Tag Archives: bartender rants

Tip #11 on Being a Good Bar Customer

8 Nov

Okay, so, I know I just did this but when it rains it pours, right?  If you want to check out the vintage tips, here are the links: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and ten.  Share them if you have some badly behaving friends.  Or if you like to judge badly behaving people.  Or if you just think it’s funny.  Or not at all.  Whatever.  I’m not the boss of you.

So at this point some of you are probably all “this girl hates people and bartending and maybe she should just get a new job.”  You can feel free to think that.  Personally, I think I am doing a public service on behalf of all the other drink slingers who are annoyed by poorly mannered patrons.  I am also a firm believer that when someone is acting like an asshat, the rest of us can feel free to judge them, and even have a few laughs at their expense, without feeling bad about it.  So, without further ado, another bit of free advice from yours truly.  Unless of course you’d like to pay me.  In which case, yes please can you email me immediately?!

So I am not a person who really likes to be touched.  When everyone else is hugging and cheek-kissing and all that stuff, I have my arm outstretched in front of my body and my hand furiously moving about in an enthusiastic wave.  I find that if I approach it this way, I am able to create a friendly barrier.  It’s like, yea, I like you, I will happily interact with you, but only when you are at least 2 feet away from me.  The outstretched arm is sort of like the enforcer of my invisible force field.  And that is with people I know.  If I don’t know you, don’t touch me.  Seriously.  I will curl myself into the smallest possible version of myself in all public circumstances in order to avoid any inadvertent bodily contact.  I am not a hand holder, not a snuggler, not a fan of massages. So now that I have scared all my friends and have them all thinking

“oh my god I think I maybe gave her a hug once?  Does she hate me?!”

I will continue with the tip.  But only after I say this: it’s cool, friends, you can hug me.  You’ve passed the test.  Whatever that means.

So, the tip. I am aware that I am especially weird about touching, but I think I can speak for bartenders the world over when I say to you: do not touch your bartender.  Seriously.  Remember that lesson you learned in pre-school?  You know, use your words?  That also applies to ordering drinks.  You have a voice.  We have ears.  Let’s make this work.  So last night, when I was in the middle of a short conversation, one of my customers reached over the bar and poked me in the arm.  He had been standing at the bar waiting for me for approximately 15 seconds.  I know this because I saw him walk over, looked at him and smiled in the “I’ll be with you in a second” sort of a way. And then, because apparently waiting is so incredibly difficult especially when you have probably already had too many drinks, he poked me.  In the arm.  With his stupid index finger.  I would not wish the glare I gave him on my worst enemy.

So maybe this doesn’t seem like a big deal to some of you but it really is.  Being behind the bar is like being in a safe zone.  As bartenders, we are protected by the expansive piece of wood that separates us from the clientele.  Just imagine when you look at the bar that there is this invisible wall through which sound passes, through which drinks and currency pass, but through which your hands cannot travel.  Just because we are giving you drinks and laughing at your jokes does not make us public property.  We do not belong to you.

Okay, so, imagine that you are like, a computer tech person.  You are one of those people that answers phone calls from people like me.  People who know nothing about technology and need all the help all the time for the stupidest things.  And let’s say that I have called you and I am on hold while you are trying to help some other technologically-challenged person.  But let’s just say, for the sake of this tip, that I got impatient and I possessed the power, just like in the cartoons, to reach my hand through the phone and poke you on the arm to get your attention.  That would be shocking, right?  And not just because I had achieved a feat that previously seemed impossible. It would also be shocking because you’d be like,

“here I am, sitting at my desk doing my job and that asshole just reached through the phone and poked me on the shoulder!  With her stupid index finger!”

And you know what?  Your reaction would be absolutely justified because I should keep my hands to myself.  So just think about it this way.  The bar, it is like my desk.  You are the technologically-challenged person on the other end of the phone.  The space in between us is sort of like a phone cord.  Imagine that it is impossible for you to touch me.  Because here’s the thing.  I know that you are at the bar with your friends having fun, but that doesn’t make it any less of a job for me.  I am not your drinking buddy.  I am helping you fill a need.  The need for more alcohol.  It is, although it might not seem this way to you, a professional interaction.  I am a professional.  And you don’t touch professionals.

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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 #7 on Being a Good Bar Customer

18 Jun

And here it is, Tip #7.  You know what that means:  if there is a #7, then there must also exist #s 1-6 and guess what?  You’re in luck!  And you can read them all by following these links!  It’s like magic (or hyperlinks…).  Tip #1, tip #2, tip #3, tip #4, tip #5 and, finally, tip#6.

So in this blog I am going to tackle a topic that seems to be slightly divisive: kids in bars.  This divisiveness can be easily proven by referring to a comment I made on my Facebook page a few weeks back that simply read “No, I do not have milk for your child.”  The responses were diverse, to say the least, ranging from “bar life is slowly being destroyed in NYC by entitled parents” to “You’re right, people with kids should just stop trying to enjoy themselves.”  I am not here trying to start an all out war, but I have some opinions.  So, here goes.

I am not going to put myself strictly on one side of the argument or the other, but I think those who know me, and those who have gotten to know me through my writing here, can probably guess which way I tend to lean.  That being said, there are people who come in with their kids who I actually like having in there.  One couple specifically comes to mind.  They have been my once-a-month customers for years now and recently, about 2 months or so ago, they adopted two little girls who I lovingly call “the ladies.”  The ladies are very cute.  They are also very well behaved, always snoring away in their little baby bjorns, one on the front of one daddy, one on the front of the other.  The second one of them starts fussing, one of the parents takes her outside and bounces her around until she quiets down and goes back to sleep.  If that doesn’t work, they close the tab and head home.

I have noticed over the years that people who were customers of the bar before they reproduced or adopted were the best customers if they chose to bring their children in, although many of them do not.  Many of them will pop in with the baby every now and again to say hi and then be on their way.  But if they do decide to stay, they are incredibly attuned to their child, or children.  They respect the bar, they respect the other customers, and they respect me and understand that a crying baby will drive customers away, thereby lowering my income and making me angry.  And they don’t want to make me angry.  I am told I can be scary.

It’s the people that weren’t customers before that are the problem.  So a few weeks ago there I was at work when this guy came in.  He ordered a beer, drank about half of it, and then said he would be back in a few minutes.  Like a good bartender, I placed a napkin over his beer so no dust or little flying friends would go in it (also so I wouldn’t forget he was coming back and dump it out) and went about my business.  About ten minutes later he walked in…with his 6-year-old daughter.  Apparently she was at a birthday party across the street at the Little Gym.  He took his seat back up at the bar and she sat down next to him.  Just as an aside, I hate it when people let their little kids sit at the bar (to the person who follows my blog who brings his kids in, you are an exception because your kids are awesome and also they write stories about me and also neither of them is 6).  I actually think it is illegal and normally I would have said something about it but I wasn’t feeling up to the conversation and also he had been there before and I felt weird about it.  So, whatever, I just ignored it.  The dad was super distracted watching a monster truck rally on TV and was not paying any attention to his daughter at all.  When they got up to leave about 10 minutes later I noticed that she had scribbled all over the bar!  There was marker everywhere!  Why did he give her a marker?  Also, being in a bar is not an excuse to stop watching your kid.  I am a bartender, not a babysitter, I will not pick up the slack unless you pay me at least $30 an hour and even then I would probably tell you to go fuck yourself, I serve booze.

And here’s another example.  Just this past weekend these 3 adults came in with 2 toddlers.  That means there were 6 eyeballs to watch 2 little dudes running around.  They went out to the back, which immediately prompted all my backyard customers to move back into the bar.  About 1/2 hour later, I hear the mother screaming “Marky! Marky! No! Put that down!!”  And she runs over to where her son was standing with a rat trap in his hands.  He had dumped poison all over himself.  She didn’t realize what it was at first and said something along the lines of “ew, I don’t know what that was.”  I happened to be standing by the back door and, putting it all together, leaned my head out and said, “yea, that was a rat trap.  You might want to take him into the bathroom and wash his hands, arms, legs, and shoes with soapy water before he puts something in his mouth.”  The parents were actually cool about it, blaming their lack of attention for the oversight rather than the fact that we had a poisonous rodent trap on the ground.

Here’s the thing.  It actually doesn’t even matter what I personally think about you having kids in the bar because the reality of the situation is that bars, and my bar more specifically, tend to not be child friendly.  This does not mean I will cast you dark glances and spit in your drinks if you come in toting a toddler, it means that there are accessible outlets, furniture with sharp edges, there might be broken glass on the floor, and, as Marky found out the hard way, occasionally there is poison.  So I might talk a good game about how they cry and it gives me a headache or people change the diapers in the bathroom and then the whole bar smells like poo (this has totally happened before!) but really, I worry enough about my adult customers maiming themselves without adding two-foot-tall curiosity machines into the mix.

So, in summation, in the words of my brother (about something completely unrelated but whatever), “just because you can does not mean you should.”  And in the words of me, if you do anyway then watch your damn kid.  Going out to a bar to blow off some steam is only a vacation from parenting when you leave your kids at home.  Don’t make me parent for you because, guess what? I won’t.

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Sometimes Firemen Drink a lot and then Everything is Terrible

3 Jun

Sometimes things happen at work that sort of resemble a car crash in slow motion.  It’s like, you’re standing there, watching, and you know what is going to happen but you are absolutely powerless to stop it.  That is what my night was this past Thursday when a group of like 25 firemen (I say men because they were, in fact, all dudes and big ones at that) showed up for the retirement party of one of their firehouse compatriots who really didn’t look old enough to retire but what do I know from fire department rules.

So, everything started out more or less normal.  BIG pile of cash that firedude after firedude threw a 20 on.  It always seems super awesome when this happens until you realize that a lot of the time they keep drinking beer and stop throwing money on the pile and then you end up, three hours later, with a bar that smells like sweaty guys and a pile of like $15 singles.  But they were nice enough and I held out hope that this time I would actually make some money (I did, for reasons that will soon become clear).  Most of the guys were drinking bottled beers: Buds, Bud Lights, Amstels.  But there is always that one dude who wants to do all the shots in the world.  All of them.  And he wants all his friends to do them with him even if they don’t want to and if they don’t want to, then he does them all himself.

So, fast forward like almost an entire bottle of Fire Ball and 2 rounds of Sapphire martinis, the second one which was chugged, later.  It was one of those weird situations where you’re like, okay, well, these guys have had lots and lots of drinks.  But they seem to be laughing and chatting and joking around.  No one is falling over (well, except for this one guy but he was mostly concentrating on standing and not worried about what the other guys were talking about).  So you think, wow, maybe these firedudes are going to hold it together!  Maybe I won’t have to make the awkward move of cutting off like 25 beefy dudes who have not officially tipped me and also might become angry about being cut off.  And then, the car crash.  The super, duper, painfully slow car crash.

All of a sudden Fire Ball shot guy and his buddy who was humoring him and doing all the shots and drinking all the martinis got into it about seniority.  Fire Ball shot guy is like, pushing the other guy who, as it turns out, was his superior at the fire house and also had driven his car to the bar which I knew because he had left his side mirror on one of the bar tables which was a source of amusement for me for the entire night. Seriously, who takes the side view mirror off their car and then just like, deposits it randomly on a table and expects NOT to forget it?  I had to yell after his buddy to get it when they were all on their way out the door in a big, drunken, angry, fighting mob.  Anyway, so this argument devolves quite quickly into one guy pushing and the other guy yelling “don’t touch me!  Don’t touch me!”  At this point, my coworker and two customers go over to try and break up the fight and there I am, all 64 inches of me (on a good day) staring at this mass of big dudes and my little coworker, afraid she is going to get punched in the face and what do I do?  I grab a big glass of water and pour it on them.  And then when that has no affect, I refill it and do it again.  None of the fighting guys noticed but I did manage to get my coworker and one of my customer-friends pretty wet, sorry guys.

So eventually the whole lot of them left and, surprisingly, left their pile of cash on the bar which was actually quite sizable because Fire Ball guy had cut their revelry short.  So I was happy.  Until I noticed this idiot law student who had previously been in the bar drinking white wine for like, ever, chasing the whole big group of angry, drunk, wet firefighters down the street yelling at them about how they shouldn’t fight in the bar.  So, in order to shut her up, one of them picked her up and then put her back down again.  And then she devolved into a crying mess who kept calling me a bitch and then, about an hour later and on the other side of the avenue, repeatedly threw herself down on the sidewalk in a full-on tantrum fit for a 2 year old.  Her boyfriend, who probably weighs all of 90 pounds, was trying to calm her down when these two passers-by stopped and, thinking he was hitting her, threatened to beat him up.  Then my co-worker, still wet, had to go over and defuse that.  Then the cops came, then the passers-by left, then my coworker came back inside and then, two hours later, the boyfriend popped his head in to see if we knew where his girlfriend was.  Apparently he lost her.  Go figure.

As I said, a slow motion car crash that I was powerless to stop.  But I did learn one thing: I enjoy throwing water on people.  I would like to try that again…when my friends are out of harm’s way.

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Tip #6 on Being a Good Bar Customer

15 May

This is a series!  You can read all the other tips here: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5. Or you can read about this incredibly awkward sort of love triangle-esque (only so much worse!) situation that happened this one night.  Or you can read none of those and just read this one.  Here at FranklyRebekah we like to give you all the choice.

Don’t be a dick about sports.  I don’t mean like, voicing your opinion about your favorite team, although really I could give a shit.  I mean don’t be a dick about getting your specific game on the TV, especially when the bar you are walking into is a bar that sometimes plays sports and not a sports bar.  I have examples!

About 3 weeks ago I was at work, having a relatively run-of-the-mill day when in walks this dude.  He marches into the bar, looks around at the 4 televisions and exclaims, loudly and rudely,

“What? No Nets?!  We are in Brooklyn, right?”

People do this literally all the time.  “What? No Yankees?!”  “What? No Giants?!” “What? No Rangers?!” What if I walked into a bar and was all, “What?! No women’s gymnastics championships?!”*

Anyway, all the time.  All the fucking time.  It’s like, do you see a Nets game?  No?  Well, then, clearly the Nets are not currently being played in this bar.  I didn’t say that, though. Nope, I was nice.  But see, here’s the thing about being nice to people who ask to see games in that manner: they are almost always assholes of the “give them an inch they’ll take a mile” variety.  Whatever.  I walked over to him and this happened:

Me: “Can I help you?”

Dude: “Yea, you don’t have the Nets on.”

Me: “That’s true. Is that you telling me that you would like to watch the Nets?”

Dude: “Yes. I mean, we are in Brooklyn.  I mean, how could you not have the Nets on?”

Me: “Well, I mean, the Nets were a New Jersey team that everyone ignored until Jay-Z got on board but whatever.  What channel?”

Dude: “I don’t know.”

HUGE Nets fan right there.  Really needed to watch the Nets game and had absolutely zero idea as to what channel they were playing on.  In my experience people who are adamant about specific games have at least some semblance of an idea as to the channel.  But not this guy.  He starts throwing out random channels.  And there I am, like an idiot, pointing the stupid remote control at the cable box, scrolling up and down as this dude is like

“TNT! MSG! ABC! ESPN!”

Up and down and up and down and up and down.  In the midst of the scrolling, as I am getting extremely irritated, I scrolled over a hockey game to which another customer, sitting right next to the first customer, exclaims,

“The Rangers! I want to watch that!”

At which point I got extremely frustrated, slammed the remote control down on the bar and said,

“You know what? Why don’t you guys figure it out yourselves. I want nothing to do with this television.”

And then do you know what happened?  The HUUUUUUGE Nets fan could not figure out how to work the remote control.  He was standing there, staring at it, pointing it up at the television, staring at it again.  It was almost as if he thought by the pure power of his mind he would be able to make the channel change.  He then got frustrated and said, exasperatedly,

“How do you work this damn thing?”

To which I replied,

“You have to actually press a button.  Just point it at the television and hit ‘guide.'”

The hockey fan then took the remote control out of the Nets “fan’s” hands and, quickly, got the game on.  The Nets fan then ordered a drink.  He then sat there, staring blankly at the television as if he had never actually watched a basketball game ever in his entire annoying life, and then he took out a book.  He started reading a book.  And then he left.  Before the game was over.  I bet he just moved to Brooklyn like, yesterday.  Asshole.

So just as an FYI, my bar has exactly 4 flat screen televisions.  One of those televisions is like 10 years old and is hued kind of greenish.  I have to climb up on the back bar to turn it on because the remote is so old that it no longer works.  For those 4 televisions, we have 2 cable boxes.  That means we can have a total of 2 channels on 4 televisions.   I tell people this all the time and they don’t seem to compute (again, a bar that sometimes plays sports, not actually a sports bar).

Like the other day when this guy really wanted to watch the incredibly important Rangers game which was so important that he was the only person at the bar who wanted to watch it but all the TVs had the Knicks game on which didn’t matter at all because he doesn’t care about basketball.  I wanted to be like, dude, move to Canada.**  Anyway, he got all irate that we didn’t have the Rangers game on.  My boss even went so far as to take a poll down the bar to see if there was another soul in the bar who was interested in watching hockey, there wasn’t.***  So I, again, stupidly, trying to be nice, told him we only had two boxes so we could only have two channels on.  He responded by telling me to put it on one television.  I’m like, dude! What part of I cannot put it on one television do you not understand?  You have been hit by one too many hockey pucks.  I tried to send him to a nearby bar with all the TVs in the world (some call them sports bars), but he wouldn’t have any of it.  So I ignored him.  And he left.

Anyway, if you want to watch something, all you have to do is say “Excuse me? Would you mind putting on the Strong Man contest? I like to watch dudes lift things that are so heavy that their noses bleed.” And I would say, okay, but I would be sure to put it one of the TVs that I can’t see because Strong Man contests make me want to vomit.

*I would never do this for three reasons. One, people would probably laugh me out of the place. Two, I doubt the sound would be turned on and you simply cannot watch floor without the music. And three, I think there are some pervy dudes who like to watch 14-year-old girls tumble around in leotards and that makes me feel icky.

**Actually, don’t.  I have some friends from Canada and I really like them and I think probably I would like lots of other people from there too and I would not like to punish them with your presence.  I will research islands with no inhabitants.  You can move to one of those. With a TV. To watch hockey. There are flaws here…

***I told my boss my theory about the “give an inch take a mile” variety of assholes, of which this dude definitely was an example, so he left well enough alone.

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Dear Restaurant Manager, Your Restaurant Sucks

13 May

I don’t like Yelp because I feel like people go on there and write bullshit about bullshit, like the time when I got a bad Yelp review for using the house vodka in our $5 Sunday Bloody Mary specials.  (I will give you a moment to digest that little nugget.)  But sometimes an experience is so bad that I feel the need to go back to the roots of this blog and write a letter to the manager about it.  So, that is what I have done.  Enjoy.  I’d be happy to tell you the name of the restaurant if you also want to have an awesome (read: horrific) dining experience.

To Whom It May Concern

This past Friday night, May 10, my boyfriend and I visited your restaurant for a glass of wine and some appetizers.  I had just finished writing my last paper for my graduate degree and was really in the mood to celebrate.  We decided, after a long amble north on Fifth Avenue, to try your spot out as we had discussed going in for a while but had never gotten the chance.  We were really impressed by the interior and I was excited that you had not one but three Gruners by the glass.  Perfect!  So we ordered a glass each, figuring if we enjoyed our snacks (which we did, very much — that tomato bruschetta situation was really fantastic) we would stick around for awhile.

Unfortunately, the tastiness of the food and wine was not enough to make up for the truly abysmal service we received.  Perhaps I made a gaffe by ordering the Gruner by the price, but I do not speak German so I figured it best not to try to pronounce the name.  Perhaps it was that my boyfriend informed the bartender that we were going to just have some appetizers and move on for dinner — I am a vegetarian and lactose intolerant so my food options are quite limited.  Or perhaps it’s just that the bartender is an asshole.  I have been in the service industry for 10 years — I am a bartender in the neighborhood — and understand that the job can be grating at times.  I understand when your customers are rude being cold is the only thing you can do to keep yourself from telling them what you really think about them.  The thing is that I am over-the-top friendly to industry people so when I am treated poorly it is really shocking to me.

The gentleman behind the bar did not seem as though he wanted to have a conversation with us or anyone else sitting at his bar, and would rather converse with his co-workers, that’s fine.  I certainly cannot fault him that.  But if you ask me how my food was without making eye contact and then walk away while I am in the middle of praising it, that is a problem, albeit one I could forgive.  What I could not forgive was when he snatched my and my boyfriend’s glasses, mine unfinished, and snapped “can I get you anything else?” without even stopping for a response which was, after our experience, a resounding no.  I felt as though I was being kicked out of the restaurant and I could not for the life of me figure out why.

So, we left him a bad tip that, even given the rude treatment, I still felt bad about.  Get what you give, I suppose.  We will not be returning to your Park Slope location, or any of the other ones, but hope you can iron out whatever staffing problems you have so you don’t lose any more customers.  Also, and normally I would not say this except the bartender was really awful, I don’t like to look at my bartender’s underwear or unwashed t-shirt while I am eating.  Tell him to buy a laundry card and a belt.

Sincerely,

Rebekah

PS  The woman with whom I spoke to get your email address was incredibly friendly.

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People Never Cease to Amaze Me…

11 Mar

…and I don’t always mean that in a good way.

It was my first weekend shift back at work after my (too short) vacation to New Orleans.  I was setting up the bar, feeling pretty good about my morning run and laughing about something that had happened at dinner with my family the night before when the phone rang.  It was Johan.*  I actually didn’t know who Johan was but by the way he started the conversation I guess I should have?  Anyway, apparently Johan had been in the bar the night before and had forgotten his card.  I found the card in the register — it had already been rung up for the amount plus a 20% tip as is our custom — and told him it would be safely sitting there waiting for him to come pick it up.  He told me his friend was probably going to come get it and gave me her name.  He laughed when I informed him his card had already been charged but it wasn’t like a, ‘wow that was funny’ sort of laugh it was more like a rude scoff which I didn’t particularly appreciate but whatever.  I mean, I wasn’t the one who forgot my card at the bar so I kind of figured if anyone in that phone conversation had the right to a rude scoff it was me.  I didn’t scoff, though.  I exercised restraint.  Anyway, I hung up the phone with Johan and went about finishing the task of setting up the bar so I could unlock the door promptly at 12 to the throngs of people waiting outside.**

About 1/2 hour later the phone rang again.  I noticed that the number on the Caller ID looked suspiciously like Johan’s number.  I answered and, sure enough, Johan!  He started explaining to me about the card again prompting me to inform him that I was, in fact, the same person he had spoken to a mere 30 minutes ago and that I remembered the situation quite clearly.  He then told me that his friend would be unable to pick up his card that day.  The rest of the conversation went as follows:

Me:  Oh, that’s okay.  I will just leave it sitting in the register until you can get here.  Don’t worry, I won’t go on a shopping spree or anything.***

Johan, decidedly not amused by my comment:  Well, I was wondering if you could send it to me by post.

So in this brief moment I thought to myself, okay, maybe Johan was just in town visiting some friends but by noon on a Saturday he was no longer in the city.  Or!  Maybe Johan, with his thick Scandinavian accent, was actually at JFK awaiting his flight back to whatever distant land he came from and he was calling in a panic, trying by whatever means possible to get his beloved card back.

Me: Um, where do you live?

Johan: Manhattan.

Me, shocked:  Um, so why don’t you just get on the train and come down here and pick it up?

Johan:  I’m very busy.  My parents are coming to town…I am going back to visit in Switzerland at some point.

Me:  Well, I also am very busy and we don’t have envelopes at the bar right now.  I work all day today and tomorrow.  So you would like me to take this card home with me and then on Monday go out and buy stamps and envelopes and then mail it to you?

Johan who obviously does not understand sarcasm:  Yea, that would be great.

Me:  Um.  Yea.  I’m not going to do that. You’re going to have to come pick it up.

Johan:  But I live all the way on 34th Street!

Me:  Somewhere near Penn Station?

Johan:  Yes! Exactly!

Me:  Oh, you mean you have express trains there?  Just take the 2/3.  It’ll take you like 1/2 hour to get here.  Otherwise I can cut the card up for you.

Johan:  So you won’t send it to me?!

Me: No.

Johan seemed both shocked and appalled by the tragic turn of this conversation.  He really thought that I would mail him his card.  To Manhattan.  Because he was far too busy to get on the train and come pick it up.  And, I mean, if he was on his way back to Europe, or if he lived super far out of town, I probably would have just mailed it to him because I am nice. But dude lived in Manhattan!  He just couldn’t be bothered to come get his damn card. Eventually he informed me that he was going to have a different friend come pick it up for him and all was well and good but seriously, if I ever hear a European tell me that American’s are lazy, I am going to give them Johan’s number.

*Name changed by Googling “common Swedish names.” In hindsight, I should have gone with Lars.

**In the interest of full disclosure there were no throngs.  Basically never are.  And if there were throngs, or even just one throng, I would probably be annoyed about it because a throng, in my experience, never results in something good.  It results in like, stampedes and stuff and it was far too early, and I am far too young, to be stomped to death.

***That is basically my favorite thing to say to people when they call about a forgotten card.  Or I tell them I have already gone on a shopping spree and thank them for my awesome new Vespa but they never seem quite as entertained as me.

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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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