I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, but I hate my job. I work with whiny bitches, drunk douchebags and All American assholes. It's worn me away to the soggy, bloated stick.
Yes, yes I hear you. If I hate my job so much, just quit. I've heard this argument before and I would love to. Unfortunately I like having a roof over my head and a warm place to get drunk more than I hate my job. Just slightly, but still more. I've been homeless before and I don't relish the thought of returning to that life, it wasn't much fun.
Therefore I must continue in this industry and strive to not hurt other human beings while I do it. Hurting other humans is baaaad. Making money goooood.
Which is as good a place as any to voice my opinion on greed. Greed is the worst human trait that we've ever evolved. Maybe it's innate in some people, I don't know. I do not have a degree that makes my job title anything that ends with ologist so I'm not really qualified to offer an opinion as to why greed exists, I just know it turns otherwise reasonable people into raging dickclowns whom I despise and wish death upon.
Why have I gone to this topic you may ask, well I'll tell you. Since that last time I've written here, the owner decided, in his infinite wisdom, that we must raise our prices. Making $50,000 a month was no longer satisfactory to him, despite his millions, so he forced all his clubs to raise their prices. Both dance and drink prices.
I'm no business major but I'm pretty sure that if you're unhappy with your business's income, raising your prices is not the answer. I used to work for a concert club that booked mostly local, insanely shitty acts that nobody would come to. The drink prices there were already outrageous and add in the fact that there were 2 other bars within 1000 feet that had much cheaper drinks and you would think that the owner would get it. 'I'm charging too much for a beer', he would think, 'if I sell them for less I can sell more of them and actually make more money.'
But that's not what happened. What did happen is that the bands would load in and then they would go to one of the other bars and drink cheaply until 15 minutes before their set, play and then go to another club that wasn't our club and continue to value drink.
The owner never got it. It got so bad that they couldn't book much of anything that wasn't teen screamo or hip hop and if you're reduced to catering to either of those crowds, you're fucked. Your time in the industry is coming to an end.
What we should've done is not charged $6 a bottle for Bud in the first place, thereby selling a lot more of it and also increasing the likelihood that the bands would actually drink AT YOUR CLUB and you could book acts which would put people through the door.
I realize its a crazy concept to not overcharge, but stay with me here. A 12 pack of Bud-shite costs the bar around $8, or roughly .66 cents a beer. So if you charge $4 for that beer, you've made about $3.34. You may sell 200 of them in a night and wow, that's a great profit. Good for you.
But if you get to the point where you're only selling 30 of them in a night, there's a problem. 30 beers at $3.34 profit equals $100.02. If you drop the price by a dollar and sell twice as many you'll make $140.40. Volume will win 90% of the time over profit margin.
Sell more, make more.
Therefore raising the prices on everything is not the solution to your greed problem. In a strip club context it's going to:
A) Cause fewer customers to spend money on dances. If every other titty bar in town has cheaper dances of equal quality, why would anyone pay an extra $10 for our product?
B) Start costing us dancers who, while making more money per dance, are selling less dances and making less money than they were at the old prices.
C) Cause the bar to sell fewer drinks and even with a higher profit margin, NOT make up the lost revenue.
Greed is the worst thing ever.
I realize at this point that I've barely touched on the subjects that inspired the title to this installment, so I'm going to take a break and lose at some poker.
Ha! I'm back, and yes I did lose at poker because I have a hard time sticking to my game plan when I've been drinking, which is ironically the only time I really enjoy playing poker. Dumb, huh?
Anyway things that are dumb is as good a segue into my next subject as any.
Stupidity
Stupidity sucks to have to deal with. When people drink their IQ goes down and their judgement gets all fuckered up, thus leading to premature deaths and amusing internet videos. But when you're already an idiot to start with and then you drink, boy do you get fucking stupid. Like kitten-born-with-half-a-brain stupid.
Some examples:
Since we don't allow people to wear hats in the club you must check them at the door. We take your hat and give you a little ticket with a number on it and when you're ready to leave you give us the ticket back and we find the hat that corresponds to that number and then you get your hat back. Pretty simple, no?
I had a guy the other night who actually asked me "We get our hats back at the end of the night, right?"
Nope. We got a dumpster full of hats that we fill with dog shit, uneaten french fries and used condoms and then throw at homeless people in a misguided attempt to to make their lives better.
The very same night I had a guy who had come into the club and about 15 minutes later wanted to go out front to have a cigarette. I pointed out that we have a patio and that he could take his drink with him if he went there instead of out front. Then he asked me, this gentleman who'd arrived from outside 15 minutes ago,
"Is it cold out there?"
I wanted to say yes it is. It is so very, bitterly cold out there that I may have to cut your buddy open and push you inside him to keep you alive. Humans weren't designed to withstand 60 degree temperatures for more than a few minutes.
Stupidity Add-On 1)
Day shift dancers and night shift dancers.
This should really be self explanatory, especially for anyone who's been in a strip club more than 3 times in their lives. Maybe day shifts are awesome in some city I don't live in, but here they're a joke. Quite frankly most of the clubs I've worked at here in the good ole Town could actually improve their bottom line by closing down their day shifts and opening up at 3 or 4 rather than 11, but unfortunately greed comes into play here. The owners can't stand the thought of someone with $100 to spend that they might not get a piece of.
So they open at 11 and don't make enough money 80-90% of the time to cover operating costs, much less turn a profit. Why they can't see that they would have more money in their pockets each week if they just shut down the pathetic day shift I will never understand.
Thus day shifts here are like a wildlife preserve that provide habitat for old, crazy ugly and just plain nasty dancers. If a girl is just too damn gross to be allowed on a night shift, sometimes they're offered a day shift position because in a sparsely populated environment, any titties are better than no titties.
A lot of day walkers are not even allowed to stay on into a night shift because they are repulsive and embarrassing to normal patrons, and quite frankly if you spend your early afternoons in a strip club, you have some serious problems of your own and should seek counseling.
Stupidity Add-On 2 )
Shift change
For some reason it still surprises me when patrons come into the club at 6-8PM, an awkward time in this industry where the scary, drunk day shift girls are leaving and some of the hotter night shift girls are starting to trickle in, and are surprised that there aren't very many dancers running around and usually even less customers.
People actually get pissed off about this. They come in, look around and leave in a huff, often making shitty comments to the Door Girl about how the club sucks (as if she runs the place). If you want to go in to a club and have it rocking no matter what time you stroll in, go to a top ten market city you fucking cunt.
Folks in this town don't go out much on weekdays, and when they do it's not until 10-11PM. Most of the dancers realize this and even if they get in at 8 or 9, aren't going to make an appearance on the floor until around 10. They know from experience that things aren't going to be very good until then.
So therefore if you go to a strip club in the early evening with any sort of expectations beyond sitting around and sipping some drinks for a couple of hours until the light-fearing strippers can be bothered to emerge, you're a fucking idiot.
Another facet of this behavior are customers that for some reason don't like to hang out at places that aren't busy. I have lots of these jizzstains come into the club and while there may be 30 strippers around not doing much of anything, if there aren't enough other customers there, they leave. Dude, it's a strip club. If you're choosing to leave because there aren't enough other men there, you might be looking for the wrong sort of club.
Maybe look for clubs with names like The Tool Shed, The Cock Cage, or Le Jizzerables. I think you may be confused about some things...
Perhaps I'm just completely insane, but provided there's enough dancers to make a decent rotation, there are many advantages to going to a titty bar that's not very busy.
-You don't have to wait long for drinks
-You have your choice of entertainers for private dancers
-There's little competition for the dancers' attention
-Plenty of elbow room
-You probably won't have to stand in a puddle of other dude's piss when you use the bathroom
Sometimes when the club is slammin busy, you can't get a drink inside 15 minutes unless you go get it yourself. If a dancer is seriously hot, you probably won't be able to get a dance for her unless you tip a Floor Mammal to get her for you or even, in extreme cases, get any dancer to dance for you without some kind of assistance (which you won't get without tipping someone...)
These are things I will never understand. Strip club logic isn't complicated.
What's next? Oh yeah...
Even More Stupidity:
Trying to get into a strip club for free
If you're going to try to get into a strip club for free because you're clearly way too important/cool/broke to pay the cover charge, try to avoid a couple of things.
First off don't say that you that you were in the club last week and spent 'X thousands of dollars', and here's why.
We would fucking remember you, asshole.
If you're going to drop several grand in a club, somehow or someway that money passed through the Floor Gripes and we were directly involved in every facet of your time here. We got the girls, we brought your bottles, we obtained the club funny money for you, we set up the VIP rooms.
We waited on you hand and foot because that's what you do for whales, you cater to their every whim and hope they tip fat. Or we positioned our best tipping girls with you and got everyone into a champagne room. This is known as Trickle Down Strippernomics.
The point is if you really were in the club previously and did indeed spend thousands of dollars, we would remember you. We're like elephants when it comes to spenders, we have an ancestral memory.
Another thing that should be avoided is claiming you're an area club owner or a professional athlete. I've actually been in a club before when someone came in claiming to be the owner of insert bar name here when the actual owner is sitting 50 feet away. It's pretty funny.
A 5'6" 160 lb guy does not, in fact, play for your local NFL team. If on the outside chance he does, it's for the practice squad and that doesn't count. It's like trying to claim that you're a professional boxer because Mike Tyson beat the shit out of you in a Vegas parking lot.
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The bottom line here is this. If you truly are a guy who's going to spend four or five digits at our establishment tonight, then why should a cover charge make any difference to you? Nothing says "I'm going to blow stupid amounts of money here tonight" than casually paying the cover charge for your whole entourage without batting an eyelash.
That gives you instant credibility while arguing about pocket change at the door makes you seem like you're a broke, miserly bitch.
Fuck it. I have more general aggravation to go over it, but this installment is getting out of hand.
If you can find time in your busy schedule, take a moment to share this blog with someone you know who also hates humanity.
-The StripperHerder*
*Holy crap, no footnotes.
