Summer Days In Da Club

During my shifts at work, business has been painfully slow. Summer is a slow season for us anyway. This summer, the economic climate has brought a harsh drought to the money of the club. (I learned the phrase "make it rain" recently from Little E. He was with me somewhere when I pulled out my stack of dollar bills to pay my bill in singles. [Hey, at least I wasn't writing a check.] Little E asked why I carry around large amounts of dollar bills and I told him because I am a server, I make most of my money I take home in dollar bill tips. He said "you always look like you're getting ready to make it rain." I asked him what "make it rain" means and from behind us in line my husband laughed and said "You don't know what 'make it rain' means? Remind us where you work again." So I guess I have seen it many a time, but never knew it was called that.) Anyway, there hasn't been much rain in the club lately. Everyone gets irritable. I usually try to keep good spirits and do my job well, even when I am making very little money to do it.

The dancers have been getting a bit mouthy with the customers for not tipping and I have been becoming increasingly uncomfortable about it. I understand their frustration. They PAY to work there. Not only do they not make an hourly wage, they pay a fee everyday to be able to come into work. So they start out their day in the hole and it would be infuriating to go on stage after stage to dance and not have anyone coming up and tipping them. But they are not allowed to solicit tips. They definitely are not allowed to DEMAND tips, which is what one woman has been doing.

Last Wednesday (my day shift), a regular customer said "M has been getting really bad and driving away customers." I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do about it. There is usually no manager there during the day. I'm just a bartender. They are independent contractors. I'm not their boss. But I do represent the club and it is important to me that we make our customers comfortable. So I had been pondering it and decided to talk to her yesterday morning.

I told M that I know it is upsetting when people don't tip, but I would hope she would not try to embarrass them or make them feel uncomfortable. That didn't go well since she pointed out that it makes her uncomfortable and embarrassed to have to dance naked for free. I pointed out sometimes customers don't tip her if they are waiting for another dancer to go spend money on. (I had noticed that last week, her calling a customer a cheap ass because he wasn't coming up to her stage and he was waiting for another dancer to come out, whom he spent $100 on.) She countered that even if a customer is waiting for another dancer, he should show her respect while he is waiting.

These are good points, but customers are not obligated to tip. I also asked her to consider that sometimes, customers spend money on dancers, but don't tip the bartender and sometimes it works the other way. Sometimes I am making money off of people even if the dancers are not. So could she please consider that before harassing them?

It turned out that was exactly the situation yesterday. The first part of the day, several customers got drinks from me without tipping, but were tipping dancers on stage and getting private dances. My tip jar sat completely empty while the dancers made some good money. In the afternoon, a group of three guys came in and tipped me $5 for their first round of drinks. Whoo hoo! Not spectacular, but better than the $0 I had gotten from most of the other customers. They sat and talked while M went on stage. Another round, another $5 tip. M yelled "I'm not getting naked for free here!" Grrr. Whatever. Fine, I understand her not wanting to get naked. She seemed to think that the guys were watching TV and sat on the couch onstage saying "OK, well, I can watch TV too." They looked a little confused. M asked, "Are you so cheap you can't even give me a dollar?" A couple of them reluctantly approached the stage. I walked by and told her to cut it out and went to the table and they ordered another round and gave me another $5 tip. M yelled to the table, "You know those beers are cheaper somewhere else." The next time she got on stage, they got up and left.

We had the same argument we had earlier and she really feels she is right in acting this way. I feel it makes the club look bad. When a manager came for the evening shift, I told him about it and he said he and the house mom would talk to her about it. Great. Now I am going to be considered the tattletale. Once, I told the (same)house mom when I saw a dancer giving a blow job in the couch dance area and was chastised as being the tattletale for years.

On a more humorous, weirdo factor note, the other day a guy came in with a flier rolled up and I could see the top said "wanted". He didn't want to buy a drink, but I told him when there is no cover charge, he has to buy a drink and he reluctantly ordered a cranberry juice. As dancers approached his table, he kept showing them the flier. It turns out he was hoping he could post it in the stripper dressing room. It said "Wanted. Roommate."

Namaste

Eight hours is a long time to be behind the bar when you have a total of eight customers in that time frame. I thought maybe my boss would come have a drink, so I stuffed some blue cheese olives. I cleaned everything that could be cleaned, even though it was already clean. I did the waitress side work for the evening. The owner's decorator was in taking some pictures of different elements he had done, so I watched him and his assistant work for awhile. I thought they left and after awhile when I couldn't think of anything else to do. I was sore from standing, but also tired of sitting on a cooler. I thought, "I'd probably feel better if I stretched, or got some exercise."

I went to the side of the bar where the club was not open. (There are two rooms to the club and the bar is in between.) I went to a spot where I could see if anyone was coming in the door and decided to do some yoga. I was somewhat limited because of space, and because I a new to yoga and don't know a lot of poses, and because I was wearing a corset. I started in Warrior II, then did what I think is called an angle, or an arrow, I'm not sure which. I did several of what I'm sure are called sunflowers. Back to Warrior II facing the other way. I saw someone was coming in, so I walked around to the other side of the bar feeling a little better.

I waited on the customer, then saw the decorator standing there. He asked me if I could turn off a TV, so I asked which one. "The one you were just...ummm.... standing... under." He had been up in a VIP suite behind two-way glass, where he could see out to the bar, and the TV was in the background of his pictures. And the crazy bartender below the TV. At least I wasn't doing Happy Baby.

Another thing to not do in a strip club

Last night, when I opened the bar I had one customer and one dancer. The customer sat at the bar while the dancer was on stage, then asked if I would send her over to him if he moved to a table. I called back to the dressing room and had her go see the customer, who was sitting against the wall furthest from the bar. She came hurrying back to the bar and said "I don't know where that guy is from, but someone should tell him he can't smoke in here." I sent a security guy to go tell him to put his cigarette out. It turns out, it wasn't just a regular cigarette. He was smoking a joint. He seemed really shocked that we thought this was a big deal and made him leave. It is not like this was a smoke filled bar, jammed with people, where one might be able to take a few hits without anyone noticing. (I remember a certain bachelorette party with a couple of local bloggers, when the bride-to-be was in a club smoking a bowl at our table, and my friend kept screaming hysterically. Even then, it was so crowded and smoky and loud, no one noticed.) He was the only customer in a big room, in a non smoking bar. He came back later and the manager made him leave. He was really baffled as to why he couldn't be there and wanted his money back.

If You Ain't Got No Money, Take Your Broke Ass Home

We have been singing that refrain a lot at work lately. (Well, I mean aside from the fact that every dancer wants to dance to it, and it is played several times a day, and it gets stuck in your head.) It really has become kind of a theme song.

I used to think that The Club was pretty much recession proof. Until pretty recently, the news about the economy was not really manifesting itself in my work day. We still had big crowds, big spenders, and big tippers. Maybe we still do for the most part. I don't work the busiest shifts so I am not sure my experience can be extrapolated to say how business is doing overall. But I have noticed some trends.

Many drinks cost $7.75. It used to be, customers would tend to hang on to the quarter and tip a dollar. Now, many hang on to the dollar and tip the quarter. Many do not tip at all.

At night, patrons pay a cover charge. They can come in to watch the show without buying any drinks or spending any money. That used to be somewhat rare, but has been increasingly more common lately. One practice that is frustrating for a server is when a group of ten guys come in together, then each sit at a separate table, alone, and do not order anything. They have taken up the whole section, and the server has no hope of making any money as long as they stay, which is usually for several hours. We have started "arranged seating" when this happens and making them sit together, or stand, so they are not preventing paying customers form sitting in a server's section.

During the day, there is no cover charge, so customers have to buy a drink (technically two). Some people get REALLY upset by this and think it is completely unreasonable. But if we did not enforce this, where do you think the most popular place to loiter might be? I hate it when people complain that I am trying to make them buy a drink and they say, "but I don't have any money", like that is a perfectly legitimate excuse to sit there, making the dancers go on stage and dance and get naked for free.

Yesterday I worked the day shift and had to make a few guys buy a drink or leave. We had a total of ten customers in the 8 1/2 hours I was there. Towards the end of the day, a gentleman had gotten a couple of dances and wanted to open a credit card tab and put the dances on there. No problem, we take the credit card and the license and keep them behind the bar. He also decided to order some food and have another drink. He wanted to close out his tab, but his card was denied. He didn't have another card or any cash. He asked if he could try to get money out of the ATM, so I gave him his card. A dancer wanted a glass of wine and I needed to look for a wine key, so I said, "let me know if that guy runs." About five seconds later, I heard, "He's running!" The DJ went out one door, and a security guy went out the other, so he had no where to go and came back in. The security guy called the police and four officers came and guarded him while he called everyone he knew to try to get someone to bring him the $55. An hour later, he finally got someone to bring him the money, his wife. Hopefully she thought it was better to come pay his stripper bill than to go pay his bail for theft of services.

All in all though, it is still a pretty good gig. Most days, I get a couple generous tippers that make up for the lack of tips from others. I know of a couple other servers who have gotten very generous tips recently. One got $1500 for coming in on her day off to wait on a very demanding customer. Another just made $500 for flashing her breasts. Such windfalls are probably a combination of talent and timing, and I am sure I will get my turn too. (And FYI, I am more than happy to flash my breasts for $50, so if you all want to start forming a line, that will be fine.)

Thank Goodness This Weirdo Doesn't Do a Wordless Wednesday

I'm sure my many readers who love to hear about The Strip Club have been disappointed by all the baking blogging I have been doing. Wednesday, I was busy at work because there was a fertilizer convention in town. Unfortunately, the fertilizer crowd, they are pretty shitty tippers. I would estimate a full 75% of my customers did not tip me at all. One man did show me several Polaroid pictures of his penis though, that he was carrying around in his jacket pocket. Like ten of them, at least. I wonder what really goes on at these fertilizer fests?

The Weirdo Factor, Part 3- Some make me mad, some make me sad

I called in to work last Wednesday, after having to put Doobie to sleep. The owner and wife are dog lovers and the same bartender who covered my shift for Little E's birthday worked for me. I feel really thankful.

Friday night I successfully sabered three champagne bottles for the owner and his friends, so I felt a sense of redemption after the Dom disaster.

Saturday night, I worked a short shift behind the bar and it was really slow. I did serve a few weirdos. After the waitress was there awhile, she commented on the full moon. Many in the bar business believe that the moon phase affects the behavior of patrons.

What stands out in my mind are two separate couples I served. The first couple came in early and told me they were celebrating the woman's birthday. She was very friendly and showed me her "bustier". They ordered dinner and I served them a few drinks. They decided to move from the bar to a table, so I climbed under the bar and took all their plates, drinks, and condiments to a table for them. They did not ever tip me. Some people, especially if they don't go out much, don't really understand the etiquette of tipping. I tried not to think much of it and continued to be super friendly and help this woman enjoy her birthday. After awhile the gentleman came to the bar with a hundred dollar bill and wanted all singles. So apparently he did understand the concept of tipping, he just was not going to tip me. I let the waitress take care of them after that.

Later, another couple came in. I would not have identified them as a couple at first. They looked like father/daughter, father/granddaughter possibly? The woman did not look to be of drinking age, but she had some sort of physical(?) developmental(?) disability. That can make it difficult to judge age. I asked them if I could get them anything and the man wanted a Bud Light. I asked the woman what she wanted and she said nothing. I addressed the man, "that will be $3.25". He responded in a gruff voice, "She pays". OK. She counted out $3.25 exactly. I thought, well, maybe she works for him. Maybe she is his assistant or something. Then he leaned over and started making out with her. She seemed very uncomfortable the whole time they were there, which was for two more beers for him, nothing for her. At one point, he asked me to watch his beer while he stepped outside to smoke. The woman stayed at the bar for a minute and I was considering asking her if she was OK, but she put on her coat and said she was also going outside before I had made up my mind about what to say or if I should say anything. So I guess if she was being coerced, he wouldn't have left her there, and she could have said something to me while he was gone. It was just a bit disturbing to me and I hope the woman is capable of making informed decisions and hope she is happy if she is choosing to be with this creepy guy.

Tomorrow, I Will Have Two Teenagers

Little E turns 13 tomorrow! I cant believe how quickly my children have grown up. I know every parent says that, but until it happens to you, it is just so abstract.

Being in the bar business, there are a few days of the year that are about impossible to get off. New Years Eve is one of them. I've been really lucky, and work for good people, and haven't had to work on Ethan's birthday for the past several years. This year though, we had a couple servers quit at work and I was told I have to work the day shift that day. At least that was better than working at night, but I was not thrilled.

Another bartender, K, came to my rescue and is going to work my shift for me! Even though he has to work at a different bar that night. So, he will work 10:30- 7:00 at The Strip Club, then 7:30 until 5:00 a.m. at JP. I was so happy he would do this, I gave him $50, even though he told me it wasn't necessary.

When I told Little E this, (thinking he'd be thrilled to have me home on his birthday) he said, "You could have spent the $50 on a present". Yep. I have a teenager.

Ghost of Christmas Past?

Christmas Eve, day shift, the strip club was deserted, quiet as a graveyard. There were 3 customers, one at the stage, one at a table, and one at the bar. The cook came to the bar and asked for a bottle of water and sat down next to a dancer. He opened the bottle, took a sip, and suddenly jumped up and ran back stage. The dancer and I wondered why he suddenly departed. Maybe he had remembered something in the kitchen that needed immediate attention?

Several minutes later, he returned, clearly agitated. He said he saw a man standing by the stage who started to go back stage. The cook went to stop him, and the man disappeared through a door. As he related the story, the man and the bar spoke up, "I saw him too, I thought he worked here." The customer at the bar got up and walked over to where the "man" had been standing. "He was right here, and then he turned and went back there", he said, pointing at the door that leads back stage.

I stood by where the customer had been sitting at the bar and when looking towards the spot, could see a shadow caused by Christmas greens. There are lots of moving lights and shadows. I suggested maybe the shadow looked like a person moving. The cook snapped back, "No, that dark shadow doesn't have any definition. This was a white guy in a hat!" The customer agreed.

I have worked there for eight years and heard many such stories over the years. Most of the stories involve a pale woman in a white dress, often crying. Once a dancer said there was a woman crying in the bathroom. She approached the woman to console her, and she disappeared. Lots of people have seen the woman in white, some have seen men, some have had lights tun off and on or items fall to the floor. I have never had any such experience. I don't know what to think. I have heard the building has quite a history. If it is going to be torn down soon, maybe Ghost Hunters will come investigate. I don't think I believe in the ghosts, but it is intriguing that many different people have similar perceptions, what they believe they see. At any rate, thinking about the past, and people who have been in the building before, make me feel interested in at least doing some research into the history of it.

That might Not Qualify For Per Diem Reimbursement

Before we opened Saturday night, I answered the phone. The caller told me he had a problem. He had been in Monday night and charged over $9,000 to his company credit card. Now he was worried that he might get in trouble at work when they find out. He wanted to know if he could transfer the charge to his personal card.

It is something he will have to discuss with the office manager during business hours, but I wonder, would it ever be a good idea to charge $9,000 of strip club services to your employer? Does it take five days of pondering it to decide that it was a bad idea? I wonder if he has a wife that might also be very upset about a $9,000 strip club bill on his personal card. Tough choices, and hopefully lesson learned.

The Weirdo Factor, Part 2

Sometimes weirdos are not really creepy; They are just weird. There is one customer who has been coming in every day for years. I think I will call him Neon because he often wears a reflective safety vest, because he rides a bicycle. I kind of feel bad even classifying him as a weirdo, because he is most likely mentally ill and probably can't help it that he is so weird.

He works for the hotel that is adjacent to The Strip Club. He takes out garbage for them and I often see him in the alley behind my work, where the hotel dumpsters are.

Neon talks a lot. He talks to himself or anyone who is near him and often makes no sense whatsoever. He thinks he is really smart and he is very opinionated. He likes to talk about politics, but listening to him talk is like listening to Sarah Palin. He will start off with a bold statement about something and then degenerate into fractionated sentences and eventually unintelligible muttering. I usually try to avoid talking to him because I can't figure out what the hell he is trying to say and I feel awkward not knowing how to respond to nonsense.

My back was hurting and there is spot behind the bar where I can kind of sit on a cooler. It is right next to where Neon stands, but I decided go ahead and have a seat for a minute. I started some small talk . "How are you? How's work? Did you have to be out in the cold much today?" So far so good. Then he said, "I broke up a gang fight".

Wow. I am wondering what happened out in the alley. Was there really a gang fight? Did I just miss it? So I asked him "When?"
"In 1994."
"OK? Where was this?"
"In Waukegan, IL."
"Oh, how did you break up the fight?"
"I called the police."
"Well, good for you, that was the right thing to do."

He started mumbling unintelligibly about the gang fight I guess, in 1994, and I kind of zoned out, still not wanting to get up, but not really wanting to take the effort to continue the conversation. Luckily the door guy came to the bar, so I could divert my attention and ask him what he needed. The last I had seen him, he had hurt his back, so I asked how his back was doing. He said it still hurt and Neon spoke up.

"I have some Ben Gay in my bag. I'll let you use it."

The door guy said, "No, thank you", and left. Neon stood there in silence for awhile, then said to me "I carry Ben Gay because I rub it on my boils."

So I walked away to the other side of the bar, where another everyday customer, hmm, I'll call him Red, was sitting. Red sometimes gets a kick out of my interactions with Neon. Once, Neon threw an empty water bottle behind the bar, trying to make it in the garbage, but missed. So I picked it up, and jokingly said "Did you throw this at me?" and threw it back at him. Neon apologized profusely, calling me maam a lot. I felt bad, but Red thought it was hysterical. So I lamented to Red how hard it is to carry on a conversation with Neon and told him about the Ben Gay and the boils. Red said, "Maybe he has a speech impediment, and he really rubs it on his balls." So I laughed, but really that would not be beyond the realm of possibility.

Now I ain't sayin' she a gold digger

I am settling in at the Strip Club. So far, so good, except I am having a problem with a particular dancer who is really...um, aggressive about getting money and drinks from customers. I am resisting the urge to call her a money grubbing whore. She really irritates me though. She tries to order drinks for herself and others and put them on other customers' tabs. She will say she wants to order a drink for a customer and to put it on her tab, then wink at me. She wants me to charge the customer for his drink and hers when she says she is buying the round. Or not charge her for the drinks at all maybe?

I'm not stupid. I am not going to risk my job so she can get drunk or get customers drunk and steal from them (which I have seen her do). Also, I like my customers to be happy, not pissed at me for drinks charged to their tab that they didn't want to buy. I need to have a talk with her about this, preferably before her next shift, before she is drunk. I also feel irritated that when she could tell I was getting upset with her, she started to try to flatter me I guess? Telling me I could be stripper! We could play the good girl/ bad girl routine! I did not appreciate the attempted distraction.

I think she also thought I was telling on her at one point and came to intercept the conversation. I was talking quietly to a manager to tell him about an interaction I had just witnessed between another dancer and a customer. (Dancer: "So what do you do for a living?" Customer: "Construction" Dancer: "Oooh, What are you working on?" Customer: "Building a fence" Dancer: "How big is it?" Customer: "11,000 feet" Dancer: "Wow, that's a tall fence".) D snuck up behind me and as J and I started laughing, she started laughing and said "I have a joke too". I think she thought I was telling on her, which I probably wouldn't do, unless I couldn't handle it myself. So I need to try to handle this myself and have a talk with her. I hate confrontation. But I hate dealing with her deceitfulness more.

I get to work at The Restaurant Saturday night. The kitchen has been closed there for about a month, and it has just been operating as a bar. One of the Owner's friends wants to have a birthday party in the Red Room Saturday night, so I am going to work for that. Which will mean a lot of work readying the room. Cleaning, vacuuming, polishing crystal and silverware, setting all the tables, etc. Ugh. I just think it will be a lot of work for not a lot of money probably. But I agreed to do it and can use the extra money I do get. I like earning my money honestly.

The Red Room, The End

I went into work at The Restaurant this evening to find out it is CLOSED. Well, the part I work in is closed. No one bothered to call and tell me, or mention it to me when they saw me earlier in the week at the other establishment. I am not shocked. I am just shocked that it was so sudden, and no one bothered to tell me.

Working at The Strip Club has been going well. I like it. It is pretty easy and I have made more money working a couple shifts for a few weeks than I have all year at The Restaurant. Now I need to see if I can pick up more shifts there, but I am kind of picky about my schedule. I don't want to work until 4 a.m. The shift I have been doing is behind the bar from 4-10 p.m. Behind the bar, I can wear pants and comfortable shoes, and it doesn't really matter that I have gained 20 lbs since I last worked there. I think the only shifts available will be to waitress. I will have to wear 4 inch heels, and fishnet stockings, and a skirt that has to be higher than my fingertips when my arms are at my sides. I think I will feel a little self-conscious about that extra weight. And very uncomfortable in those stupid shoes.

I'll be out with your salads as soon as I clean this toilet

Bread boy is gone. I came into work one day last week in the middle of an argument between manager, L, and Bread Boy about cleaning the toilets. Since the Restaurant no longer has a cleaning service, we should have known this is our job. Bread Boy got sent home for being disrespectful and by mutual agreement between him and the Owner (there is only one now; no Owner 1 and Owner 2), he is not coming back.

This sucks for me. Not only will I miss him, but I prefer to have as little responsibility as possible there. The whole restaurant (or at least the part I work in) has been a downward spiral from the get go, and I try to do my best, and keep customers happy, but the plight has gotten ummm, just ridiculous, really. I don’t make enough money to spend my evenings cleaning toilets and waiting around for customers. The other server, J, is gone now too. Owner is on vacation, so I’m not sure exactly what the plan is, but we have hired a new server to work everyday. I think my plan is to pick up a couple shifts at another establishment and work at The Restaurant Fridays and Saturdays, or to help with bigger parties.

The other establishment is a strip club. I bartended/ served there before The Restaurant opened. I kind of miss it. I definitely miss the money. I didn’t like working late nights and couldn’t work during the day because of Grandma’s condition, but The Strip Club has recently made a new 4:00- 9:00 p.m. shift that will be perfect for me. Really, I am more confident recommending a stripper for your lap dance than a steak for your dinner anyway. And it will definitely provide better fodder for blogging.