Day seven.
Yeah, I'm counting days. Not since my last drink, but days without a day off.
Alex keeps calling in -- he's got a toothache (the teeth being so important to a doorman's ability to do his job) or his car won't start (but his father will loan him the family car, not to go to work, but to go to the bar and drink several hours while I work for him) -- and since I'm not drinking guess who winds up being the responsible, dependable guy in the bar by default. As normal human beings go I may be full of drama but as far as bar staff goes I'm a goddamn Shaolin monk.
Day seven of ten -- I hope. Worked Sunday before last, and last Sunday, and tonight (Wednesday), plus all my normal scheduled shifts. I'm going slightly nuts, but really need the money. Plus worked Hartman today moving boxes and sweeping leaves out in the sun which was extremely nice. Oh! Mark gave me a hundred dollar gift card to Flying Star! So I don't have to worry about food when the money runs thin. My god, what a fantastic bonus. Thank you!
Made big old drama with AA over an accidental sip I took from Martinique's glass after she left a few nights back -- I spit it out -- and then there was the incident with five dashes (1.3ml each) of Angostura Bitters in tonic water. Two really truly honest mistakes in which alcohol did pass by my lips I only made because I work in a bar and my sponsor said it's up to me whether to start counting days again. Then that plus needing sleep but being unable to because the city's repaving Central combined to make me miss the Monday meeting and I just had not been in my right mind since then. So I *am* counting days, but not for that. I've got my sixty day shiny object and damn it I've earned it and I ain't givin' it up over one big drop of bitters any more than I would for a steaming bowl of soup with a teaspoonfull of sherry. Went to the meeting tonight and man it's getting huge -- I swear we had 30 people there if we had one. When I started it was between seven and ten, more or less.
Chip and Ben both had their birthday parties in the bar tonight. It was insane. Honestly fun. Something happened -- I won't say what, but will say Chip responded "I'll give you an hour to stop that" -- that signalled to me it has *happened*. These are the good days, back again, that people will talk about and say "you should have been here back in the day" years from now when Foxes once again slumps down into the doldrums of a dive bar. In the spirit of focusing on my work to keep my sanity I kept washing glasses and Chip loves that -- frees him up to entertain the crowd, and he's the reason all those people came, and when he's in good form he's in damn good form and they buy drinks and they actually tip. Four or five times tonight I swear we ran out of this or that kind of glass -- never happened before. Selling less beer these days, selling more liquor.
Then someone who works at AMC went and got himself arrested after speeding on the way home. Yeeh -- I only ever saw him with one drink, but still it's nerve-wracking. He lied to the cops, too, telling them he worked at Foxes. Real smart. And he had contraband in his car. If he hadn't lied and had the contraband we might have been able to help him like Silviano, Alex, Jay, and the drag queen from Dublin helped me get out of jail. Oh well.
The payphone company finally came in and removed the pay phone. So a couple of street people come in to use it and ask where it is and I tell 'em it's gone and they ask why and I tell 'em so you can't get us shut down for using it for your drug deals, try the McDonald's. These are people we won't let into the bar at all to begin with, but we can't refuse 'em entry to the foyer where the payphone was. (Now that it's gone, we can, not that they're likely to try.) That thing was easily on the top three "headaches for the doorman" list, and it's a damn good thing it's gone. It was one of the last that took incoming calls. So now the pushers have *no* reason whatsoever to hang out around the front of the building just barely on the sidewalk where we can't do shit to 'em 'cause they're waiting for a call back.
On the flip side, and also on the same day, the bus stop got moved one block west and is now right in front of the bar so whatever streety people we've lost by removing the payphone we're getting again from the bus. Yeeh. Will the fun never end. Still I'd rather deal with down-and-out commuters who are at least on their way somewhere than going nowhere peddlers of illicit goodies loitering around the parking lot.
We claim progress. Not perfection.
Enough. I really ought to take a bath and get some sleep now.
Alex keeps calling in -- he's got a toothache (the teeth being so important to a doorman's ability to do his job) or his car won't start (but his father will loan him the family car, not to go to work, but to go to the bar and drink several hours while I work for him) -- and since I'm not drinking guess who winds up being the responsible, dependable guy in the bar by default. As normal human beings go I may be full of drama but as far as bar staff goes I'm a goddamn Shaolin monk.
Day seven of ten -- I hope. Worked Sunday before last, and last Sunday, and tonight (Wednesday), plus all my normal scheduled shifts. I'm going slightly nuts, but really need the money. Plus worked Hartman today moving boxes and sweeping leaves out in the sun which was extremely nice. Oh! Mark gave me a hundred dollar gift card to Flying Star! So I don't have to worry about food when the money runs thin. My god, what a fantastic bonus. Thank you!
Made big old drama with AA over an accidental sip I took from Martinique's glass after she left a few nights back -- I spit it out -- and then there was the incident with five dashes (1.3ml each) of Angostura Bitters in tonic water. Two really truly honest mistakes in which alcohol did pass by my lips I only made because I work in a bar and my sponsor said it's up to me whether to start counting days again. Then that plus needing sleep but being unable to because the city's repaving Central combined to make me miss the Monday meeting and I just had not been in my right mind since then. So I *am* counting days, but not for that. I've got my sixty day shiny object and damn it I've earned it and I ain't givin' it up over one big drop of bitters any more than I would for a steaming bowl of soup with a teaspoonfull of sherry. Went to the meeting tonight and man it's getting huge -- I swear we had 30 people there if we had one. When I started it was between seven and ten, more or less.
Chip and Ben both had their birthday parties in the bar tonight. It was insane. Honestly fun. Something happened -- I won't say what, but will say Chip responded "I'll give you an hour to stop that" -- that signalled to me it has *happened*. These are the good days, back again, that people will talk about and say "you should have been here back in the day" years from now when Foxes once again slumps down into the doldrums of a dive bar. In the spirit of focusing on my work to keep my sanity I kept washing glasses and Chip loves that -- frees him up to entertain the crowd, and he's the reason all those people came, and when he's in good form he's in damn good form and they buy drinks and they actually tip. Four or five times tonight I swear we ran out of this or that kind of glass -- never happened before. Selling less beer these days, selling more liquor.
Then someone who works at AMC went and got himself arrested after speeding on the way home. Yeeh -- I only ever saw him with one drink, but still it's nerve-wracking. He lied to the cops, too, telling them he worked at Foxes. Real smart. And he had contraband in his car. If he hadn't lied and had the contraband we might have been able to help him like Silviano, Alex, Jay, and the drag queen from Dublin helped me get out of jail. Oh well.
The payphone company finally came in and removed the pay phone. So a couple of street people come in to use it and ask where it is and I tell 'em it's gone and they ask why and I tell 'em so you can't get us shut down for using it for your drug deals, try the McDonald's. These are people we won't let into the bar at all to begin with, but we can't refuse 'em entry to the foyer where the payphone was. (Now that it's gone, we can, not that they're likely to try.) That thing was easily on the top three "headaches for the doorman" list, and it's a damn good thing it's gone. It was one of the last that took incoming calls. So now the pushers have *no* reason whatsoever to hang out around the front of the building just barely on the sidewalk where we can't do shit to 'em 'cause they're waiting for a call back.
On the flip side, and also on the same day, the bus stop got moved one block west and is now right in front of the bar so whatever streety people we've lost by removing the payphone we're getting again from the bus. Yeeh. Will the fun never end. Still I'd rather deal with down-and-out commuters who are at least on their way somewhere than going nowhere peddlers of illicit goodies loitering around the parking lot.
We claim progress. Not perfection.
Enough. I really ought to take a bath and get some sleep now.
posted by xeltifon at 4:51 AM
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