rare nearly-on-time appearance just to keep us on out toes. Now in Kenny's defense it takes him a long time to do anything, no matter how simple, so leaving his home for work probably starts two and a half hours before he's due there.
Yet here's the curious part-Mr. Dean used to live about a ten minute drive away but recently moved forty five minutes away from work and it didn't have any effect on his arrival times at all. He moves at his own pace and everything else can go fuck itself.
Now if that were me, I'd've just left home a half hour earlier and WHAM, problem solved. But since no one except me seems to care, then apparently a problem doesn't, in fact, exist.
God forbid any of my fellow titty club employees (myself included) had to get a job outside this industry. We'd be fucked. Proper fucked.
RACIAL DYNAMICS IN STAGE NAME CHOOSIFICATION
I'd bet a good portion of you readers realize that a stripper's race can play a major part what stage name she chooses. Anyone who's been to a titty bar and who has seen more than ten dancers perform probably understands that here are certain conventions that are frequently observed in entertainer stage names. This applies to all races of strippers more or less equally, and just goes to show that the majority of 'entertainers' aren't very creative.
For example, take the names 'Rosanna' or 'Heidi'. There has never been and never will be a black exotic dancer named Rosanna or Heidi. It's a narrative impossibility. Don't ask me why, I'm just a Floor Guy, and as such don't know why anything is how it is. I'm just a lumbering idiot who takes your money when you want a champagne room.
But I DO know, from experience, that strippers of color tend to choose their stage names from more......particular....sets of accepted stripper names than do your average white or latina stripper. This isn't to say in any way that they are less creative than their paler vagkin*1, however they evidence a certain mindset when picking a stage name. The mindset that they are much more important, interesting and attractive that every other organism on the planet and, in all probability, the universe.
And while confidence is an admirable trait in human beings in general and entertainers specifically, arrogance and indeed unwarranted vanity are just as ugly as ever and possibly even more so due to their lurid exposure.
Here are some observations about the racial divide in SSN's, or Stripper Stage Names.
1) Black strippers are much more likely to choose an adjective for her SSN. Examples include Luscious, Brilliant, Pretty, Seductive, Luxury and Motherfucking Precious.
2) They are also many times more apt to choose a name that mirrors a luxury brand: Armani, Port-cha*2, Kris'Tall, Vuitton and Bugatti to name a few.
3) There are certain names that belong to the various races of stripper. For example, A Jada can't be any other color than black, while Amber can't be any other than white*3. Jade's are frequently Asian, but can be any race.
Tonight felt like it took ninety some hours to get through. I'm not sure why this was, the night was fairly busy, wasn't overly saturated with douchebags and was fairly profitable. But it still felt like a pufferfish slowly fighting it's way through my colon. Prolonged and uncomfortable.
There will be nights like this. Nights where you seem to be trapped in some sort of time loop and desperately seek a solution to free you from its grasp. These nights are filled with common denominators and lots and lots of Deja-Poo*4.
Typical stuff that happened to me this week:
-Elsie tried to corner me tonight. She wanted to see how much she owed in dances and house fees and I, unfortunately, was the Counter at the time. She comes up to me and instead of just asking me how much she owed, she pressed herself up against me, her Big Mac grinding on my thigh and her saddening titties mashed up against my elbow, chest, stomach and everywhere in the general 'torso' region.
I backed up and told her to "GET THE FUCK OFF ME." She was offended at my vehemence and wandered off in search of a recently spilled drink she could graze out of the carpet.
-I had to operate an ATM machine for someone again tonight. I did the really hard part for him, properly slotting his ATM card and was moving away brimming with job satisfaction when the customer asked me to "Please stay with me".
I of course was happy to, but maybe freaked him out a little bit as I repeatedly tried to hold hands with him.
I thought we were having a moment.
Fuck it. If I don't publish something tonight then the chances of me posting anything for November are very slim. Therefore, this is it. Not my best work by a long shot, but I think we can all appreciate the fact that I'm semi talented at best and you get what you pay for.
Toodles,
-The StripperHerder
*1 Vagkin: A fellow vagina possessor, or, colloquially "Dat Uvver Bitch"
*2 Any stripper named "Porsche" has no idea that a Shakespearean character named 'Portia' exists. Trust me on this.
*3 Amber can be Asian in extremely rare cases. If you come across an Asian 'Amber', tip her extra and wipe her clean, she's a courageous girl.
*4 Deja-Poo: Shit you've seen before.
