Buybacks

With all the drama surrounding my writing recently, I have taken a break from blogging about my job. Mostly because it seems to piss people off, and it has gone so far that some people come in on my shifts just to try to make it into the blog – and other bartenders in the neighborhood know who I am just based on customers complaining about my blog to them. Some of these people I have never even met before. That’s apparently the kind of neighborhood I work in. However, I have decided to completely ignore the drama, because frankly, it’s stupid.

With all this free publicity I am getting I should have a book deal by now 🙂

Anyway, today I want to blog about buybacks.

Buybacks are a concept unique to the East Coast I think. It’s something I never thought about as a bartender out west – in two different states, because it simply didn’t exist. So a buyback is when someone has been drinking at the bar for a while, and after two or three drinks, the bartender buys the next one. It’s actually pretty cool because it allows me, as the bartender, to treat the people who treat me well. In Washington and California the rules are much more strict. I couldn’t give out free drinks to anyone, under any circumstance. In New York it’s kind of cool to have a little bit of power in that respect.

The catch-22 is that with buybacks, comes entitlement. You see, I will buy people a drink or two if they are having great conversation with me, or if I screw up an order, or if people are having a great time. I take care of people – that’s for certain. However, there is always that one customer who screws it all up for everyone. Some people come in with a sense of entitlement – as in, they expect a free drink no matter what.

Now, where I am from, if someone goes into a bar prepared to drink a lot, they better be prepared to pay for what they order. I mean you don’t go into a car dealership, buy a car and expect a free one in return, right? It’s not payless shoe source people.

This sign does not hang in the window of my bar.

You see, the other night this guy told me he didn’t like one of the bars in the neighborhood because the bartender didn’t give him free drinks. (It should be noted that all the bartenders in the neighborhood know and support each other) I was a bit confused. He didn’t want to go to one of the best bars in town because he had to pay for what he drinks? It reminded me of a scenario that happened at my bar a couple of months back, that still to this day bothers me. My bar is in a very well-to-do neighborhood with lots of wall street types who make more money than God. Definitely more money than a young bartender. It’s the type of neighborhood where people have more than one home outside of New York, where people jet off to Madrid for Memorial Day weekend because they can. Needless to say, they can pay for their drinks.

I had two gentlemen come in one night and drink a LOT of Corona. 10 to be exact – 5 beers each. Corona is $6 a bottle because it’s imported beer. So do the math, $6×10 = $60 for their tab. It should be noted that though I enjoy buying people drinks, it’s a two-way street. I will buy you a drink if you have earned it, so to speak. These guys, did not earn anything. When they first sat down, I gave my usual, “Hi! How are you tonight?” In return they respond, “2 Coronas.” When I get them their drink and ask them a question about the weather, or the neighborhood or something, they turn to look at me, and then TURN BACK AROUND. No response whatsoever. When they ask for another round, instead of asking, the guy snaps his fingers at me.

Now, I am pissed off. You see, nothing pisses of a waiter, server, or bartender more than a customer who snaps their fingers at you like you are a dog or something. Nothing.

And so it continued. Over their next few rounds they snap their fingers, or wave their empty bottles at me to signal that they want another drink. Needless to say I do NOT buy them anything. Especially after the finger snapping incident. So when they ask for the bill (and by ask I mean do that annoying thing where people pretend to write in the air, as if air-writing is the universal sign for “I would like a bill please,”) and I give them a check. For the full amount. And they got pissed. The guy, opening his mouth for the first time the entire night says, “There is no way we drank $60 worth of Corona.” I respond, “5 beers each at $6 a bottle is $60.” And the guy goes, “what you don’t buyback?” I respond that I do, in fact, buyback, when people are respectful, and don’t snap their fingers at me. The guy, so entitled, “we always get buybacks here, we’ve been coming here since before you were born. This is ridiculous.” To which I make the mistake of responding, “well I’m the one that works here.”

And of course, they stiff me. Because, how dare I charge them for what they have ACTUALLY CONSUMED. Seriously people? It’s a good thing I had one of my favorite regulars there, because he actually chased after the guy to tell him off for being such a dickhole. Which of course led me to chase after said regular and assure him that all was fine and dandy – I just don’t care about people like that.

It makes me wonder though, is this sense of entitlement unique to New York, the East Coast, what? Even when I go back to my old place of work to have a drink I don’t expect them to give it to me for free, ever. I have known those people for years – they are like family to me. And I always am prepared to pay for what I consume. I just think it’s such a bizarre thing for people to give free drinks like that. I mean, don’t get me wrong more often than not a buyback or two is what gets me the bigger tip, and what keeps my regulars around (sometimes) but I don’t think it should be expected wherever you go, do you?

Anyway, I would be curious to hear what people have to say about this.

One last note, I have been writing a lot about the bar. However, I have held off publishing most of it because of the drama that tends to come from me having this blog at all. My Sunday night shift proved to me that the drama is nowhere near over, and people are still trying to provoke me into writing bad things about them, so for now I will try to keep neutral subject matter. For now 🙂

Procrastination City

Hello everyone! Happy weekend. In an effort to procrastinate hardcore on my MA thesis that is due this week, I wanted to share some thoughts with you about a wave of blogs I have recently discovered slash become obsessed with.

First off, let me update you on my thesis crapola. As many of you know I am finishing up a MA at NYU, a school that I LOATHE and wish I hadn’t paid buckets of money for, but eh, what can you do? Too late to go back now… Nonetheless, I discovered that in order to turn it in on this upcoming Friday, I had to turn in a final copy to my advisor on MONDAY. That’s right, I just subtracted 5 days off of my completion time that I thought I had. Which consequently turned me into a bit of a raving lunatic over the weekend. As I try and you know, get a job, I also am trying to graduate from a very difficult program. Stress plus me is not a pretty picture.

Now the big question is, should I go to my graduation or not? I am leaning toward not – just because I don’t really know anyone in the program and don’t want to spend $68 to listen to boring people talk at Avery Fisher Hall.

What do you think – would you go to your graduation if you didn’t like your program very much?

However, in the past week or two I have been writing the thesis and subsequently procrastinating like crazy. I have found this whole world in the blogesphere devoted to “Healthy Living Blogs.” I have to admit, at first I thought they were just a way for people with eating disorders to chronicle and take pictures of literally everything they eat during the day in an attempt to reach some sort of weight loss goal, but my friend and fellow blogger The Pancake Girl has one of these blogs and after reading hers and some of the others that she links to I have to say I have changed my mind. As I attempt to become a long distance runner I totally see why these blogs are so appealing. They have great ideas and recipes, and frankly make me feel really shitty because I NEVER eat that well. Literally Never.

Seriously if I had a blog that chronicled everything I ate I don’t think I could ever leave the house based on humiliation alone. For reals it would be full of regrets, like I regret eating those pop tarts in bed, only because they left a mess, not because it’s gross. I know I already posted about how I am a fat kid trapped in this body, but SRSLY people – I never realized it until I started obsessively reading other peoples blogs about their oats and salads and love of vegetables.

I just don’t like vegetables all that much – give me a chemically enhanced marshmallow creature any day.

Don’t get me wrong, I will eat a salad for lunch or dinner every once in a while (whilst the fat girl screams and cries because I don’t let her eat) but it never feels like enough food. I ate a great salad the other night for dinner and surprise surprise two hours later I was STARVING yo. I believe in carbs, in fat, in fast food, in candy and sweets. I also believe in exercise and know that it doesn’t balance out in any way (I have learned from these foodie blogs) so I do attempt to eat well. Attempt.

So as I have been obsessively reading these healthy living blogs I realize that I am not a healthy person. I run, and that’s about it. I drink like ten cups of coffee a day, I love red wine and chocolate and laying on the couch all day watching the Food Network. (I know, TMI) Maybe one of these days I will get up off my lazy ass and actually try to be healthy.

Until then I am going to continue to get my ass handed to me by my Master’s thesis and I hope to post more as soon as I turn it in TOMORROW!

Burning Ring of Fire

I think I mentioned in my last post that I made a huge mistake the morning after Thanksgiving. And again, I blame it all on cooking. You see, I really don’t like to cook. I like to bake because I love cookie dough and cake batter. Cooking, on the other hand, is hard, complicated and no matter how often I try and freakin’ follow the recipe correctly, I always manage to mess it up.

It’s true. Ask Victor about the Papa Murphy’s pizza incident of 2004. I was inconsolable.

On Thanksgiving, as I posted last time, I cooked A LOT. And I did it well. I hardly messed anything up! The one thing I made a mistake on was easily fixed and no one even noticed. I’m tricky like that. That being said, my confidence was up – big time. I got overambitious and decided to make my delicious French Toast for the morning after breakfast.

My French Toast is GOOOOOOD. I start by making the batter and soaking real french bread over night and the next morning bake it and smother it in a homemade brown sugar/butter/pecan mixture. It’s a heart attack on a plate and it’s damn good.

So I wake up really early, while the family is asleep and start to preheat the oven. We have an electric oven back home so it just beeps at me when it’s ready. About ten minutes later I start to smell smoke, so I wander into the kitchen and see tons of smoke all over the kitchen coming from the oven. So I, being a smart person, open the oven door, allowing oxygen to enter the cavity. Which, in science terms I believe is called

FIRE!!!!

Big, orange flames bursting from the oven:

FIRE!

So what do I do? I know exactly where the fire extinguisher is stored. Do I go get it? Of course not, because in the heat of the moment (no pun intended) I decide to slam the oven door shut and take off in the opposite direction screaming for my mommy. Who in turn, jumps from bed, instructs me to throw baking soda on it, while she runs for the extinguisher.

I grab the baking soda, and proceed to pour it all over the flames, throwing it into the open oven door. And the flames go out, leaving my mother, me, my groggy siblings and a HUGE white mess all over the kitchen heaving from exhaustion. My mother turns to look at me and says, “well, at least it wasn’t Thanksgiving morning.” True statement mother. Very true. And man, did I have a mess to clean up later, which I found out was started from my SISTERS cheese sauce dripping all over the bottom of the oven and not cleaning it up…so really it wasn’t my fault, was it? Though I still had to clean it all up and I was not so happy about it:

I set the oven on fire...

Needless to say, the French Toast was not very good – though I did end up making it on a griddle – it just wasn’t the same. I also won’t be cooking again for a long time I suppose, because stuff like this always happens.