It was a somewhat slow weekend at Brady's. And even though it wasn't all that eventful, it was a pretty enjoyable two nights (well, as enjoyable as working instead of playing can be on Fridays and Saturdays), and at first I couldn't pinpoint why.
Then it struck me: No Karen. Karen is the "bartender" I replaced. She was demoted to waitress, sent away to table service - in the eyes of many, a less glamorous restaurant job than bartending. I don't really think there's much difference - you are either captive audience to your demanding clientele or you are not. At a bar, customers expect immediate service, pithy conversation, and mindreading (A bartender should know when to "interrupt" to describe drink specials and take dinner orders, since she is standing within ten feet of you at all times. A waitress has the ability to simply walk over to your table and be granted your full attention. Most of the time tables are anxiously awaiting your arrival, and are happy to be "interrupted.")
Also, if anyone is left in the restaurant at all, not just sitting at your bar, the bartender must stay. On the other hand, a waitress is able to leave as soon as her several tables have vacated. She simply counts her money, runs a quick report and heads next door to a still-happening bar to have a drink and decompress with the other servers. While they are going over the night's high-notes and pitfalls ("Can you BELIEVE that old guy ate his entire order of short ribs and then declared there wasn't enough meat on them and refused to pay?!?"), the bartender is left cleaning and re-cleaning stemware and speed racks just to bide time until the lingering couple in the corner or boisterous birthday party upstairs decides to finally call it a night -- because, you never know, they may just order one more Keoke Coffee or Sambuca shooter.
So bartenders work later, are expected to make both perfect drinks and perfect jokes, and often miss out on after-work socializing. Still, some - like Karen - found prestige in being a bartender over a waitress. That extra $2 an hour probably wasn't the reason as much as the fact that she thought better of herself than everyone else that worked there, no matter how unfounded that was.
She came to work late, would always selectively fill orders that were "easy" -- a glass of wine or soda before an order for 3 different martinis -- and there was the drug thing too. (She left half way through her shift to have a good cry, probably brought on by the triple dose of percocet she admitted to taking before arriving to work, you guessed it, late. By the time a waitress stepped behind the bar to take over (let's hope her rate went up for those three remaining hours), the service printer tape had reached the floor with more than 15 tables of martini, mojito, and mixed drink orders. Oddly - or not - Karen had read most of them before declaring herself unfit - and left a few sodas and bottles of wine (unpoured) on the service bar for pick-up.
So imagine the awkwardness when the demoted bartender-now-waitress, must rely upon her replacement (me) to make her drinks and enable her to successfully serve her tables. No words are uttered, no eye contact -- she actually lays in wait for me to leave the bar to grab extra ice or liquor, and descends on the unsuspecting barback to make her tables' cocktails. (Yes, my barback should actually be getting the ice and store-room booze, but the occasional heavy lifting and a quick run around the bar keep me sane, and P90X-worthy.)
And then I arrive back to a perspiring 21-year old, poring over the Bartenders Bible, in order to make a Kamikaze, while Karen glares at him to hustle. Hustle - Ha! As if she has any idea what that means. One night a glass of Pinot Noir sat at the service bar for 45 minutes, while she actually came back and forth for other drinks (and even made up a few that she didn't send in, demanding to know where they went, and then ran - as much as Karen would ever run - to the owner to report me for sabotaging her tables. Yes, that sounds exactly what a 36-year old mother of three who keeps this job in order to send her kids to swimming lessons and baseball tryouts, would do. Sabotage.). When I broke the "who's going to talk to the other first" contest (I said I wouldn't sabotage; I didn't say I was always mature), and asked her what the deal was with the wine, she looked blankly at it, at the ceiling, at it, at her order book, shrugged, and walked away to "serve" her other tables.
I may be a little smug about my position over hers - but only because she had been so rude, unhelpful and downright accusatory since I started. So when I experience a weekend without her on the floor, where I don't see her sour spaced-out face every 10 minutes for 5 straight hours, and don't have to chase her around for her tip-out at the end of her night (another reason I would NEVER leave while she still has tables), it is a welcome change. And even though there weren't any funny stories to report, no intoxicated patrons to shut off, and no break-ups or hook-ups in front of me, it was a decent weekend. Too bad it won't last.
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