Tip #12 on Being a Good Bar Customer

And we’re back, folks!  It’s amazing.  Just when I think people can’t do anything else stupid, they do!  So here it is.  The latest tip.  And if you are feeling nostalgic for all the other tips, you can go ahead and read them here: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven.

Tip number 12 is: don’t bring your own alcohol into a bar.  I know, I know, I can’t believe I actually have to write this either but there you have it.  You are probably sitting at home, or at the office because most of you probably have like, a job that involves going to the same place and sitting in a chair 5 days a week (nothing wrong with that! Sort of jealous!) thinking to yourself, who goes into that bar, anyway?  A bunch of animals?  Well, in short, yes.  A bunch of animals.  Or, more like a bunch of reasonable people and a smattering of animals.  Anyway, this is a story about one such animal.

Yesterday, all in all, was sort of a rough day.  The guy who usually works Wednesday is off on paternity leave (where is that baby?!) so we have all been sort of filling in the gaps.  As a result, I worked yesterday.  Unbeknownst to me when I decided to cover the shift, one of my bosses had scheduled a holiday party for the early afternoon.  It wasn’t until yesterday when I arrived that I discovered that it was a party of 45 teachers.  And it wasn’t until it actually happened that I realized they would be playing trivia.  A trivia game during which it came to my attention that a good portion of the teachers involved in the game thought that a “green card” had something to do with the environment.  Suffice it to say that I was pretty much done with the day by the end of the trivia extravaganza but sadly I still had 4 hours left.  At that very moment, as if they had been sent by Satan himself, in walked a massive pain in my ass.  This guy is like torture for any bartender.  He refuses to part cards down, feeling entitled to having a tab run because he come in often, yet he always walks on his tabs.  Always.  So you end up having to chase him throughout the bar after each drink you serve him otherwise risk getting stiffed.  He orders the same drinks over and over yet never remembers the price.  He tips poorly and expects buybacks.  He chants.  He always, always chants.  And you have to constantly watch him lest he torture some unsuspecting female bar-goer with his close talking and inappropriate comments.  He is the pits. We don’t actually see him all that often because he is in a serious relationship but yesterday, following an office party, he decided to grace us (read: me) with their presence.  Oh, blessed day.

He only ordered one drink from me, a Bulleit Rye, and yet was continuously seen walking around the bar with a rocks glass full of some clear liquid.  I gave him the benefit of the doubt at first, thinking that perhaps there as a very very off chance that he was simply drinking water, but didn’t want his friends to think he was weak.  But then all his drunken tells started emerging:  the loud talking, the chanting, the close-talking, the thinking he is the best person and savior of everyone.  So I asked my friend/boss/coworker Sasha to investigate the situation.  She walked passed him and asked him what he was drinking to which he replied “water,” then subsequently slammed the rest of the glass (like 2 shots worth) and slapped it down on the bar.  So I, since sometimes I fancy myself a PI, sniffed the glass and, lo and behold, VODKA!  What a shocker.  I decided to confront the situation for the following three reasons: (1) I was PMSing, I had cramps, my boobs hurt and I was therefore in no mood; (2) if there were a store in the mall called “Build a Drunk” where you could build your worst idea of a drunken person, he would be one of the models I would build and since I wasn’t making any money off him I really did not want to deal with his volume and obnoxiousness; and (3) I have rules and he broke one of them, flagrantly.  So, obviously, I marched myself over to him, held the glass up near his nose and said,

“What does that smell like to you?”

He then told me it was his friend’s.  (This friend, by the way, was all but passed-out in the corner, having been over self-served at the office party they were all at before walking into my bar.) The conversation continued, him slurring and yelling, me talking in a normal, sober voice level:

Build-a-Drunk: Would I ever do that to you?
Me: Um…clearly.
Build-a-Drunk: How much money have I spent in this bar over the years and you are going to accuse me of bringing drinks in?  Why would I even do that?
Me:  I don’t know, why would you?

I then walked back behind the bar at which point he pulled out a HUGE wad of cash and attempted to by a drink, while simultaneously asking me when he had ever been a bad customer.  I started listing off examples, beginning with that time that he brought vodka into the bar and got shit-tanked.  Remember that?  Then there was the time he fell of his stool, and the other time he fell off his stool, the time he knocked over a whole bunch of drinks, the time he called me a bitch for telling him to back off a lady who had mouthed the word “help” to me, the time he apologized for calling me a bitch by actually blaming it on me while using his tendency to tower over women while explaining shit to them to corner me behind the bar. I have more, but I’ll stop.  Anyway, he called me a bitch again.  And gave me the stinkeye.  Twice.  But whatever, I just won’t serve him anymore since clearly he is quite adept at serving himself.  The only thing I feel sad about is that he has a daughter.  This man with ZERO respect for women raising a little girl.  I hope she spends more time at her mom’s house.

So wait, what was the point of this post?  Oh yea, don’t be like Build-a-Drunk and bring your own booze.  I don’t work in a BYO joint.

Tags: bar etiquette, bartender problems, bartender rants, bartending, build-a-drunk, BYOB