1st abusive drunk customer
Jan. 19th, 2005 12:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7Whee!
This was in Local Bar. (I spent the morning at Airport Bar hearing the most tragic stories you can imagine from various customers. Summary: Mr. Two Labatts went to visit a cousin yesterday he thought was mildly ill in hospital only to have said cousin expire while he was sitting there. Two Labatts was now struggling with guilt over this trip he was taking. I told him it was better he go. He tipped me generously and told me he'd read my novel someday. Mrs. Grey-Goose-Cosmo had just spent five days staying at her mother's apartment in an assisted living facility and sadly told me, "there's no cure for loneliness." Ms. One Labatt & Chicken Salad told me her son (who I rather strongly assume she did not have custody of) had informed her that he never shopped at Wal-Mart because he "looks for quality", and sighed glumly that it didn't much matter what he studied in college, as his father's trust fund would probably see him through, but at least he was pleasantly occupied now at school. Her other son had been drafted by the Seattle Mariners but was at UCLA instead. "Which should keep him out of trouble a little longer," she added. Mr. Bud Light said he was a movie producer working on a documentary about the Phillippines but really, he hated Hong Kong (which everybody's based out of) and was sick of travelling. "People are all the same, y'know? I'd like to be pleasantly surprised once in a while, or failing that, just stay home.")
Yeah. Lordy, I wanted to hug them instead of giving them drinks.
So anyhow. Local bar. The drunk. Sat there six hours. Was drunk when I came in, previous bartender didn't tell me he'd been there three hours already. I assumed he was simply loud, slightly obnoxious, and speech-impaired, because I've known him before to be like that and actually now that I think about it have probably never seen him sober.
He was there all night. I gracefully switched him over to coffee, and his companion (a regular known as 'crazy mary') to water and pretzels, and then he wanted another glass of wine. Well, i thought, he's been nursing that coffee for like two hours now. I suppose. (Not knowing about the, oh, maybe six glasses of wine he'd had before I arrived. That the previous bartender didn't tell me about. Thinking, this fella's had what, probably three? I suppose if he wants another, he can have one. Heh. Wrong.)
So I gave him a glass of wine, and the lady a snifter of Grand Marnier, like they asked for.
They sit for another couple of hours. In the meantime, the waitress whispers in my ear "you gave them another one? they've been here since two! Don't give them anymore!" So he asks for another glass of wine. I tell him I really think I ought not to. He says all right, and demands more coffee. Which I give him.
Finally they ask me to cash them out. Sure, I say, and give them the check. "What? How could I owe you that much?" I point to the two glasses, and show him the check. One of these, one of those, equals what I have here.
He then attempts to reconstruct how many drinks he's had. And totally fails. "Well then she bought me one, and that's all!" Um... she bought you the one before the coffee. Three hours ago. This one was after the coffee.
No dice. He has no idea. His head = blank slate, only more dangerous because he's sure it's not.
So he accuses me of being a thief. (Think about it. I showed you the receipt. If it's in the register, it's not money I can steal. But perhaps most people don't understand that.) And angrily snatches back his tip. (Which was stingy anyway. Which I knew it would be, as he has been in before.)
The waitress goes back and gets the restaurant owner, John, who is in the back working, because he's one of our cooks.
John nods, smiles, says ok, comes over to me, pats me on the back, and asks if I'm ok. I nod, and begin to explain that I generally ring drinks up as they're consumed. "I know," he says. "I trust you." He's a sweet fella, besides the biting sarcasm. I could've hugged him, and considered it. But didn't.
John leaves for the night, as is his wont-- he works early, and so doesn't stay until the end of the night. Fine.
Abusive Drunk and Crazy Mary remain at the bar, talking in increasing volume about the shysters that run this place. A.D. later remarks that he didn't get a chance to talk to John. Uh, but you did. Who else do you think he was? You come here all the time? Right.
Meantime, a group of sixish people, including another beloved regular who coaches at the Catholic boys' school across the street, has come in and is occupying the end of the bar. We turn on the TV to American Idol for them. They keep asking me to turn up the volume to drown out Abusive Drunk and Crazy Mary, who are bordering on the obscene in their abuse of me (of course, conducted as a conversation to one another).
Abusive Drunk's wife shows up. Yes. His wife shows up to get him, like in those Temperance-League cartoons from the teens. A nice little old lady (A.D. is 69 years old 70 in April, and had earlier been loudly discussing how he believed it was his god-given right to have sex with his wife. Yes. Loudly. It was great), white-haired, distressed. She comes in and hides in the dining area and asks the waitress what she should say to her husband, because she doesn't want him driving home but is afraid to confront him, lest an ugly scene ensue. The waitress helpfully goes over to A.D. and says his wife would please like to drive him home now, if he would come with her. He begins to yell that his wife should come over here, yadda yadda. I went and apologized to his wife for serving him-- "I didn't know how much he'd had, I don't know him to recognize when he's had enough, but it's my fault and I shouldn't have given him this much, I just didn't realize" (mind you, I think I sold this man a total of three drinks in six hours) and the wife, bless her, says he's a big man and it's very difficult to tell when he's had enough, etc. A sweet lady. She goes over to him, and asks him to please come with her. He refuses, he insults her, he abuses her, Crazy Mary hangs on her arm and abuses her. She leaves, exasperated.
A.D. and C.M. continue to sit at the bar loudly abusing me, the wait staff, the bar owner, the entire concept of bars, to one another. The other crowd, jovial enough, keeps turning the TV up.
Finally I bite the bullet and ask A.D. to, (in my head: since you're not offended enough to leave) please, keep his voice down a bit, because other customers are having trouble hearing. "Tell them to shut up," says Crazy Mary. "We're trying to have a conversation." Heh, they're paying customers, dearie. You're just sitting here drinking fucking ginger ale because that's all I'll give you. Get out of my fucking bar. But, I do not feel up to facing her, and so simply leave the room instead, after apologizing to the other crowd and giving them two more volume-clicks.
A.D. then goes and talks to the other customers. (Oh, God.) In particular he singles out the regular there, who comes in several times a week, is himself a bartender at another bar, and is also a, well, large imposing athletic man. The regular informs him, politely, that he is not informed on the issue, feels it is not his business, and wishes that A.D. not slip on the ice outside.
C.M. goes and talks to Regular. She touches his arm, and tries to explain to him what happened (which would be a good trick, given that she didn't know). Regular objects to her touching him, asks that she desist, and eventually tells her if she touches him again he'll kill her. C.M. retreats to her seat, showing the first ounce of sense she's shown all night. (Look. Regular had had about five vodka-and-cranberries at this point. He's a coach, not a saint. I would've threatened her with violence too if she'd touched me, the creepy psycho. Yet, Regular was a) not driving, having brought a friend who was pounding the club-soda-and-cranberry-with-no-vodkas like there was no tomorrow, and b) Regular is a large imposing athletic man who can metabolize alcohol and only gets mellow and pleasant when drunk.)
A.D. stands in the doorway haranguing the multitudes, who are ignoring him. He attempts to abuse the waitress. The waitress, a teacher and mother of three, puts on the Angry Mother voice and points her finger at him and says, "Leave. Go home now. Get out of here and go home now."
A.D. harangues a little longer. I have gone to cry in the back room. I come out because I have food to bring to other customers. He sees me. "God will have his reckoning with you!" he shouts.
"And you too, sir," I answer, and walk away. Once out of sight of most of the rest of the bar, I turn and flip him off, as he stands sputtering in the doorway.
He left, eventually, and the other group there left me a $20 tip. (Slightly over 25% for their tab: generous indeed. I had slightly-tearfully apologized to them for the pair of drunks' behavior, because it was my fault for serving them and also my fault I couldn't physically remove them from the bar.)
I dunno. I thought about calling the cops but what would that have done besides upset everyone involved? They didn't threaten anybody, just blustered and were obnoxious. Also, because they took up so much space at the bar, other customers who came in sat at tables instead, and thus weren't my customers, so I didn't earn any tips.
I also regretted that our cook for the night is a) new, b) little and skinny and soft-spoken, and c) really not much good. Had Derek been there, ex-Navy Derek who's been working out lately, Derek who takes his job very seriously and is the kind of over-earnest young sort who will probably co-own the restaurant in a few more years, I can assure you Abusive Drunk wouldn't have stayed as long as he did. Ah well. C'est la vie, when you are a small-time place. As it is, of course, had anything turned physical, not only were there my beloved regulars, but also the entire basketball coaching staff of yet another local high school who come in every week. We were certainly not without support, had the scene turned physically ugly, but as it is, it was mostly embarrassing as we were unable to really do much of anything about the poor fellow.
So, there you have it: my first experience, as a bartender, with an abusive drunk.
God, I feel sorry for that man's wife.
This was in Local Bar. (I spent the morning at Airport Bar hearing the most tragic stories you can imagine from various customers. Summary: Mr. Two Labatts went to visit a cousin yesterday he thought was mildly ill in hospital only to have said cousin expire while he was sitting there. Two Labatts was now struggling with guilt over this trip he was taking. I told him it was better he go. He tipped me generously and told me he'd read my novel someday. Mrs. Grey-Goose-Cosmo had just spent five days staying at her mother's apartment in an assisted living facility and sadly told me, "there's no cure for loneliness." Ms. One Labatt & Chicken Salad told me her son (who I rather strongly assume she did not have custody of) had informed her that he never shopped at Wal-Mart because he "looks for quality", and sighed glumly that it didn't much matter what he studied in college, as his father's trust fund would probably see him through, but at least he was pleasantly occupied now at school. Her other son had been drafted by the Seattle Mariners but was at UCLA instead. "Which should keep him out of trouble a little longer," she added. Mr. Bud Light said he was a movie producer working on a documentary about the Phillippines but really, he hated Hong Kong (which everybody's based out of) and was sick of travelling. "People are all the same, y'know? I'd like to be pleasantly surprised once in a while, or failing that, just stay home.")
Yeah. Lordy, I wanted to hug them instead of giving them drinks.
So anyhow. Local bar. The drunk. Sat there six hours. Was drunk when I came in, previous bartender didn't tell me he'd been there three hours already. I assumed he was simply loud, slightly obnoxious, and speech-impaired, because I've known him before to be like that and actually now that I think about it have probably never seen him sober.
He was there all night. I gracefully switched him over to coffee, and his companion (a regular known as 'crazy mary') to water and pretzels, and then he wanted another glass of wine. Well, i thought, he's been nursing that coffee for like two hours now. I suppose. (Not knowing about the, oh, maybe six glasses of wine he'd had before I arrived. That the previous bartender didn't tell me about. Thinking, this fella's had what, probably three? I suppose if he wants another, he can have one. Heh. Wrong.)
So I gave him a glass of wine, and the lady a snifter of Grand Marnier, like they asked for.
They sit for another couple of hours. In the meantime, the waitress whispers in my ear "you gave them another one? they've been here since two! Don't give them anymore!" So he asks for another glass of wine. I tell him I really think I ought not to. He says all right, and demands more coffee. Which I give him.
Finally they ask me to cash them out. Sure, I say, and give them the check. "What? How could I owe you that much?" I point to the two glasses, and show him the check. One of these, one of those, equals what I have here.
He then attempts to reconstruct how many drinks he's had. And totally fails. "Well then she bought me one, and that's all!" Um... she bought you the one before the coffee. Three hours ago. This one was after the coffee.
No dice. He has no idea. His head = blank slate, only more dangerous because he's sure it's not.
So he accuses me of being a thief. (Think about it. I showed you the receipt. If it's in the register, it's not money I can steal. But perhaps most people don't understand that.) And angrily snatches back his tip. (Which was stingy anyway. Which I knew it would be, as he has been in before.)
The waitress goes back and gets the restaurant owner, John, who is in the back working, because he's one of our cooks.
John nods, smiles, says ok, comes over to me, pats me on the back, and asks if I'm ok. I nod, and begin to explain that I generally ring drinks up as they're consumed. "I know," he says. "I trust you." He's a sweet fella, besides the biting sarcasm. I could've hugged him, and considered it. But didn't.
John leaves for the night, as is his wont-- he works early, and so doesn't stay until the end of the night. Fine.
Abusive Drunk and Crazy Mary remain at the bar, talking in increasing volume about the shysters that run this place. A.D. later remarks that he didn't get a chance to talk to John. Uh, but you did. Who else do you think he was? You come here all the time? Right.
Meantime, a group of sixish people, including another beloved regular who coaches at the Catholic boys' school across the street, has come in and is occupying the end of the bar. We turn on the TV to American Idol for them. They keep asking me to turn up the volume to drown out Abusive Drunk and Crazy Mary, who are bordering on the obscene in their abuse of me (of course, conducted as a conversation to one another).
Abusive Drunk's wife shows up. Yes. His wife shows up to get him, like in those Temperance-League cartoons from the teens. A nice little old lady (A.D. is 69 years old 70 in April, and had earlier been loudly discussing how he believed it was his god-given right to have sex with his wife. Yes. Loudly. It was great), white-haired, distressed. She comes in and hides in the dining area and asks the waitress what she should say to her husband, because she doesn't want him driving home but is afraid to confront him, lest an ugly scene ensue. The waitress helpfully goes over to A.D. and says his wife would please like to drive him home now, if he would come with her. He begins to yell that his wife should come over here, yadda yadda. I went and apologized to his wife for serving him-- "I didn't know how much he'd had, I don't know him to recognize when he's had enough, but it's my fault and I shouldn't have given him this much, I just didn't realize" (mind you, I think I sold this man a total of three drinks in six hours) and the wife, bless her, says he's a big man and it's very difficult to tell when he's had enough, etc. A sweet lady. She goes over to him, and asks him to please come with her. He refuses, he insults her, he abuses her, Crazy Mary hangs on her arm and abuses her. She leaves, exasperated.
A.D. and C.M. continue to sit at the bar loudly abusing me, the wait staff, the bar owner, the entire concept of bars, to one another. The other crowd, jovial enough, keeps turning the TV up.
Finally I bite the bullet and ask A.D. to, (in my head: since you're not offended enough to leave) please, keep his voice down a bit, because other customers are having trouble hearing. "Tell them to shut up," says Crazy Mary. "We're trying to have a conversation." Heh, they're paying customers, dearie. You're just sitting here drinking fucking ginger ale because that's all I'll give you. Get out of my fucking bar. But, I do not feel up to facing her, and so simply leave the room instead, after apologizing to the other crowd and giving them two more volume-clicks.
A.D. then goes and talks to the other customers. (Oh, God.) In particular he singles out the regular there, who comes in several times a week, is himself a bartender at another bar, and is also a, well, large imposing athletic man. The regular informs him, politely, that he is not informed on the issue, feels it is not his business, and wishes that A.D. not slip on the ice outside.
C.M. goes and talks to Regular. She touches his arm, and tries to explain to him what happened (which would be a good trick, given that she didn't know). Regular objects to her touching him, asks that she desist, and eventually tells her if she touches him again he'll kill her. C.M. retreats to her seat, showing the first ounce of sense she's shown all night. (Look. Regular had had about five vodka-and-cranberries at this point. He's a coach, not a saint. I would've threatened her with violence too if she'd touched me, the creepy psycho. Yet, Regular was a) not driving, having brought a friend who was pounding the club-soda-and-cranberry-with-no-vodkas like there was no tomorrow, and b) Regular is a large imposing athletic man who can metabolize alcohol and only gets mellow and pleasant when drunk.)
A.D. stands in the doorway haranguing the multitudes, who are ignoring him. He attempts to abuse the waitress. The waitress, a teacher and mother of three, puts on the Angry Mother voice and points her finger at him and says, "Leave. Go home now. Get out of here and go home now."
A.D. harangues a little longer. I have gone to cry in the back room. I come out because I have food to bring to other customers. He sees me. "God will have his reckoning with you!" he shouts.
"And you too, sir," I answer, and walk away. Once out of sight of most of the rest of the bar, I turn and flip him off, as he stands sputtering in the doorway.
He left, eventually, and the other group there left me a $20 tip. (Slightly over 25% for their tab: generous indeed. I had slightly-tearfully apologized to them for the pair of drunks' behavior, because it was my fault for serving them and also my fault I couldn't physically remove them from the bar.)
I dunno. I thought about calling the cops but what would that have done besides upset everyone involved? They didn't threaten anybody, just blustered and were obnoxious. Also, because they took up so much space at the bar, other customers who came in sat at tables instead, and thus weren't my customers, so I didn't earn any tips.
I also regretted that our cook for the night is a) new, b) little and skinny and soft-spoken, and c) really not much good. Had Derek been there, ex-Navy Derek who's been working out lately, Derek who takes his job very seriously and is the kind of over-earnest young sort who will probably co-own the restaurant in a few more years, I can assure you Abusive Drunk wouldn't have stayed as long as he did. Ah well. C'est la vie, when you are a small-time place. As it is, of course, had anything turned physical, not only were there my beloved regulars, but also the entire basketball coaching staff of yet another local high school who come in every week. We were certainly not without support, had the scene turned physically ugly, but as it is, it was mostly embarrassing as we were unable to really do much of anything about the poor fellow.
So, there you have it: my first experience, as a bartender, with an abusive drunk.
God, I feel sorry for that man's wife.
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no subject
Date: 2005-01-19 09:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-19 01:55 pm (UTC)A good bartender wouldn't have let that happen, because a good bartender wouldn't have served them once they were drunk. Experience = me not doing that again = decreased likelihood of it happening.
For the most part, my customers are wonderful and I could just hug them.
And, doing the math, I averaged over $12/hr throughout my entire 15-hour double shift yesterday. Which means yet more bills I can pay. And that's during the slow season.
I made $15 an hour as a technical writer and I assure you, my boss was far worse than anything Abusive Drunk could hand out. Also, I lived in a stupid place where everything from food to gas to rent was about four times what it is here. So...
no subject
Date: 2005-01-19 02:42 pm (UTC)I was a bartender and cocktail waitress for almost two years at a biker bar. We came equipped with a stiff right hook and a baseball bat in case it got really ugly. I had to take out that Louisville Slugger once or twice. Never actually hit anyone, but a crazed redhead with death in her eye and a huge chunk of wood in her hand will soften the skulls of all but the most inebriated mouth-breather.
Only had to call the cops once, when a woman started beating her boyfriend with a pool cue. That was fun.
Think of all the interesting stories you'll have for your children someday!
no subject
Date: 2005-01-20 06:10 pm (UTC)You are so good at writing about everyday things. Much sympathy from me to the people you mentioned in the first paragraph. Yes, people are all the same - not individuals, but as groups.