Holidays

I'm really glad I have the next two weeks off from work. I haven't had a new years eve off in almost 4 years. I was really excited about that for a while and then I discovered that new years eve fell on a sunday night, which means I would have had it off regardless. Son of a bitch!

Working new years eve in a bar has (for me) typically been a really strange night. It's known to most of us in the bar business as "amateur night" because all the people who normally don't drink come out and get shitfaced. They proceed to pass out everywhere after puking all over the place. Or, they get their beer muscles on (worse than normal) and fight. All to say, it is probably my least favorite night to work out of the entire year.

My first year working new years eve I brought in the new year smashed up against a really fat dude while I tried to carry an armload of dirty glasses through the crowded floor. The next year I was working the door at the bar I worked at the time and found myself standing next to a very unfortunate looking redneck/trailer trash girl when 12am rolled around. She looked up at me expectantly and I have to say, I've never flat out rejected a girl before like I did to her. Again, no new years kiss for me.

The past year I decided to fix my 12am luck and prepared myself with about 30 seconds left in the countdown. I was bartending and I filled a high ball glass with jager and opened a bottle of champagne and proceeded to chug them both when the ball dropped. Lets just say the rest of my night was muuuuch better after that.

Anyhow, I'm glad I don't work new years this year. No one will around here, except for the bars that serve food since new years falls on a Sunday night. New years is typically the busiest night of the year around here, and thats with all the bars downtown open. I can't imagine the rush that will be felt with the half dozen or so bars that are allowed to be open this year, as opposed to the 30+ places that are normally open.

Well...off to my alcohol and bar-free two week break! Merry Christmas.

Busy Thursday

Yesterday was the last day of finals for UGA students and most other colleges in this town. Which meant that plenty of people graduated this morning. Which obviously means downtown was packed. If you're graduating college at 8am the next morning, the best thing you could do would be to go downtown and get tanked. And then there were the rest of the college kids that just wanted to get tanked because they were done with the semester. Needless to say, last night night was more like a Friday or Saturday night (traditionally the busiest days of the week at the bars).

People must think door guys are stupid. I mean, I DO stand at a door all night and look at IDs, and I do this on a fairly regular basis, so the rational person might think that their creative and original little ploy to pass back IDs would work as if I've never thought of the idea. Last night alone I checked an ID, then to my amazment, because it's never, ever, ever happened to me before (insert sarcasm), I checked the exact same ID not 5 minutes later, but a different person was handing it to me. Gee...I wonder how that happened?

I've checked IDs of people who, when I hand their ID back to them, simply turn around and hand it to their friend behind them. Are you fucking kidding me?? I checked an ID once and not a second later it came flying over my head from within the bar to a person waiting in line. Just blatant passbacks like that boggle the mind. At least put a little effort into it....geez.

Then I checked an ID in which I knew the person on the ID, however, the person handing it to me was not that person. That's always fun. It's even more fun when the person I know comes up to me later to get their ID back. WHAT THE FUCK DUDE? Seriously...don't do that shit, because it does two things to me: 1) It pisses me off and 2) Confirms my belief that no customer is to be trusted, no matter how much you think you may know them.

I would have been much less offended if he just came up to me and asked to get his buddy in without an ID. I would have told him no, but still...fuckin' shit. Oh well, they got caught, better luck next time.

Anytime I get a noticably taller or shorter person at the door, I make sure to check the height on the ID. This is always fun because around this town, it rarely matches. A girl who couldn't have been more than 5 feet tall gave me an ID that said she was 5'7. Funny. A guy who was at least 6'5 gave me an ID that says he was 5'8.

The lack of effort these little 18-20 year olds put forth to get into a bar to drink underage just drives me crazy. And (of course) to top it off, they get pissed at me because I won't let them in. I just don't understand the thinking of these little inebriated fuckheads.

Which brings me to what I really wanted to say. If you know anything about Athens and the downtown drinking scene, you would know that at least 50% of the kids down there are underaged. That is a very conservative estimate. This means that half of your potential customers would be illegal to let in the bar. This puts the average bar owner in a very uncomfortable moral dilemma. Which translates into how a door guy/ID checker/bouncer/whatever works at the door. If the owner wants to get every person possible through the door regardless, then it is then up to the door guy to break the law in order for the bar to be busy and profitable. It sucks to be put in this position. I should know. If you are strict at the door then the bar risks not being busy by turning practically everyone away, thus alienating plenty of potential customers because they're scared at getting rejected or their ID taken up. I know for a fact that some bars around here will take anything and let you right in. Some bars (like the one I work at now) try their best to be strict on IDs with very few exceptions.

The fact is that most bars don't give a shit about underaged kids drinking in their bar. They are only concerned about the cops staging a successful sting at their bar and having to pay a hefty fine and risk losing their liquor license. That is a fact. When the cops do a sting at one bar downtown, every fucking bar around here knows about it within 15 minutes. It's a great system to be warned about cops, but I find myself now not really giving a fuck if cops are out doing stings because I know I'm doing my job the best way I can.

But I also find myself straddling the fence in terms of what should be done in a bar about this issue. I have no trouble being strict on IDs, but I certainly can give someone some leeway if their ID expired last week or the picture doesn't look exactly like the person handing it to me. It would be ignorant of me to not admit that underaged people are in my bar on a regular basis, but I can say with certainty that we try our best to keep them out.

And I also continue trying my best not to kill annoying drunk frat boys. But that's another story.

Frustrating

I typically hear stories about how people think that bouncers are just thugs who like to beat people up. The truth is, part of our job is to break up fights. Often that requires us to fight, so technically part of our job is to fight. This leads us to be viewed as wild, untamed animals who are out to bust heads at any chance we get. This is not true. It's just not accurate.

The truth is that I don't like to fight. I simply don't enjoy it. But it doesn't bother me either. I'm neutral on the subject. But standing at that damn door for 7 hours a night checking hundreds upon hundreds of IDs and hearing the same fucking line over and over again gets me fucking pissed and when a fight breaks out, I unleash my frustrations sometimes.


Them: "Are you serious? You're carding me? I'm 23 years old!!!

What I want to say: "Are you a fucking celebrity? Do I know you? Do I look like a psychic? Then show your goddamn ID to prove your age and quit holding my line up, shithead."


Them: "I'm old enough to be your dad"

What I want to say: "Keep your wrinkled old trap shut, show me your ID and leave me the fuck alone."


Them: "Take it out of my wallet? Are you serious??"

What I want to say: "Yes, frat boy. I am. Take it out of your wallet and show it to me or I'll sling you into the tree by your goofy looking shaggy hair, fucko."


Them: "But I'm not going to drink. I promise!! I'm the DD! My friends are in there!!!!!"

What I want to do: Exact a painfully slow death upon them for asking such a stupid question.


Them: "I can't take my drink outside? I can't smoke inside? I can't stand in the doorway? So what am I supposed to do????"

Stop talking to me, stop talking to me, stop talking to me.



Imagine hearing those lines about two hundred times in one night and eventually you'll flip your shit on someone. You'll release all of that pent up energy from holding back during the other one hundred and ninty-nine times you gritted your teeth and remained silent and just did your job, and as soon as the chance comes around to talk shit to someone, or drag someone out, and if the person deserves it, you give them that extra shove into the door frame on the way out. Or you just say everything you've wanted to say to every other fucking disrespectful, thinks-they're-bigger-than-life-frat-boy-with-mommy-and-daddys-credit-card, you and 3 or 4 other bouncers who are sick of the exact same nonsense team up on this shit stain that crossed the line. You do everything you've wanted to do for God knows how long to this stupid drunk customer.

And it feels good. And then the cycle repeats itself.

There really needs to be an FAQ that every person who comes downtown much commit to memory before they are allowed out. This would save me soooo much frustration.

Great Blog

I ran across this blog recently. I have to say, it's way more interesting than mine so far.

Club Life

This guy has worked in the club business for years as a bouncer and has a lifetime of more experience than I do. It seems that the NYC club scene is very different than what we have here in Athens. I've never actually been out to NYC clubs, but lots of the situations down there sound frighteningly similiar to ours. Minus the guidos that he talks about (frat boys are my pain in the ass here in the south), it looks as though drunken retards are not only limited to Athens, Georgia. This comes as a relief that I am not alone in my encounters on a nightly basis. Anyhow, read up.

Boring

It's been some time since my last post, but things have certainly been busy at the bar. Athens had its last home football game last weekend, and I have to say...Georgia Tech fans definitely took the cake for the most problems this year in the bar. This wasn't just limited to my bar, but it was definitely widespread throughout the city, the police also held this opinion. This is suprising because usually they're the easiest drunken fans to deal with.

Anyhow, hopefully things will slow down now that the semester is nearly over and Athens will be empty for the Christmas holidays. This means that I don't have to deal with bullshit, although I do admit a busy night helps the time go by much more quickly.

Nothing very interesting to report besides that. A few fights, a guy ripped up the bathroom (who knows why people decide to vandalize another peoples property). I always love catching people doing something wrong red-handed. Very satisfying to kick their dumb asses out of the bar for being a retard.