Some stupid things I encounter in my stupid job:
1. The phrase “if there’s time to lean there’s time to clean”. Yes, but is there the need to clean? What about all the other modes of slacking? What if there is time to stand or to sit down for hours on end? Who came up with that? What did they think I would do upon hearing their stupid little ditty; “hang on, lean, that rhymes with clean. I’m leaning so I should be…er, cleaning.” What if I get confused and stop my cleaning to lean under the honest misapprehension that the rhyme was actually the other way round? It could confuse a stupid person.
2. Mats. Behind the bar, beneath our feet there are a load of heavy duty black plastic mats, whose sole purpose seems to be to cause difficulties for the staff. They’re very large these mats, and they get very grubby. Filthy in fact. Especially on a Saturday when, after the busiest night of the week, some poor idiot has to pick all the buggers up, carry them outside and hose them down. Last night the hose was broken and I had to clean each of the filthy mats individually by dunking them in a tub of water about an eighth of their size; how we laughed.
3. Those bloody mats! What the fuck are they for?
4. The regulars. During the day there are men who come in to drink. They come in every day and drink the same thing without fail. Despite their regularity I am still not up to speed on their favourite tipple (it’s always John Smith’s or Fosters but which one? And do they want a pint or a half?) and I (gasp) have to ask what some of them mean when they say ‘usual please’. If they’re so regular, don’t they realise I’m new? Do they think the management give me some sort of What-the-regulars-drink training purely for the benefit of these losers with their alcohol problems and broken dreams? I think not. Go home you losers. Start building a new life out of the beer sodden wreckage.
5. Hen nights. Every Friday and Saturday night, without fail, there is a group of bints dancing around one of their friends and squawking and whooping like a chicken crossed with a caveman about to make a sacrifice. At least I think they’re friends, I don’t know. Would you poison your friends with cheap sticky drinks? Would you humiliate your friends by making them dress up in a bridal gown covered in L-plates? Would you take the culminating moment of your friend’s romantic life and sell it down the hackneyed hen-night river-of-hell, prostituting it, debasing her and yourselves and whipping one another into an orgiastic frenzy so blind and animalistic that you think nothing of pressing your gruesome chest into any leering alcohol/piss stinking fuckwit who stands close enough? Answers on a post card.
6. The DJ. Stop playing that song that goes “Shakira Shakira”. At the very least don’t play it three times a night. What are you doing? What the hell are you doing? One day there will be a Nuremburg style trial for DJ crimes against humanity and every fuck-arse we pay to drink beer between flipping the on switch and goading the trollops around the DJ box will be executed to the sound of the Final Countdown. I am not joking, these people don’t just annoy me by not playing music I like, they drive me to a weekly distraction and are gradually crippling the fraction of mental wherewithal that gets me out of bed each day.
1. The phrase “if there’s time to lean there’s time to clean”. Yes, but is there the need to clean? What about all the other modes of slacking? What if there is time to stand or to sit down for hours on end? Who came up with that? What did they think I would do upon hearing their stupid little ditty; “hang on, lean, that rhymes with clean. I’m leaning so I should be…er, cleaning.” What if I get confused and stop my cleaning to lean under the honest misapprehension that the rhyme was actually the other way round? It could confuse a stupid person.
2. Mats. Behind the bar, beneath our feet there are a load of heavy duty black plastic mats, whose sole purpose seems to be to cause difficulties for the staff. They’re very large these mats, and they get very grubby. Filthy in fact. Especially on a Saturday when, after the busiest night of the week, some poor idiot has to pick all the buggers up, carry them outside and hose them down. Last night the hose was broken and I had to clean each of the filthy mats individually by dunking them in a tub of water about an eighth of their size; how we laughed.
3. Those bloody mats! What the fuck are they for?
4. The regulars. During the day there are men who come in to drink. They come in every day and drink the same thing without fail. Despite their regularity I am still not up to speed on their favourite tipple (it’s always John Smith’s or Fosters but which one? And do they want a pint or a half?) and I (gasp) have to ask what some of them mean when they say ‘usual please’. If they’re so regular, don’t they realise I’m new? Do they think the management give me some sort of What-the-regulars-drink training purely for the benefit of these losers with their alcohol problems and broken dreams? I think not. Go home you losers. Start building a new life out of the beer sodden wreckage.
5. Hen nights. Every Friday and Saturday night, without fail, there is a group of bints dancing around one of their friends and squawking and whooping like a chicken crossed with a caveman about to make a sacrifice. At least I think they’re friends, I don’t know. Would you poison your friends with cheap sticky drinks? Would you humiliate your friends by making them dress up in a bridal gown covered in L-plates? Would you take the culminating moment of your friend’s romantic life and sell it down the hackneyed hen-night river-of-hell, prostituting it, debasing her and yourselves and whipping one another into an orgiastic frenzy so blind and animalistic that you think nothing of pressing your gruesome chest into any leering alcohol/piss stinking fuckwit who stands close enough? Answers on a post card.
6. The DJ. Stop playing that song that goes “Shakira Shakira”. At the very least don’t play it three times a night. What are you doing? What the hell are you doing? One day there will be a Nuremburg style trial for DJ crimes against humanity and every fuck-arse we pay to drink beer between flipping the on switch and goading the trollops around the DJ box will be executed to the sound of the Final Countdown. I am not joking, these people don’t just annoy me by not playing music I like, they drive me to a weekly distraction and are gradually crippling the fraction of mental wherewithal that gets me out of bed each day.
posted by huwtube at 12:21 pm
4 Comments:
huw, i notice that this job is quickly getting the better of your noble 'trying to find the best in everything' sentiments. but you did make me laugh. a lot. so much i was afraid i'd wake up my parents.
Truth be told I vacillate between the philosophical and the downright despairing. It's all grist to the Charlie-Brooker-School-of-Writing mill.
indeed, very much so. i'm in a calm mood, having finished my dissertation and yet not handed it in or got a job. so much free time....
HILARIOUS Huw. A wonderful and right on the button expose of British drinking establishments. And yet and yet... I still go to them. Most weekends. Why do I do it?
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