Bartending 101 – Always read the label.

I had a trainee today.  Never worked on a proper bar before (aside pouring pints and wine at a mates pub when they needed help).  Now, I told myself today once I found out that I would be training, to be incredibly patient with the trainee.  Here’s the thing about me….I’m not a patient person when it comes to work.  Well, to a point anyway.  I can empathize with a new person as we have all been there.  I really don’t deal well with incompetence though.  Anyone who knows me, knows that if you’re incompetent at your job, I will not utter a word to you until you are competent at it.  Not saying that this trainee was incompetent, quite the opposite actually, just giving some back story as to how I work.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to read a label though.  Any average person would walk behind a bar, get given a drink order, open the fridge and READ THE LABEL TO SEE WHICH DRINK TO POUR.

Today, a drink order came through the dispense printer.  I went over the order with the trainee, directed them to the location of the wine and supervised as they made the order.  Here’s how it went…a standard rose was poured.  Awesome.  The next wine on the order was a Pinot Gris.  The operative word in the sentence was PINOT GRIS.  They went to the fridge, grabbed the SAV and started to pour the wine.  I quickly said, “That’s the Savignon Blanc you have there.  Not the Pinot Gris”.  They said “Yes” and continued to pour said wine.  I once again repeated my sentence.  They looked at me and continued to pour.  I then said “STOP.  You are pouring SAVIGNON BLANC not PINOT GRIS.”

They eventually understood, corrected the mistake and carried on their merry way.  I am going to give them a break though.  I understand that nerves affect you on your first shift….but still….reading is something most of us do from the age of 3 upwards….

Something that really pissed me off today at work though?  I can’t fucking stand it when your speed rail isn’t completely stocked.  ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU HAVE THE STOCK.  If you’re sold out of the alcohol, sweet as!  Leave a fucking gap in the speed rail.  But if you’re too fucking lazy to walk 3 FUCKING meters to the storage room just to grab more stock?  FUCK OFF AND EAT A BAG OF DICKS!!  GAH!!  It’s really not that damn hard to walk a few fucking meters just so you don’t have to scramble around when you’re busy grabbing alcohol off a different bar to make a bloody drink.  It’s like laziness is more logical than actual sense to some people.  Go away you horrible bastards.

Most entertaining thing of the night?  There was an old man rocking his shit on the dance floor tonight.  He could have been my Grandpa…if I was a white person not brown….anyway, he was shaking his shit, slut dropping it, getting amongst it with all the freshies…it was HILARIOUS.  I think we should have seriously called up all the retirement villages though and checked that none of them had escaped.  He looked like a child who had run free from Mum while she wasn’t looking.  Also reminded me of when your Grandpa has a bit too much whiskey and thinks he’s the same age as your mates.  Having dance offs and all that shit.  Gold star for keeping us well entertained though dude!!  Hope I get to be the bat shit crazy old lady hitting on all the young freshies when I’m your age!!

So just in case you couldn’t tell from the title, I work in hospitality.  This is my little blog where I vent out all my frustrations from my work day as well as my actual boring life outside of work.

First of all, I know that this is the day and age of YouTube, but believe me, no one wants to see this mug on the internet.  So you will just have to go old school and use your brain by reading.

Why start a blog?  Because, to be completely honest, when you work in hospo, you come across A LOT of assholes.  More nice people than assholes, but still your fair share of assholes.  And when you have a shift filled with asshole customers, sometimes a glass of wine and a cigarette at the end of your shift just doesn’t quite cut it.

Thankfully, I’ve just had 3 days off in a row so I don’t actually have anything that I am particularly pissed off about right now 🙂 I’ve been working in this industry since I turned 18.  So 13 years this year I have been working in hospitality.  When it comes to my days off, I am such a hermit now.  I used to be all about getting on the chop and looking for some dick (if you don’t like me being upfront, deal with it), but I am well past that now haha.  So staying in watching Sherlock (Benedict Cumberbatch, you are my LIFE) is so much more exciting to me than being out on the piss and banging random dudes.

Anyway, just wanted to write a quick little post about what I will mainly be writing about.  If you wanna read about my work life or normal life, have at it.  There will be lots of swearing.  Just sayin.  And if you don’t, I don’t care.  This is pretty much my way of getting all my shit about what pisses me off out of my system so my girlfriends don’t need to hear about it anymore hahaha.

Welcome to my geeky life 🙂