All My Hats

I'm done with work for the week! Well, sort of, I have this thing to go to with some of the staff tonight; a new bar/restaurant has just opened across the street from us and gave us tickets to their opening party. Bring on the free food and booze! Being a waitress is so glamourous (ha-fucking-ha).

Anyway, so over the last 20ish hours I've worked I've done lots of different things. Generally I'm a waitress and that's all I do; I talk to people a lot and I carry stuff. But since we've cut down on the number of staff on at any given time, I get to do way more things. Last night I got to be on the door while A was inside looking for his missing wedding ring (I got to check IDs and everything). Friday night I got to bartend when it got busy suddenly and Mother Hen was ordering stock, I figured I'd help out Cookie and The Boy. That brings me to my little anecdote of the day.

I am not a bartender; I can make mixed drinks just fine and even a few cocktails, I can pour wine (who can't?) and beer from a bottle. Tap beer is a mystery to me, there's all the tilting and foam and it's too much effort. Anywho, I was over at 120 (the end of the bar) and a guy there asked me for a Jim Beam and L&P (for those non-Kiwis, it's a lemon flavoured soft drink). I explained we don't have L&P and his options as far as mixer goes are Coke, Diet Coke, lemonade, ginger beer, ginger ale and any weird variety of juice. This is when his arsehole factor became apparent. He started going on about how he's been "coming here for years" and why don't we have any L&P? I replied that I don't know about multiple years, but I know for sure we haven't had L&P in at least two. I also said that he's more than welcome to go across the road to a convenience store, buy a bottle of L&P and we'll keep it chilled for him and make his drinks with that. He settled on Jim Beam and ginger ale. I made his drink in front of him and got the portable Eftpos for him to pay, upon which he informed me that he wanted it in a smaller glass. Now at my bar, the tall glasses and the short glasses are actually the same volume, so if I'd made it tall and he wanted it short it wouldn't have been an issue. But unless the customer says otherwise, I will always make bourbon and rum mixed drinks in a short glass, this guy wanted a whiskey glass. It was 3 in the morning, we'd done last call and I could not be fucked with arseholes at this point. I politely (not really) informed him that if he'd wanted it in a smaller glass, he had ample time to tell me that when I was making the drink in front of him, not when it came time to pay and he could either take it and pay or leave it.

He paid the $9 and shut up. I think I'd make an awesome bitchy bartender.