2004-07-04

How the mighty have fallen! In my desperation for cash money to tide me over until I start office work in a few weeks, I’ve accepted a job at a downtown bar (this one). Four years of being Miss Fancy Pants with the Canadian government, and now I find myself shilling lager for greasy club monkeys in track suits. Oh well – you do what you have to, right? How bad can it be? thought I. I hadn’t pulled a pint in years, but I figured it must be like riding a bike.

And so it was, except it was less like riding a bicycle, per se, and more like riding the ship of the fucking damned. ‘How bad can it be?’ Here’s how fucking bad. My first shift was last night, on a Saturday, and on a full moon, if I’m not mistaken. I was given a perfunctory two-minute rundown of the cash system and a quick tour of the bar, and off I went. And in poured the crowds. I found myself frantically juggling eight drink orders at a time, standing over the till in desperation going “Where the fuck is Smirnoff Ice on this goddamn thing?”, receiving no help at all from my coworkers, who were all nearly as new as I was, and who were shorthanded to the tune of five employees. There was a lineup at the bar ten people deep for five hours straight. I had to try to understand orders for drinks I’d never heard of, screamed in my ear by slurring drunken mongoloids, over deafening music, in a thick Lancashire accent. It was like that dream of showing up for work in your underwear, except with a soundtrack of execrable house music pumped in at three billion decibels. One guy shouted something that sounded like “marga shin-deh” at me five times before finally getting frustrated and ordering something else. (Wherever you are, sir, I hope you have been successful in your quest for marga shin-deh.) And at the end of it all, as a fitting cap to the evening, whilst clearing off tables, I had to pick up a glass filled with vomit. Holy. Fucking. Jesus.

That said, I did surprisingly well, and my coworkers are all very nice, and I got a free drink after my shift; and that always makes everything seem better, doesn’t it? I do wish I was working in a cool student pub and not a horrible dance bar where the DJ hollers inspired quips like, “SATURDAY NIGHT! ARE YOU READY TO GET CRAZY?” over an extended dance mix of ‘Livin’ La Vida Loca’, but beggars can’t be choosers, I suppose. This might even be fun for a few weeks, as long as I resign myself to having my ass grabbed now and then. Oh, argh.