Tag Archives: bar etiquette

Tip #12 on Being a Good Bar Customer

19 Dec

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.

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Tip #10 on Being a Good Bar Customer

22 Oct

Here it is. Your favorite FranklyRebekah series! To be honest, the only FranklyRebekah series but that doesn’t make it any less exciting, it just perhaps decreases the level of competition involved. If you missed them, or you want to be reminded of them, here are the other 9 previous bartender tips. Read, enjoy, share: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight and nine.

This entry actually has an alternative title: My NEDmesis. I generally try not to call people out by name on my blog, but that alternative title is just too clever and funny to pass up. No one really knows who this guy is, anyway. Except for him. And he doesn’t read my blog.

Personally I am an adherent to moderation.  Well, generally speaking.  Every now and again we all get a little too crazy, don’t eat enough snacks, and end up toppling over while trying to crouch at the subway station.  It happens.  And I won’t begrudge people the occasional sloppiness.  Or even regular sloppiness so long as said sloppiness doesn’t result in someone (a) becoming an asshole or (b) vomiting everywhere.  I think I have addressed people being assholes before.  Vomiting, however, is an unfortunate mainstay at any drinking establishment and also something that totally sucks, both for the vomiter and for the people responsible for cleaning up said vomit.  (At this point I have to give a shout out to my friend and co-worker, Sasha, who always cleans up the vomit.  You are my hero.)

Sometimes, as I mentioned before, drunkeness creeps up on a person.  By and large the older we get, the less we allow ourselves to get to the point of vomiting.  We come up with tricks.  We figure out our own signs.  We know when to stop. We drink less.  That or we drink enough that we train our stomachs to keep that liquor in there no matter what.  Not everyone can be so skilled in such an important, and pride-inducing, arena.  Sometimes, though, people vomit.  It sucks but it happens.

So here’s the thing.  If you vomit in the bathroom, or anywhere else in a bar, it is best to leave afterwards.  This is not to say you can’t come back another day but just that maybe the vomiting should be a sign to you that you have already had too much.  Also, vomiting is a sign of weakness and no one wants to be seen as weak.  (That’s sort of a joke.  Maybe it isn’t a sign of weakness but it IS embarrassing.  It smells bad and everyone knows what you had for dinner.)  You should not do what my Nedmesis does.

Okay, so we have this one customer.  He is a short guy.  I am 5’4″ and I would say I have an inch or two on him, easy.  I only mention this because, due to his diminutive stature, and the fact that he only graces us with his presence on days when the bar is absolutely packed with law students (these are my favorite days), he is able to sneak in.  He literally appears out of nowhere.  One second the coast is clear, and the next second, there he is, with beer in hand.  He never orders his own beer so I never know when I am serving him.  I really think he might like, phone in his order to one of his friends and then do a military-style crawl through the door and across the bar in order to avoid detection.  The reason why I like to know when I am serving him is because he oftentimes walks in shit-faced, he does not know when to stop, and once I stop serving him he is really difficult to get rid of.  He’s like a house fly, always buzzing around and nearly impossible to catch.  He also does those three things that people do when they get cut off that drive me crazy:

1. He argues
2. He tries to get other people to buy him drinks as if I won’t notice and is if I won’t snatch the drink from his hand if I catch him with one
3.  He takes drinks off the bar that don’t belong to him and don’t belong to his friends and starts drinking them as if he is the governor of drinks.

All of that is annoying enough but the worst of it is that he drinks enough to end up vomiting on the regular.  And he doesn’t make it to the bathroom.  Nope.  He just stands there, in front of the bar, turns his head to the side, vomits, and then looks at you as if nothing happened.  Sort of like a puppy who just shat on the floor but is trying to let his cuteness make you think that maybe it wasn’t him.  Then when you call him out on it he denies it ever happened as if the evidence isn’t just to his left and also dribbling down his chin.  And then he tries to order another drink!  Like, what?!  Don’t you realize that I will have to clean up that other, regurgitated drink in less than one minute?  But no, he doesn’t think about that.  He argues with me and it goes something like this:

Nedmesis: Ca-I have anooother ber?
Me:  Um, no.  And also I think it is time for you to go home.
Nedmesis: Buh why?
Me: Because you threw up the last beer I gave you.
Nedmesis: Thah wasn meeee.
Me:  So someone in a Ned suit threw up on the floor in order to prevent actual Ned from getting another beer?
Nedmesis: (confused stare) Ca-I have anooother ber?

Rinse and repeat.

I know my logic is perhaps a little bit beyond the abilities of a drunk person, but I sort of can’t help myself.  I also know that I shouldn’t mock someone in a diminished state but when someone gets so fucked up over and over again the only way to not get angry or feel pity is to poke a little fun.  Also, I sort of consider it revenge for the cleaning that I (or Sasha) will have to carry out.  So yea, if you vomit, just leave.  Or if you feel like you might vomit, do it on the street.  Or maybe stop drinking a little earlier.  Don’t vomit on the floor, pretend it wasn’t you, and then try to order another beer.  Don’t also get agitated when, the next time you walk in, I take pause before serving you.  In my mind, once a floor vomiter always a floor vomiter.  As professionals, we have to take certain precautions.

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Tip # 9 on Being a Good Bar Customer

8 Aug

And we’re back with more tips, folks!  If you missed the earlier tips and wish to catch up, look no further than the following links.  Tip #1, Tip #2, Tip #3, Tip #4, Tip #5, Tip #6, Tip #7, and Tip #8.  If you wish to share the tips with your bad bar customer friends in a not-so-subtle way, please do!  Let the missteps of others inform our future booze establishment behavior. And now, without further ado, how not to behave if you get 86ed from a bar.

If you end up getting 86ed from a bar, AKA you are never ever allowed to set foot in there ever again, probably you should just never ever set foot in there again.  Obviously, I would advise you all to never behave in such a way as to get yourself 86ed, but if you do, have some pride.  I don’t know much about other cities in the world, but New York City has a lot of bars.  A lot.  There are bars everywhere.  It is easier to get a drink in this city than it is to do a lot of other things that normal people do in their day.  Here are some examples: it is easier to get a drink than mail a letter because there are basically no mailboxes; it is easier to get a drink than to find a public restroom because there are basically no public restrooms; it is easier to get a drink than go to the grocery store, the pharmacy, or the hardware store because, at least in my neighborhood, you pass at least 8 bars en route to almost any of these other destinations.  The point of this is that if you get 86ed from one bar, there are plenty of other bars you can go to unless, of course, you have gotten 86ed from all of them which is a problem I am not prepared to deal with at this time.  If you have been 86ed from All Of The Bars Ever you should probably talk to someone.

Some people who have been 86ed from my bar get it.  This doesn’t mean that they like it, but they understand that once they are refused service for acting like an asshole, they probably should not show their faces there again.  The thing about the people that get it is that generally, in their case, acting up to such a degree as to get kicked out was such an aberration for them that they are ashamed and take a pretty severe detour around the bar whenever they are in the vicinity so as not to have to relive their embarrassment.  Then there are the people who misbehave, get 86ed, and insist on walking by the bar on the regular, peering in the window and mean-mugging.  No joke.  I can think of two solid examples of this type of person: this one guy who online stalked one of my coworkers and the woman who tried to beat me up over the bar.  It’s as if they think that if they stare at the bar often enough, they will put some sort of hex on the bar and either we will go out of business or we all will suddenly be struck by strange cases of amnesia and will forget ever having 86ed them in the first place and they can happily go back to online stalking and bartender threatening.  Finally, there are the people who have been definitively 86ed from the bar and yet continuously try to come back in.  Today I am going to talk about a few of these people but not all of them because, sadly, there are just too damn many of them for one post.

Sometimes you have a really annoying customer who you hate and you really wish that he (I am just going to go with ‘he’ here because statistics!) would do something that would allow you to kick him out for good.  But no.  He walks ever so close to the line without ever crossing it.  He comes in on drugs.  He does not understand the volume of his own voice or that he is incredibly annoying.  He seems to think that “paying for drinks” is a new phenomenon that simply does not apply to him.  He spills his drinks so much that I am forced to erect safety barriers out of coasters.  Sometimes (okay, one time but I like to think it happened over and over again because it is just so damn funny) he tries to sit on a garbage can and the lid breaks and he falls into the garbage can with his legs and arms sticking out of the top of it and everyone leaves him in there for a little while because they are laughing too hard to pull him out.  Anyway, this guy gave me such a headache but there was nothing I could do about it.  I had to serve him.  But then, one day, he got super wasted, somehow got himself buzzed into my coworker’s apartment building, and proceeded to walk up and down the stairs yelling and knocking on every available door in hopes that she would open hers up.  She didn’t.  This went on for over and hour.  He started at 4:15am.  He subsequently got 86ed from the bar.  That was at least 6 months ago.  And still, all these months later, he regularly tries to get back into the bar.  His most recent attempt came at 3pm on a Sunday afternoon.  I was behind the bar, as I generally am at that time, when he walked in.  The second I saw him I started shaking my head no.  He looked back at me with an expression of complete bewilderment. Then he said, “is she here?” referring to the victim of his late night stair climbing rampage. She was, in fact, there.  Before I got a chance to say “it doesn’t really matter if she is here or not, you are not welcome to drink here” my coworker came flying down the bar, finger wagging, sternly repeating “no!” He began to argue, realized there was no point, tried to look defiant and walked out the door.  I doubt this is the last we will see of him.  But here’s the thing.  He isn’t like, an awful guy.  He just can’t drink. He crossed the line.  He followed someone to her home.  It could just be over but no.  He has to continually make our jobs harder and also make himself look like a complete asshole by repeatedly trying to sneak one by us.  Guess what?  We are not stupid.  Also, if you really need your fix of Raspberry Stoli, I am pretty sure I can point you in the direction of a bar that has some.  Basically, in any direction because there are so many bars.

A few days later on a really weird Thursday night (I think there was probably a full moon…there had to have been a full moon) this other annoying guy walked in.  He is another one of those guys that I am just itching to get rid of but he hasn’t done anything bad enough.  Yet.  He always walks in with the worst people because shitty people, I have found, tend to either be complete loners or travel in packs.  They don’t tend to go around with people who are cool.  Anyway, one of the women he walked in with was too drunk for me to serve.  She couldn’t put her elbow on the bar without it sliding off, causing her to almost fall forward off her chair.  She also would not speak to me without having her hand over her mouth, thereby making her thickly slurred speech that much more difficult to understand.  I was so busy arguing with her about how I would not serve her another drink (why does this happen?) that I didn’t even notice that the guy next to her was someone who we kicked out about a year earlier for screaming at one of the owners when she refused to give him another drink because he had already had something like 12 Bud Lights in an hour and could not hold his head up.  And yet he could scream.  Go figure.  Anyway, in the midst of explaining to elbow lady, for the 5th time, that no, she could not have a beer, I noticed that the guy sitting next to her was Angry Bud Lite Guy.  I told him that not only could he also not have a drink, but he was actually not allowed in the bar.  He then started yelling about how he didn’t want a drink and how he hated the bar anyway and would never actually go there.  I pointed out the flaw which was that he was, at that very moment, in the bar.  This did not go over well.  Anyway, yadda, yadda, yadda, he yelled, I stared at him, he yelled, I threatened to call the police, he yelled some more, then one of our other customers who is SO BIG walked over and sat next to do the dude, causing him to immediately flee the scene. (Sometimes bigger is better, it turns out.) But that’s not all!  Angry Bud Lite Guy then pulled his favorite party trick:  call the bar over and over and over again for the rest of the night, asking for the manager every time he calls even though he is already talking to her and complain about how he never misbehaved in the bar, how he never yells (while yelling) and that we are all stupid.  Again, if you want a Bud Lite, go somewhere else.  Seriously.  Keep your drama to yourself and let me do my damn job.  Staying up until 5am sucks enough without your spit landing all over my face while you yell at me about how you never yell.

So, yea, probably don’t get 86ed but if you happen to, just stay away.  We don’t forget.  Also, as I said before, have some damn pride.

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Tip #5 on Being a Good Bar Customer

18 Feb

And so here is the next installment of my beloved bar customer series…unless of course you are one of the people described in one of the posts in which case I imagine the series is not very beloved by you at all.  Hopefully, those people don’t know I have a blog.  Or maybe don’t take themselves very seriously.  And also don’t have access to a firearm.  Right.  So, you can read the earlier tips here:  Tip #1, Tip #2, Tip #3, and Tip #4.

So my tip for today is actually more like a 3-pronged tip because this woman was doing all kinds of things that one shouldn’t do as a bar customer.  The real take home message of this one is don’t throw things at your bartender, but I will talk about a few other infractions along the way.  Alrighty, here we go.

So on Saturday morning at about 12:30 or so, in walks a very diminutive woman.  She sat down, asked about the credit card minimum and asked me for a Brooklyn Lager.  She then mentioned a pleasant past experience she had in the bar and told me what the bartender looked like so I could tell her his name?  So I would know she wasn’t lying?  Who knows.  Anyway, she seemed nice enough to me so I served her her drink and we got into a conversation.  She started asking me all kinds of questions about myself, my job, my family, what I did in my spare time, and, once I told her I was in the middle of writing my master’s thesis, she asked me about my master’s thesis.  She then said to me what was, up until that point, one of the stranger things that a customer has ever said to me.

“You are the first normal person I have ever met.”

I still am unclear as to what that was supposed to mean but I took it in stride while also thinking to myself that this lady was obviously a little bit of a whack-a-doo.  She then asked me a question which was both insulting and also sort of confusing, partially because I think she was using big words to prove how smart she was but maybe didn’t actually know what those words meant and maybe lacked a full working knowledge of proper grammar.  I am going to paraphrase the question here because it was weird.  She basically asked me if I am so driven that I am incapable of taking other people into consideration and also incapable of understanding the ways in which my upbringing and other things have allowed me to do the things I do.  Um.  What the fuck?  So, for those of you who know me the idea of me being “so driven” is kind of absurd considering it has unnecessarily taken me going on 4 years to finish my master’s.  (I will be done this May, damnit!)  Also, that I am so oblivious as to not know that coming from a very stable, both emotionally and financially, family has had a hand in making me a balanced person is a little insulting.  Whatever.  I tried to brush it off and I said,

“Um, that’s a really weird thing to say.”

And then I walked away.  It was at this point that she attached herself to the first set of people that she subsequently scared out of the bar.  They were two women — both working in nonprofit, both super nice and interesting — who had come into the bar because they thought my outside board was really funny.*  They ordered a round, she started talking to them about weird things probably rivaling the weird things she said to me, they finished their drinks and asked for their check, giving a slight nod and a “that woman is cuckoo” eye roll on their way out.  Damnit.  Then she leeched onto two guys who sometimes come in after their run and scared them away, but not after they sort of mocked her a little bit without her realizing because she was not terribly self-aware and I did feel a little bad about that but not bad enough to step in since she was chasing everyone out.  Then this dude came in to collect money for an AIDS walk he was doing and, in the middle of me talking to this man, she says

Um, sir? Yea, you can wait. (And she looks at me.) I would like a refill on my beer.

To which I said

No, you can wait.  I am in the middle of a conversation with this gentleman.

I may or may not have then stretched the conversation out a little longer than it would have otherwise gone to try and piss her off.  At this point she leeched onto, and scared away, a third set of customers.  It was a husband and wife pair who had more than one drink (I think because during their first round she was otherwise occupied harassing the running dudes).  The husband was okay entertaining her but the wife was less than impressed to the point that, when crazy lady had her back to me, I actually mouthed an apology to the lady.  See, the thing is that this lady had been walking the line of inappropriate for a long time but had never actually crossed it.  She would say something insulting, like the question, and immediately follow it with some sort of a statement like “oh, I hope I didn’t insult you.  Sometimes I just get a little too direct.  I just have this need to know things.”  She thought she had this special talent in bringing people out of their shells.  I thought she had a special talent in being a manipulative bitch.  Anyway, back to the story.

Once the third group left the following conversation happened between me and the lady:

You are ignoring me.

I’m not.  If I were ignoring you you wouldn’t have any beer. I’m busy.

You’re ignoring me.

Listen, I have customers other than you.  I cannot stand here and entertain you.  This is the way I do my job.  If you have a problem with the way I do my job, then that’s a whole other issue and you are free to get a beer somewhere where someone does their job better.

I thought this would be it.  I thought this would be the thing I would say that would get her to ask for her check and leave in a huff.  But no.  She said

Not at all.  I was actually about to compliment you.

See?  Manipulative bitch.  But then she adds

If I had a philosophical (this word was very jumbled) problem with the fact that I have been here drinking all day, I would be home.

Um…okay?

And then she asked for her bill.  Okay.  So I decided that since she was sort of a nightmare, since she had made the first 5 hours of my shift sort of hellish, and since she had chased out 6 of my good customers, I would not buy her back at all.  Her bill came to $56.  She had drank a lot of beer.  I gave the bill to her under the taps, she looked at it, started scribbling illegibly on it, then crumpled up the receipt and threw it at me, following in close order by the pen.  Oh, you have got to be kidding me.  At this point I had just about had it.  And this is what happened next:

Me:  Are you serious?  This is how you are going to behave right now?  How old are you?

Lady: How old are YOU? $56?!

Me:  That’s how much you drank.  That is not my problem.  If you have a problem with the bill then maybe you should rethink your drinking habits.

At this point she stands up on that tiny little ledge under the bar where you’re supposed to put your feet because she was really small and this made her feel more intimidating.  She gets as in my face as she can possibly manage considering the width of the bar and also the fact that I was standing a little bit back from it and she says

Lady:  Are you challenging me?  Let’s go!

Me:  Okay, go ahead.  You want to hit me over the bar? Hit me. Go for it.

Lady: You’re challenging me!  Come on!

Me:  Honey, you are so drunk that if I tapped you you would probably fall over and crack your head open.

Now, in hindsight, this last bit seems a little like a threat but I didn’t actually mean it that way.  I really did mean that if I were to touch her she would get so unbalanced that she would fall over because she was that drunk but probably I should have just not said anything at all.  Anyway, this went on for a little while longer and ended with me telling her I felt bad for her son (really mean, I feel bad about that) and threatening to call the police if she didn’t leave and her stumbling out in a huff, barely missing walking into the door on her way out.  I then ran through the math on her bill about 20 million times.  Did I do something wrong?  I thought back about all the little tick marks on the post-it (because that is how we keep our tabs, very professional) and I realized that I had accidentally overcharged her by about $6, which I do feel badly about.  But it wouldn’t have changed anything.  She would still have gotten mad about her big bill and would still have thrown her crumpled up receipt and pen at me and would still be 86ed from the bar.  And the thing about it, is that if she had not thrown her pen at me and had instead said calmly, ‘I think my bill is too big’ I would have gone back over the bill and noticed my mistake and maybe, because of the inconvenience to her, I would have taken one drink off the bill and everyone would be happy.  But no.  She threw a pen at me and that was a mistake.  So, yea, don’t be that bitch.

*For those of you who don’t know, on the weekends I tend to use my sandwich board outside the bar to make oftentimes humorous observations.  This Saturday the board said “Hugo Chavez is apparently doing well after his cancer surgery.  That’s good new for democracy!” and “And another of this generation’s sports idols falls.  Good work, Pistorius.” Okay, that second one is more sad than funny but you get the idea.

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Tip #4 on Being a Good Bar Customer

21 Jan

If you haven’t already and want to, or if you have already and really love them and want to again, you can read Tip #1, Tip #2 and Tip#3 here.  Also, trigger warning, this is a bitter post.  Clearly, 4 days and 4 bar shifts later I am still pissed about this one.

Okay so here’s the thing about bartending.  For the most part, unless you work in a corporate spot or a fancy hotel or something, you don’t actually get paid.  For example, I work 3 days a week, for about 9 hours per shift if you count the time setting up before and cleaning up after.  That means that, for those among us who are math challenged, I work 54 hours every two weeks.  (And in case you were wondering yes, I did pull up my computer calculator to make sure my multiplication was right.  Sad, isn’t it?)  And every two weeks I receive a paycheck for roughly $94.94, give or take.  That means that I make, after taxes, about $1.78 an hour.  I have a pretty cheap living situation and a relatively frugal approach to life, but even I cannot make living on $189.88 a month, or $2278.56 a year, work.  Hence, TIPS.

So, TIPS.  Why do I put it in capital letters?  Because it is actually an acronym (oh, don’t we love those GPIA friends?) which stands for To Insure Proper Service.  It’s sort of like an incentive structure.  The idea is that when you come into a bar, the bartender is not going to burp in your face or spit in your drink because if they do so they will not receive any money on top of the meager hourly wage.  It’s a way for the customer to show his or her appreciation for the level of attention and service as well as the overall quality of the beverage and experience.  This all being said there are some people who don’t leave a gratuity and not for any reason other than the fact that they are assholes.  Let me tell you a story.

So there is this little blonde pipsqueak that comes into the bar sometimes.  (Let it be known that normally I wouldn’t feel the need to mention much about her appearance or stature except that I just think she is such an ass that I cannot help myself.)  She is one of those women who, 20 years from now, will have a mouth pucker as if she has been sucking on a lemon since she came out of the womb.  She has been nothing but  unpleasant every single time she comes into the bar and not just to me, but to other customers and to one of the owners.  One time, for example, she made a huge stink about how I was eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (actually, it was almond butter and fig preserves but no need to split hairs) behind the bar.  Not in front of her face but off to the side.  She made this face as if I was sitting there with a cat turd sandwich and spitting bits of shit all over her.  Rather than just quietly get up and move to a table or say something like “I’m sorry, not to be rude but I just don’t love the smell of peanut butter so I’m going to sit over there at that table” she gave me a ridiculous stink eye and said, very loudly and dripping with disdain, “UGH!  I just cannot STAND the smell of peanut butter.  I can’t even SIT here.  Gross!”  And shot me a nasty look over her shoulder as she retreated to the corner.  Honestly, if I knew it was that easy to get rid of her I would have brought a PB&J far earlier.

So, yea, she’s a bitch.  Not only is she a bitch but she is also a non-tipper.  I’m not talking like, she orders three drinks and leaves a buck, which is rude and also cheap, but she literally leaves nothing except for the lingering stink of her bad attitude.  This past Thursday she came in and stood right in front of the bar chatting – or should I say bitching loudly – to her friend (does she actually have those?  Incredible.) about something I could really care less about.  I saw she was in the middle of something, I know she is a bitch, so I figured I would walk away for 30-45 seconds, maybe a minute, let her finish up her conversation so I am not imposing but also not make her wait long enough that she gets all huffy about the bad service which, honestly, is the only level of service she deserves.  I came back to where she was standing and said, in as sweet a voice I could muster (I got confirmation that I was nothing but nice.  Maybe I have a career in acting in my future?),

“Hey ladies, can I get you anything?”

She looked at me, looked back at her friend, rolled her eyes and spat,

“Ugh.  I guess I’ll have a Jack and Coke.”

Okay, so first of all, it’s not like I was out of line interrupting her.  She was standing at the bar.  If what she was talking about was so important, why didn’t she just stand a little further away from the bar, signalling to me that she was planning on ordering a drink but wasn’t ready just at that moment.  Also, why the attitude?  Whatever.  I made her drink, brought it back over and said,

“That’ll be seven dollars, please.”

She reached into her wallet, took out exactly seven dollars, a 5 dollar bill and two singles, dropped them on the bar and walked away.  No thank you. No smile.  No tip.   Fine, whatever.  I walked over to my boss and friend (same person!  Ain’t I lucky?), and was like

“Bitch didn’t even tip.  What is her deal??”

To which my boss responded,

“Oh, her?  Please, she never tips.”

The night continues.  Little pipsqueak decides she needs another drink and orders two things from my boss because this time she was ready THE SECOND SHE WALKED UP TO THE BAR AND GOD FORBID SHE HAD TO WAIT MORE THAN 5 SECONDS WHILE I MADE A DRINK FOR SOMEONE ELSE which, together, added up to $11.  We have a $12 minimum on credit cards (I know, it’s illegal, blah blah blah shut up I’ve heard it before) but usually when people get close to the minimum like that we let it slide because we are nice and accommodating and when you do nice things for people they remember and come back and that’s good for you and the bar.  Double win.  So, the girl left the tab open.  About an hour later she decided she couldn’t possibly stay a second longer and had to close her tab right then.  Upon seeing that I was, again, doing my job and making drinks for other people because (a) that’s how I make my money and (b) it was a Thursday night and sort of busy, she did a huge eye roll and said, not muttered,

“Ugh, seriously?”

(I got confirmation of said utterance from an observing customer who was a neutral party.)  My boss noticed the pipsqueak, notice her stankface, and swept in to run her card for her.  She went, in my opinion, above and beyond the call of duty and ran the pipsqueak’s card for the $11 total, rather than adding the one buck to reach the minimum.  Upon relating to the girl that she had in essence done her a favor the girl looked at her, did not smile, and then said,

“Oh, well in that case I’ll tip you.”

Okay, I’m sorry what?!  Seriously bitch, what is your damage?  Who says something like that?  Not tipping is bad enough, but lording your tip money over someone is just so incredibly rude and unwarranted.  I mean, if I were one of her “friends” I would be so massively embarassed to go anywhere with her that involved being served by someone.  I mean, I serve but I am by no means a servant and I am also a human being and a relatively smart one at that so maybe you should check yourself.  Also, you had better believe that I am planning on telling each and every one of my co-workers about this just so that there is never a buyback given, not ever, not once.  I am vindictive and I hold grudges.  Get ready for it, pipsqueak.

So here’s the thing.  Tipping is obviously better than not tipping, especially when the service you get is good.  But not tipping does not necessarily make you an asshole, it just makes you uneducated to the appropriate ways to behave when you are in a social environment involving a bartender, a server or any other manner of person helping you between your current state, without food or drink, and the state you aspire to be in, drinking and/or eating something delicious.  There is never an excuse for being an asshole when you are treated like a human being.  Ever.  So, if you don’t tip and are nice, I will forgive you although I won’t give you things for free.  If you don’t tip and are an asshole, or if you don’t tip and then make a huge fucking statement about how you are tipping on the rare occasion that you do so in order to make it known that you are an entitled, cheap fuck, then you should never leave your house and you certainly shouldn’t come into my bar.

And so, to the pipsqueak, I would like to let you know that the other day on my way to work I saw you and your boyfriend (who is also an asshole, for those who are wondering) I was about halfway to tripping you so you fell right on your face and crushed your hand under your comically large law book but I decided to be the bigger person.  So, you’re welcome.

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