I don't talk much about my fellow Floor Hosts in the course of this blog. I've mentioned them here or there, normally in regards to an incident, or referring to A team and B team dynamics. Ergo I feel like it's a topic that is long overdue for some more in depth discussion.
I would like to take a moment to point out that I am currently sober, a situation that may or may not change as I am feeling a bit under the weather at the moment. Cracking open a bottle of vodka would be a poor decision but that doesn't mean that I'm not going to make it. I will keep you informed, dear reader.
So, Floor Hosts. The unsung heroes/asshole villains of any gentlemens club. Note that I used the term "Gentlemens Club" in this instance because before you can get into any discussion of the male employees of any given titty bar, you have to address the nature of the titty club first.
Let me break it down for you as I have worked a broad range of this industry. Generally speaking, if a club is well appointed, ostentatious and has a variety of private rooms available for stupid amounts of money with Hosts running around in tuxes or ties, you're in a Gentlemen's Club.
If however the location is sketchy, the environment worn and reliant on poor lighting to look anything beyond post apocalyptic and the security staff (if there are any) are clad in black t shirts that say "SECURITY" or "STAFF" on them, then you my friend are in a Titty Bar. Guys who work in these clubs are Bouncers, not, technically speaking, Floor Hosts.
There's a lot of grey area between these two extremes and either one can provide a rewarding or horrible experience for the clever or shithead among you.
Now that you're a bit clearer on the terminology, allow me to outline the various jobs that the Floor Staff at my particular club, A Gentleman's Club, are expected to do.
VIP Rooms: The coveted job. Minimal interaction with broke fuckbags because broke fuckbags can't afford these rooms. When you do this job, 90% of the time you lean against walls or sit on a couch and do whatever it is people do on phones all day long to kill time. Usually only on Friday or Saturday nights do you get busy enough to actually earn your hourly wage.
Not only is this the easiest job in the house, it's far and away the most lucrative. The top earner on almost any given night will be a Host who worked the champagne rooms.
So as you may have guessed, this is a 'A Team' job. The only time us lowly 'B Team' guys get a shot at it is when there's been an illness or death in the ranks, the A teamers get overwhelmed or it's a weekday and there are only two guys scheduled. Other than that, this is 'A Team' country and lowly B Scum need not apply.
Stage: Bottom of the food chain. Not a lot of earning potential. Basically a well dressed bouncer. The Host who has to watch the stage on the weekends is for all intents and purposes, the police. He's there to make sure any of our good-natured and fun loving strippers don't do things on stage that can get us shut down by the powers that be. While they do that they're also expected to watch the floor and make sure the clientele isn't doing anything verboten such as taking pics or video, finger blasting strippers on stage and/or general douchiness.
It's not a desirable job in any sense which is why it is strictly the domain of the 'B Team' and always will be.
Counter: Worst job in the club in my opinion. The poor wretch who has to count dances is tied to the back room for the entire shift. He has to deal with wasted strippers, drunk idiot customers, spilled drinks, vomit, and the occasional explosion of feces. He's not supposed to take tips because management feels like he could accept them in return for not counting dances and cheating the club out of it's cut of each dancer's 'labors'. We would never do that.....
The no tip part of this sucks because when the Counter tells a girl "I'm not allowed to accept tips, give it to the guy who walks you out", how do you think that works out for us? They tell the Host who walks them to their car that "I tipped the Counter", which is a lie roughly half the time. The problem is we can't talk about it on the radio because Dynamic Management Team Alpha Ostrich Thunder is always listening. Therefore we lose that tip.
There's been a recent crackdown on the Floor Staff recently due to sloppy procedural practices and a general lack of effort on most of our parts. Being as how I mostly drive the shuttle and work the door, I basically just got reamed for everyone else's laziness. It's ironic because I, for the most part, DO all of the little details that I'm supposed to do on the rare circumstances I work these positions, but ended up getting screamed at anyway.
I've learned from long experience to just nod my head, say the right words and ride out the current pogrom. In a short period of time everything will go back to how it was and we'll have a few months of relative peace until the next witch hunt starts.
It's all just a cycle.
Door: Working the door is the second suckiest job in the building. Same thing night in and night out: They don't want to pay the cover, they SHOULDN'T HAVE TO pay the cover, don't I know who they are? The same stupid fucking jokes and comments all drunks make when they think they're being clever, which is all the time. It's tedious, frustrating and makes you think about beating people unmercifully.
That being said if you're willing to play dirty and deal with possible consequences from your actions, you can make a few bucks working the door. I mostly choose not to do this because to me it's not worth losing my job over a measly hundred bucks or less. But honestly the real reason is because I enjoy deflating people's egos a bit. It's the only thing fun about being the Door Whore.
Floater: When the club is well staffed enough to have extra Hosts around, their job is just to wander through the club being vigilant and helpful, friendly and welcoming. This sucks, but it's preferable to the Counter or the Door.
Take all the positions listed above and add in a generous helping of janitorial service and everyone's else's work too, and you have what I do for a living.
Now that I've covered that, let's...
Meet the Floor Staff!
Our management team, Alpha Ostrich Thunder believes in diversity. The Floor Staff here at the club illustrates this principle quite nicely as you will read below.
Mephistopheles Rodriguez: (Codename: El Matador) Quiet, dependable, recently experimenting with sobriety. This Mexican-American font of tranquility is cool to work with, which happens for me about once a month due to conflicting schedules. Fisty is purely an A Team guy, only works a few shifts a month and never does anything except VIP rooms.
Seamus O'Grady: (Codename: McBastard) I used to hate Seamus when I first started here. Like some other clubs I've been at, the entrenched staff isn't very friendly or open to new Floor Guys. There's definitely a shake down period where you have to prove yourself one of the team or you'll get iced out and be stuck with the worst jobs forever. Seamus is pretty much the ringleader here and was kind of a dick to me for the first 90 days or so.
After we got over that rough patch, we figured out we're both equally horrible in how we think of other humans and have a similar sense of humor. Sure he's the laziest one of us all and doesn't do shit but VIP rooms, but he's honest mostly which is more than I can say for the staff at the last club I worked at who were fucking thieves.
Brijc Vjasdiloljic (Boris): (Codename: Citizen Comrade) Face like an anvil, heart like a hammer. Boris isn't actually Russian nor named "Boris", but since us Murrikans can't pronounce 'Brijc', he's resigned himself to being called Boris and accepts it with grim good humor.
He never talks about his past and therefore we all assume he's some sort of Special Forces/Black Ops from an undisclosed former Soviet Bloc nation who's probably wanted for war crimes or something. Don't ask, don't tell.
Boris is solid though. He's dependable as hell, doesn't bat an eyelash at doing unpleasant things such as mopping poop, puke or human innards and there's no one else you want on your side in the event of a ruckus. That's where Boris can really be himself; amidst the fray. That where he shines.
Little Billy Hoskins: (Codename: Temporary) Our newest Floor Team member looks kinda like I did when I was 13, only smaller. He's a nice kid, but the dancers already have him wrapped around their finger and I don't think he's gonna make it at this club. Not sure what Management was thinking by hiring a 22 year old kid to do this job, but I know for a fact that at his age, I would've never been able to overcome the many opportunities available to me to fuck up my livelihood, not to mention my life.
He has a great chance to make a good living here, if he has the will power and self awareness not to screw it up. We'll see....
Lo Jaq Washington: (Codename: Mocha Smoothie) I like Lo-Jaq. He's a Floor Team stalwart and always has a fellow Floor Guy's back. He's an A Teamer of course, but will stand in briefly on other jobs for you if you need to piss or grab a smoke.
That being said, like all the other A Team guys, don't expect Lo Jaq will swap shifts with you or cover one for you if you're sick. Ain't ever gonna happen, son.
Fitch Schmidt: (Codename: No Codename) Ole Fitchy has become one of those guys who allows his wang to really complicate his life. Knocking girls up, juggling multiple dancers at the same club, legal stuff, custody horseshit. It just seems like a lot to go through for on-demand ass.
I expect that kinda stuff out of fresh faced 20 somethings, but Mr Schmidt is in his mid thirties and, frankly, should have better impulse control by now. Or at least learned something from previous mistakes. But I guess getting laid is all he has going for him.
He's gonna have to pull his head out of various girl's va jay jays soon, Management is getting fed up with his alienating strippers until they go somewhere else. I'm sorta surprised he hasn't been fired by now.
At what point do you glance down and say to yourself "Goddamn you, penis!"?
Hiram Scooterveldt: (Codename: Joker) Fat cunt.*1
Young Robby Bangemall: This kid ain't gonna last. A month in and has already mated with a quarter of the Dancer Corps. Fuckin his way right out of a job, exactly what I would've done at his age, except he's much more efficient at it than I would've been.
So that's the majority of the Floor Hosts I work with. The other two are like extras in a movie not important enough for a backstory, I don't know shit about them and rarely work with them, so they don't merit a mention here.
Sorry lads.
In other news, Dynamic Management Team Alpha Ostrich Thunder recently suspended Godiva, our most drunk, conniving waitress for whatever her latest offense was. It's about fooking time. This criminal bitch should've been fired long ago based on looks alone. Scare the bark off a tree then steal it's leaves, she would.
She's been caught red handed swindling tips off a high end customer, who, by the way, accused the Floor Staff of ripping him off. Made a big stink about it. Turns out it was Godiva that was rippin him off the whole fucking time. Fired? Nope. Suspended? Nope. Tacitly condoned? Yep.
I hope this "suspension" is, in reality, a parting of the ways with Thief Gut. It should have been enough when she was so drunk at the end of one memorable shift that she didn't know what money meant anymore, or how to ascertain how much one might have of it. Classic Godiva moment.
And that's about all you're getting in this one. I will go back through it and put in some pics, solely for the benefit of my illiterate fans, of which there are many.
Until next time, which will hopefully be a Year End Special, try not to molest anyone.
The World's 76th Best Blogger,
-The StripperHerder
*1 I found out much later that Hiram (Floor Guy Code Name: Joker, Butterball) was the guy that narced me out about this very literary endeavor to the scheduling Manager, his pedicure buddy. This is after I had sensed in him a kindred spirit and disastrously approached him to help me write a sitcom based on this here blog.
He kept quiet for maybe 3-4 months and then spilled the beans to ingratiate himself with his platonic Management benefactor. That's when shit got all fucky.
Luckily for me their legal team declared there's no possible way to prove who wrote anything on the 'net that doesn't include intimate details and therefore I was unable to be held accountable for stuff.
Still, you know, fuck you Butterball and whatnot. I am a man who believes in karma. I fervently pray that his self serving bullshit will one day bite him in the ass
