A Dirty Job: April 2007

Women.
Monday, 30 April 2007

About eight o' clock, a woman, maybe in her late thirties, comes up to Jabba. "I can't find my kid," she tells him, "She's with a friend. One's ten and one's eight. I'm going spare."

We have procedure for this, and it requires pretty basic things like finding out where the person is staying, getting a good description of the kids (age, gender, height, hair colour, what they're wearing, last scene, etc.) When the kids are very young, we have three minutes to find them, and then have to call it into the security hut, who then put the clock on. When fifteen more minutes have passed, the police have to be called.

"When did you last see them?" Jabba asks.

(Wait for it.)

"Three hours ago," she says.

Three hours ago. That's bad enough, and usually in these kinds of circumstances (this isn't the first, although three hours is a new park record), the parents are oblivious to the kids having disappeared, or don't become aware of it until the last second, when they suddenly go into panic mode. However, we later found out from somebody else that this woman had been looking for three hours, and only now decided to get security involved.

We were both a bit stunned, but Jabba decides to get more information. Instead, the woman turns around, and fucks off. We call it into the hut anyway and pretty soon she comes back. We get a description although, as per usual, she has no idea what her own daughter is wearing. I have a rough idea of what I'm looking for and do a run around the complex. Nothing. I go back outside and ask where she last remembered seeing them, and it turns out it was the lower bar, so I call down there and get them to search. They don't find anyone either. Once again, the woman spins on her heels and rushes away, telling us she can't be still any longer, and is going back down the lower bar to search herself.

About five minutes later, a call comes over the radio that the children have been found. All's well that ends well, etc. No matter how foolish parents can be, this is always the conclusion you want. Later, the lady comes back up to the main complex - alone - and tells us that her children are with "a friend", and it's all okay now. She thanks us and that, we assume, was that.

About 10.45pm, she comes back up to me again. "I can't find my kids!" she exclaims. "I've just been down the other place and it's now closed." (I checked - it was.)

I'm gobsmacked. Then she delivers the punchline. "Yeah, I left them with this woman I met earlier. I could tell she had had a drink but she had a baby with her..." Now, can somebody explain to me how the fuck that sentence makes any sense at all? How a drunk woman with a baby is suddenly Mary fucking Poppins?

"I don't even know where she lives," she says, "What if she's taken them back to her caravan?"

I didn't know what to say. Jabba walked up, and when I explained to him what had happened he didn't know what to say either. "Maybe you should have a good look around the complex," I suggest, which perhaps wasn't of enormous benefit but Jesus, what the fuck was I supposed to do? I was torn between bemusement and tearing up my nomination for Alec Baldwin as 'Worst Parent of the Year'. Jabba still hadn't said a word, but had resorted to just shaking his head, staring at the woman, then back at me, and shaking his head some more.

Eventually, she went inside and - perhaps thank God, although maybe the kids might have been better off in the long run if they'd actually gone off with somebody else - she found them. They were still with the woman, who was clearly drunk and, Jabba informed me, came closed to being barred on Friday night due to some abusive behaviour. Again, what a stand-out choice for a babysitter. A drunk, abusive stranger who you met earlier today. It just warms the heart.

Later, a cleaner came rushing up to me and asked me to get a woman out of the ladies toilet who had been 'puking everywhere'. Now, we have policy for this as well. First, I got the cleaner, who was female, to go inside and make sure the place was clear, and if not, to clear it. Nobody else was allowed inside. Then, the cleaning girl and myself entered - as she was, and has to be, my witness - and we checked out the damage. Lying on the floor, back against the side wall of the cubicle, legs akimbo in a puddle of her own filth, was a young woman. Early 20s. Standing next to her was her friend, who was also drunk, but clearly nowhere near as bad. I took one look at them both. "Yeah, I'm going to have to ask you to leave the premises, I'm afraid. Can you get her up?"

"I can't," said the friend. "I can't carry her."

"No. Not carry her. Can you get here to her feet and escort her back home?"

"I can't," she said, again. "She's too drunk. Oh fucking hell," she said, to her friend, "You've fucked this right up!"

I was a little confused. "Look," I suggested, "All I want you to do is get her to her feet and take her outside."

"Can't you do it?" the friend asked.

Now it was my turn. "I can't," I said, "I'm not allowed to." This is true. Unless a female or child is in any kind of risk of harm or danger it is almost forbidden for me to 'handle' them in any way. It sounds ludicrous and in some cases this policy can be quite dangerous in itself but in the present climate it's all too easy for somebody to accuse x of being y. You don't need that shit on your record, even if it doesn't stick. Hence the female witness.

"I can help if she stumbles," I say, "But you're going to have to help her up and walk her out."

Eventually she does. The friend is absolutely fucked and staggering all over the place. She almost goes arse-over-tit two or three times even before we've even left the fucking toilet. "Oh my god," says the less drunk one, "Oh, please help."

"It'll be easier outside," I tell her, simply because out there we have a wonderous thing called carpet.

Okay. So finally we get her out the main doors, and sit her down on the step. She's having a hard time even staying upright so I ask the cleaning girl to sit with her and to "grab her" if she falls. It's one thing to not be able to 'handle' somebody, but quite another to then have them falling over and cracking their head open. "I'm okay," she kept on saying, over and over, perhaps twenty seconds apart.

I enquire with the other girl about whether she can walk her home, and then she tells me they don't have a key to their chalet. And then she drops the bombshell. "My sister is one of the ENTS girls."

I thought she looked familiar. Immediately I knew who her sister was. I pressed her on it but she didn't want to tell me any more. "I don't want to get her into trouble," she said and then, of course, started crying. And crying. And crying. Finally her resolve crumbled (by now I'd thrown my handling policy out the window and had broken three of her fingers) and I assured her I wouldn't let any of this get out. My only concern was getting her and her friend back home safely. So, she goes back into the complex to get the key. I radio the security hut to send a car down. The cleaning girl is propping up the drunk. She's "fine". All seems well.

And then pukey-pukerson empties the remainder of her stomach - which clearly stretched into several gallons - all over her legs, the steps, the brickwork below, and anywhere else freeflowing chunky liquid likes to reach.

Nice.

She sits back up. "I'm fine," she says. I fucking swear to God.

By now the park security had arrived. "She ain't getting in the van if she's like that," one of them offered, helpfully. The friend had returned and, overhearing this, started booing again about how they didn't want to be slung into the back of a van. "No, no," the park guy replies, "It's a bus. We just call it the van."

We get the drunk back on her feet and she's staggering all over the place, but still fucking fine. Her friend's crying, she's swaying, and the guys in park are no doubt adding Febreze to their wish lists but somehow she's off and away, into the 'van' and gone.

I did what I said and didn't bother writing any of it up in an evil incident report, even though I should have done, and would have done for anybody else. The thing is, she was just drunk, and that's all it was. We've all been there. We've all puked, at least once. Neither of the girls were abusive, and neither were in any way a problem beyond the chunder (dome). I had no interest in getting the ENTS girl into the shit (I later found out that she could well have been fired over it.)

It didn't even bother me when this same ENTS girl later tracked down Jabba and thanked him for helping out her sister and keeping it quiet. Those are the brakes. It's a thankless job.

And I guess I'm just too nice a guy.

posted by Sheamus @ 2:15 am

Dancers. Or 'cunts', as they're more commonly known.
Sunday, 29 April 2007

As per usual I worked the DJ booth tonight and this of course exposes me to that most horrendous side of nature's depravity - dancers.

There are two kinds of dancer in your common or garden nightclub.

A. Those that cannot dance.
B. Those that think because they can dance a little bit, it makes them cool.

Both, of course, are total cunts. Inevitably, people only hit the dance floor when they have had a few drinks. The interesting thing is that if a person A is totally intoxicated, he becomes a liability. Even dangerous. However, if person B is totally intoxicated, he morphs into person A, and therefore becomes a liability, and even dangerous. Mathematically, what this means is A = (i) = B, where i equates to the level of pissdom.

That said, there is nothing more annoying than person B, those who think dancing is cool, doing their various 'moves' on the floor. Really, when you're stone-cold sober, it's almost like watching an entirely different species. They just look so utterly fucking moronic, trying Justin Timberlake-type moves to a Justin Timberlake song. Now, I need to address something here, because by 'they' I actually mean men. Women on the dance floor aren't too bad. There's a stereotype that says that black people have great rhythm, but that's bull. What seems to be mostly accurate is that women have great rhythm.

Men, meantime, are cunts.

In one incident tonight a completely fucked male member of group A and his almost-as-fucked missus (who was like a hybrid of A/B) were going through all these awful moves, trying to be in sync with each other but failing dismally, with the man attempting increasingly ridiculous and OTT dance poses. I actually had to warn him a couple of times to calm it down (and her later when she started 'working the booty' whilst leaning on the stage), but quickly realised that his Tazmanian Devil-like routine was clearing the dancefloor and actually making my life a hell of a lot fucking easier. However, it didn't last long, for the simple reason that people like him are basically viruses - before you know it, there's another Tazmanian Devil on the floor. Then another. Then another. End result: chaos.

Worse still are those cunts that have clearly done the unthinkable and attended line dancing classes, and then just seem to turn up en masse, total strangers, but going into these awful fucking routines, in unison, to really, really shit songs. It's hideous. But you know they think they're really fucking cool. It never dawns on the 19-year old girls engaged in this filth that the bloke behind them, mirroring it all exactly, is 57 with a ponytail. And a fucking stetson.

And don't get me started on the drunk, late-teen blokes who think it's just precious to pick each other up and swing around wildly or - and really, this is some funny shit - dance together during the slow songs. Oh stop, guys, you're killing me here.

Now, this might all sound like sour grapes, simply because (a) I never dance and (b) I cannot dance. I imagine these two things go hand in hand, more often than not. However, just because I do not have the required skills to make an ass of myself on the dancefloor (actually, I do, and we're back to the base equality of all dancers; i.e., irrespective of skill, they're cunts), I know I'm in a good position to call this. I can't juggle or ride a unicycle either. It doesn't matter. The only people who can are cunts. And/or wankers. With the odd tosser thrown in. Nobody looks at a bloke on a unicycle - and he's usually sporting a gimp hat, let's face it - and goes, "Wow! I wanna be that guy." It's like seeing a 30+ year old on a BMX or a skateboard; 24-hours a day they must be asking themselves where it all went wrong.

Or maybe they don't. Maybe, like dancers, they think they're the shit. The world would either be infinitely better or infinitely worse if everything we did was recorded and we could review our drunken nights out with pride/shame the following day. But I'd love to release some of the CCTV footage (and yeah, it's all on tape) of some of these cunts on YouTube just so we could all point and laugh. And then maybe forward it on to their families/the mob.

Increasingly we appear to be in a bit of a Nanny state but I tell you this: if the government decides to launch a dancing license, I'll be one happy fucking dog.

posted by Sheamus @ 3:30 am

Microsoft staff photo, c. 1978
Friday, 27 April 2007

This has nothing at all to do with work, but is fucking hilarious.

This is the Microsoft staff photo from December 7, 1978. That's Bill Gates on the bottom-left.

Quite clearly, all geeks and nerds can be traced back to this moment in time. The mind fucking boggles.

posted by Sheamus @ 8:01 pm

The death of Shrek.
Thursday, 26 April 2007

Well, Shrek's gone.

To cut a long story short, we had a visit from the magistrate today and Shrek's paperwork wasn't in order, so he's been given the immediate boot. Bye bye. Really, it's the best thing for everyone. The funny part was he'd been signing on for Jobseeker's the last three weeks, all illegal like, and actually signed off this morning before coming to work. You have to laugh.

Bilbo's at risk too unless he produces a key document in the next 24 hours. I'm pretty sure he will, but blimey, they're dropping like flies. Some new guy is meant to start later this week, but some new guy has meant to be starting later every week. Promises 4, Reality 0.

Of course the downside of this is we're now severely short staffed, and really, it's all becoming a bit of a farce. We're a few weeks away from the peak of the season and I'm pretty sure somebody is going to have to die before they pull their fingers out (maybe that's why they'll die.)

Jabba has very quickly become the complex stud. You'd never think it to look at him, but the women just come right up to the guy. As Edmonson has noted, it's like they have tunnel-vision and just don't see anybody else. Of course, they're all right mingers and slappers, but still, credit where it's due.

Right, I guess that's it. Yeah, what a lousy week. Days off, etc etc, blah blah blah. Salute.

posted by Sheamus @ 1:30 am

Dirty Shirty
Wednesday, 25 April 2007

So, the three chaps from yesterday come back in tonight, one at a time, separately with their partners, and we think nothing more of it. About half an hour later, however, Edmonson hears from one of the bar staff that they're going to refuse to serve them point blank. He enquires if they'd cleared this with the manager, and they have not.

Ho hum.

8pm. I get called up to the manager's office. Shirty is in there, sitting at his desk. The manager tells me that Shirty has informed him the three lads have threatened him again. This time, however, the bar manager saw it, too.

I look at Shirty's face, and I'm sorry, but I have to call bullshit on the whole thing. He looks like he's lying, or at least exaggerating. However, what the manager wants, the manager gets, and he wants them out of the complex. Walking back to the main bars I pass the bar manager and ask him what he heard. He didn't actually hear anything, he tells me, but he saw one of them lean over and whisper something to Shirty. Oh no! He figured it was because the guy knew he'd been clocked by the bar manager, and so 'whispered the threat'.

My opinion? I'm thinking what really happened is the three guys walked up to Shirty and asked for a drink and he immediately said something like, "We're not fucking serving you tonight...", or a sentence similar enough in weight and tone to put them on the offensive from the start. The problem is, once again, none of us witnessed anything. It's all hearsay. Somebody else's opinion. The question is, who do you believe? The manager, really, and that's it.

We get the guys to the main doors and they're asking what they've done, why can't they see the manager, etc etc. We tell them he hasn't given us any reasons but if they go down to the main gates now without any hassle we'll ask him to come out. They go. He doesn't want to come out, but says he'll come and see them tomorrow morning. Edmonson goes down to explain this to them - alone, by his own choice, to make it seem like we're not out to get them - while I hang back about thirty yards, just to be safe. I'm not worried as he has an enormous amount of experience of dealing with violent nutters and these guys shouldn't be a problem at all. Basically, he just knows what to say, and what not to. They're pleading their case, as per usual, and Edmonson later tells me that, like me, he's inclined to believe them over Shirty. At the very best case it's 50-50. However, this is the job. You do what you're asked to do by the boss. We're not here to give opinions or sympathise. If they want you out, you're out. I don't think we'll see them again, to be honest. How can we? If they come back tomorrow it's bound to start all over again.

Edmonson has to write out the incident report, so does the smart thing and decides not to rubbish Shirty (or mention his excessive use of language in a delicate situation) but, equally, not to rubbish the three blokes either. As he told them, we didn't see anything, and they did nothing out of order to us at all. It's always somebody's view. Life's honey trap.

posted by Sheamus @ 1:30 am

Shirty
Tuesday, 24 April 2007

Now the hell that is the weekend is over, we're back to the sheer tedium of 'the rest of the week'.

Quiet tonight; we actually closed just after midnight. Nothing really to report except one minor incident involving a member of the bar team. He came over to me and said, "Three guys over there are threatening me." Now, there's two things you should know about this chap. One, he's a Geordie. And two, like all Geordies, and most Northerners, it doesn't take a lot for him to beam into 'wahey!' mode. In fact, not very much at all.

So I go over to the three blokes and ask them to come outside for a chat. The bartender follows us outside as he wants to give his take on what happened. Edmonson joins us. Immediately the threesome start talking at me a mile a minute and it's fairly obviously they're coked up to the eyeballs. I ask what happened.

"Right, we were in there... this is our first night, right... we didn't know you couldn't smoke inside..."

"Yes you did," says the bartender, "I fucking told you!"

"Yeah, he told us," one of them replies, "But we didn't know... it's our first night... and then he starts talking all this shit..."

"No I fucking didn't!"

"Yes he did... he says if he wasn't wearing this shirt..."

(meaning his uniform)

"... he'd 'fucking batter us right now...'"

"No I fucking didn't!"

"Yes you fucking did, you liar!"

And on and on. The thing is, by this time, both Edmonson and myself quickly realised that the lads side of the story seemed the most likely. Yes, they had been caught smoking in a non-smoking area, possibly more than once, but that's a mistake loads of pissheads make. What clearly hadn't helped - in fact, what had made things a lot worse - was the bartender's attitude. As said, he'd immediately, or very quickly, gone into that 'I'm hard, me' mode and made things ten times worse. Moreover, he'd repeated this behaviour outside the bar, and the first rule of customer service is you don't use the word 'fuck' when speaking to a customer. You just don't. Believe me, it never helps.

So, Edmonson tells him to piss off. He leaves. The blokes calm down and while they're wasted, they seem to be on the level. We let them back inside, and I go around the back of the bar to speak to Shirty. He's all puffed up like he means business. I'm like, you can't speak to people like that because it just acts as a trigger.

"I'll fucking batter them!" he says.

No you won't, I reply. You need to calm down. I tell him that I'm on his side (tip: even though you really remain impartial, tell everybody you're on their side. It diffuses 99.99 per cent of all tension) but that by acting that way he's set them off. He's good, they're very bad, but by acting in that way he made my job harder. He seemed to get it, but by then his cheeks were so inflated and his face so red it was hard to tell. The thing is, this isn't the first time this has happened (although it was the most severe), and I had to report it. I made a point of telling the big cheese that I didn't have any interest in ragging on the guy or getting him into trouble, but anytime anybody makes our job tougher then something has to be said. Shirty's actually an alright bloke most of the time but, as said, when his ego is challenged, he goes from 0-60 a little too quickly.

Otherwise, that's about it. So I'll leave you with this. In a couple of months of working here I've learned one very important thing - there's one song that gets more couples and absolutely more women on the dance floor than any other. And it's miles ahead of anything else. Believe me, this packs the dancefloor each and every night it's played.

You're not going to like it. But it's a cold, hard fact.

Enjoy.

posted by Sheamus @ 1:50 am

Top o' the morning to ya.
Monday, 23 April 2007

Right. Another bleedin' incident report.

One of the perks of working at a holiday park is that you get a reasonable percentage of what we'll politely term unsavoury visitors staying the night. Now, I'm more Paddy than anything else so I think it's acceptable for me to make this judgement - each week we get problems with the Irish. Now, by that, I mean the more rural element of that fine country. Travellers. What you would call 'pikey scum'. Hey, hold on - you said it.

Every week something has happened. Tonight was no exception.

We had a few of their kids up yesterday, and naturally I clocked the accents immediately and thought, "Hmmm." Now, that seems incredibly prejudice but believe me, experience counts for a lot here. For comparison purposes, I'm sure there are many fine Liverpudlians dotted around the planet but I can honestly say I've never met a nice Scouser - in my experience, having worked at a restaurant in Eastbourne at the end of 1980s when the place was, excuse me, littered with them, they're all absolute scum. That is, those that I have met are. I'm sure the rest are lovely. I've just never had the pleasure.

Ditto, our travelling friends. Saturday, we had a few problems with the kids forgetting/losing their passes etc then trying to sneak in, but that was that.

Tonight was a little different.

7pm. Same kids show up. About five of them, only one has a pass. They're not coming in, etc etc, blah blah fucking blah.

7.30pm. The father arrives. Absolutely fucked out of his head. No pass. Not coming in. He says he's going to get his pass. Comes back without it. Not coming in. Says he's going to get his booking letter. Comes back without it. Not coming in. Says, "Right, I'm getting my fucking pass and then you can fucking eat it." Definitely not coming back in.

9.45pm. His wife and her friend show up. Fucked out of their heads. One pass between them. Only one can come in. Both get aggressive and abusive. "Fock, focker, focking." etc. Ultimately escorted to the door.

10.15pm. Off the main complex, we hear over the radio that the father, now even more pissed, has been a problem down the lower bar. How he got in I'll never know, but it seems he ordered a few drinks, declared he wasn't paying, then drunk them anyway. Escorted outside, he threatens The Lodge - "I'm gonna get a knife and come back and slice you in two" - and eventually the police are called. While they're deciding what to do, they get his details and check his record, and get this - he's only a wanted felon with some 30-pages of violations which include armed robbery! Think: less than three hours a go I'd had this twat in my face and now the police are handcuffing him, dragging him off the site and one assumes locking him up. One oddity is that before they put him in the car, his wife came up to him, waved in his face and said, "See you later then, you twat." Ladies and gentlemen - the happy couple.

The upside is the entire fucking lot of them are being booted off the park in the morning.

Relatively, however, this was the highpoint of the evening. The lowest was when I was working the DJ booth around midnight, sitting on the stage watching the dancefloor. This dark-haired lady, who was easily in her early 60s, had been making lewd comments my way all night. Suddenly, and during the Pussycat Dolls Don't Cha, she comes waltzing over and does a borderline lap dance. For my pleasure. What can you do? Grin and bear it. Thankfully, it didn't last long (I came almost immediately), but Jesus. That's a memory I'm going to have trouble shaking off.

The Lodge, bless her, is on the ropes, and as such is making a proper effort. Allegedly complaints have been made by the manager of the lower bar about her work ethic, and she's going to have to buck her ideas up, but the worst fucking part is that I'm almost certainly going to have to do that shift once or twice a week. This angers me to the point where I want to rain violence down on the elderly and infirm. I may have to get up early tomorrow.

posted by Sheamus @ 2:30 am

Piss, Polish paedos and spit.
Sunday, 22 April 2007

(This, I hope, will be the last time I write about paedos for a while. It's been a rough week. One that in the future will become known as The Paedophile Trilogy. Starring Jonathan King as 'The Ringer'.)

You can sum up tonight with the information that I had to write not one, but two incident reports. Yes, two. This brings my total now to about seven. I even have another one to do tomorrow before I go back to work. Fucking A!

First, doing a routine fire exit check, I open one door behind the main stage and see a bloke urinating up a wall.

"Oi!", I say.

"I'm with the cabaret, mate," he says, as if that's alright.

"You know better than this," I reply.

"They let us, mate," he says. And he's right - they do. They being the entertainment team. This is the third time I've stumbled upon a member of the cabaret having a piss up the back wall. It's also the last time. Incident Report #1.

More paedo blues. Get this: a lady comes up to me and says a man has just walked over, sat on their table, and taken a photo of her two-year old daughter. Obviously, she's not impressed, so I take him outside to 'have a word'. His wife turns up moments later. The man turns out to be Polish. "Oh," the wife says, "In his country, that's normal." I tell him that over here it's very much fucking not. I make them show me the picture on the camera and delete it. I tell him that he better fucking well not do it again. They assure me he won't.

I go back into the bar to speak to the mother but she's not impressed. She storms out to speak to him. Her husband comes along, too. Words are exchanged. It gets a bit arsey but doesn't really go nowhere so I leave it with Jabba.

About quarter of an hour later the Pole's wife spits in the face of the mother. According to Jabba, it's proper spit, too. "Gob," as he calls it, then does the kind of impression that Bob Carolgees would be thrilled with. The mother gets hysterical and ends up a crying wreck, alone, in the middle of the main bar. Jabba takes her off to calm her down. Meantime, the Pole and his missus are barred but the latter keeps coming back, to 'explain herself', but even this gets out of hand and she ends up threatening to camp outside the mother's caravan until she gets to see her.

Incident Report #2.

Worse happened outside my watch. Some utter tosser beat his wife black and blue outside their caravan. She, half-naked, turned up at the security lodge, battered near-senseless and obviously a wreck. The police are called and go down to arrest the man, and he's only fucking gone back to bed. Last I heard he was handcuffed and headed for a fun time at the cells.

The place was absolutely heaving tonight. At least a thousand people in the two main bars, and worse, from about midnight to 2pm about a hundred on the dance floor. Working the dance floor - or, really, the DJ booth - is a job I don't mind but tonight it was a cunt. A hundred people are quite hard to keep a close watch on as it is but when the wankers insist on breaking all regulations and drinking/smoking/lifting/wanking endlessly, despite warnings, it was all I could do to stop myself ripping the fire extinguisher off of the wall and hosing the fuckers with foam. People aren't allowed to smoke down there as it's a major fire hazard that near to the main stage but they think they're so fucking funny by walking around with an unlit cigarette or just hilarious when they flick their lighter on for a moment to pretend they're going to smoke, and then do not. Ha ha! Get them. Fuckwits.

Shrek looks like he might be out; I didn't work last night, but at a point where two groups of lads began fighting, despite estimates of between six and eight calls for help on the radio he preferred to hide in the other bar. This is bad enough, but then it turned out earlier tonight he'd boasted to Bilbo's missus - for some fucking unfathomable reason - that he'd had to go in their and separate the throng all by himself. I mean, how fucking stupid!?

On a separate note, I went to see Winnebago Deal at The Crypt last Thursday. They were excellent, but the support - some last-minute local effort who opened up with what they called 'freestyle grindcore' - were without a doubt the biggest pile of shit excuse of a band I've ever had the misery to witness. Utter, utter shit. I didn't get a name. Thank God.

Regarding The Crypt, I've mentioned it to many of my friends in the North, but it's hard to do such a place justice. So I took a photo.

This is a picture of one of the cubicles in the men's toilet.

That's all you need to know.

posted by Sheamus @ 3:45 am

Paedos and nymphos.
Thursday, 19 April 2007

First things first: when I arrived at work tonight I was informed that not only had the Octopaedo been warned again, he'd actually been banned from the complex. Turns out the last straw was a visit paid to him by the head of security at 9.30am this morning, and when he opened the door to his caravan he was blind-drunk on whisky. Well, that just wasn't going to do at all, and at 6pm we were informed that under no circumstances was he to be allowed into any of the buildings.

Well, OK. All's well, etc. However, about 10pm, I casually walk outside just to have a look, and would you Adam and Eve it, here he comes. I quickly walk down to meet him and it's pretty obvious he's still drunk. He even has a little pocket of spittle in the right corner of his mouth.

He says something then immediately starts to look for his pass. "Sorry mate," I say, "You can't come in here tonight, and I think you know that." Well, at least, that's what we'd been told - that he'd been told - but now I'm not so sure.

He mumbles some stuff, asks me for the time and we exchange a few meaningless sentences. "I just wanted to go to the shop, really," he says, nodding towards the grocers behind me, "To get a drink."

"Why don't you leave it for tonight mate?" I say.

"Yes. Probably for the best. I have some coffee at home, actually," he adds, rather abstractly.

I nod.

Beat.

"I've had a hell of a day," he says.

Then it hits me again - what if this guy is just an innocent old man? What if he is just an eccentric? A man stuck in the past? He's been labelled an outcast and treated like one and, yes, some of the things he did were quite fucking dodgy, but still... what if we were wrong?

"Well," he states, "I'm leaving tomorrow. Going to find somewhere else to stay. Thanks for treating me with respect. That's all I really wanted." I had been respectful and polite to him; first of all, it's my job, and secondly, as I said, there is no real proof here. Just a grim suspicion that's hard to shake. Still, part of me remained unsure.

He held out his hand, and I took it. "See you later," I said, and off he went.

I walked back to the complex, and then it hit me: had I done the right thing and treated an elderly person in the correct and proper manner. Or - crikey - had I just shaken the hand of a paedophile? And does it matter either way? God only knows, and he's too busy being omnipresent and looking at kids in the showers after P.E.

The other highlight tonight was some 4ft10, Ronnie Corbett-a-like absolute nymphomaniac wandering around the main bar asking every person she saw in a uniform for sex. She even offered Jabba and myself a threesome. Believe me when I say this was about as welcome an offer as Jabba himself giving me a nudge and a wink. But she wouldn't take no for an answer. It didn't help that the bar staff later told her the security staff would walk her back to her caravan, which she took as a way to get us back there for some Corbett-style nookie. It wasn't happening, of course, and eventually we had to tell her to leave. Telling a nympho to leave!? I'd never have dreamed such a reality could exist.

Okay, so she goes, and about half an hour later we get everybody else out, close the place down, and I lock the main doors. She only fucking comes back and tries to physically pry the doors open with her fingers. For a full ten minutes! I actually started to fear for my health. Thankfully, she gave up and fucked off before my only viable option became suicide.

(As usual, my two days off have now commenced; be back in some hideous hour on Sunday morning. Until then, watch your back.)

posted by Sheamus @ 2:30 am

"There's a paedophile in the building, REPEAT... A PAEDOPHILE IS IN THE BUILDING..."
Wednesday, 18 April 2007

Christ, it's dull at work at the moment. So dull, in fact, that tonight I was home before midnight. Yeah: me.

Bimbo has redeemed himself somewhat thanks to making a genuine effort the last couple of days. Time will tell if it continues, but so far all is well. His brother in law, however, has given birth to his alias simply by the way he looks - he shall be known as Shrek. As said, he's Bilbo II. Or really, and fairly, the old Bilbo. Shrek took an hour for his break today. An hour.

Bilbo also had words with the boss today complaining about The Lodge and we were told that she'd definitely be attending the main complex once the lower bar closed tonight. The lower bar closed before 10pm. Did we see her? Don't laugh.

The only incident of note tonight was the activities of an 83-year old man. I'd already been warned about him by one of the day security chaps and was told that a few parents had complained he'd been hanging around the playground, chatting to kids, etc. All a bit creepy. My colleague gave a bloody good description of him because I knew who he was when he walked up to the complex gates an hour or so later. To be honest he was perfectly amicable and I kind of put it to one side; there is, of course, a very fine line between an old man who just likes kids and an old man who likes kids. But proof in the pudding, and all that. You have to be careful, particularly in this job.

Well, about 10.45pm a few parents came up to us to complain about the same old guy and his actions towards their kids. It appears he'd been going up to the little ones in the arcade and telling them he was a swimming instructor, giving them money for the machines, asking for their names and that of their friends, and - and this is the worst part - writing them all down in a little book. Now, of course, he could have just been embarrassed about his shocking memory but come on - that's more than a little dodgy.

Well, I got the complex manager out who then went and spoke to the parents and then the old guy, who by now was sitting down in one of the restaurants. Again, he was nice as pie and the manager concluded that he was probably just a bit eccentric/old-fashioned etc, but to be safe we had to watch him like a hawk for the rest of the night. And if he even looked at a kid again, out he goes.

As it was ultra-dull everywhere else, cue 3-5 security positioned at strategic points around the room, covert earpieces at full attention, pinning the old guy down with keen, narrow gazes. He was oblivious to it all, of course. Let's face it, he was probably having a sly wank under the table.

It was at this point that I fucked off home.

posted by Sheamus @ 12:48 am

We ain't got Jack.
Tuesday, 17 April 2007

Captain Jack's been given the boot.

Yeah: shocking.

I really thought he'd be back. Indeed, at around 6pm tonight, when he was having his 'meeting' with the powers-that-be, and after seeing him drive into the park afterwards, I figured he'd be up to the gates soon after with an, "Alright lads?"

But no; he's gone. "Gross misconduct." It's always kind of hard to recover from that.

Bilbo must have taken my general bad mood to heart because he was far more on-form this evening. His brother-in-law is basically a carbon-copy of him so it's all much of a muchness there. The daft thing about tonight is the place was as empty as I've ever seen it but we had four doorstaff on at all times. In fact, we had a fifth, but of course The Lodge never made an appearance once the lower bar was closed. This, naturally, counters somewhat with Saturday's farce.

Nothing much happened tonight so I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave you with a joke I heard from a comedian on Saturday. He mentioned that his wife had recently got a tattoo, on the very top of her left thigh, of a shell. It was so realistic, he added, that when you put your ear to it, you could smell the sea.

Fin.

posted by Sheamus @ 2:00 am

The usual shit.
Monday, 16 April 2007

Captain Jack doth appear to be a goner. Well, that's what most people think, including the big cheese manager, who was quite adamant that it's a done deal. But I heard that through Bilbo, who's becoming about as reliable as Gary Glitter with your baby sister. And as useless as fuck. Nobody wants to be the sort of person who moans to their boss about colleagues but in this business you're only as strong as your weakest links; it's less about anything physical and more that he goes out of his way to do fuck all. I gave him a piece of my mind tonight and later heard him say I was 'pissing him off' to some of the other security guys but they all know he's a wanker. It's gonna come to something eventually. Best news yet? His brother-in-law is the 'new guy' starting tomorrow. And Bilbo's taken another day off. Fuck-a-doodle-do.

Two things I forgot to mention yesterday: one, I had to confiscate a football off of five punk kids who were booting it against the windows on the main complex. I told them they could have it back when they left. An hour or so later four of them turned up to collect it and I thought that was it. About half an hour after that one little chap turned up and said, "Can I have my ball back now?" Turned out he didn't even know these other gentlemen. And the ball cost thirty quid. His dad came up to my later in the evening and I really thought he was going to kick off, especially as he was a pisshead extraordinaire, but amazingly he actually accepted my side of the story. Still, that didn't stop both parents asking me, "Had I seen those boys?" about ten times tonight. I hadn't. Nor the ball. It's a shame, but I'm afraid it's a goner.

Earlier on, I'd had an 'incident' with some owners. It's officially an incident because it went in the incident book. An older couple walked up to the gate to get in, and I asked for their passes. "We don't have them," they said, and instead showed me this keyring that had the owner's badge on it.

"Yeah. You can't get in without your passes," I said.

"We haven't got any. They were meant to be ready today but they're not."

Well... the reality is they've had three months to sort these passes out.

"Yeah, sorry. I can't let you in without a pass."

Suddenly, the woman, who was on crutches (don't laugh), became really aggressive. "Why can't you let us in? Get someone on the phone right now."

First, I don't have a phone, but I assumed she meant my radio. Secondly, I said, "Get who on the phone?"

"I don't like your attitude," said the man. By now the woman was right in my face.

"You let other people in without passes!" she said.

"Uh, no I don't." I replied.

"Yes you do," said the man, "I've seen you. You let in all kinds of criminals and villains."

Seriously. That's what he said.

I paused. "Well, first of all," I said, "I've never seen you before. This is the first day you've seen me."

"No, we saw you yesterday."

"No you didn't," I said, "I wasn't working."

"Ah, who needs this place!" said the man. "Our caravan was robbed last week and now this!"

(I later checked this out, and it was true. Still...)

"If you just go and sort out your passes..." I said.

By now the woman was very close, and brandishing her crutches in a threatening manner. No, really. It's not funny.

At this moment, Jabba turned up and he later told me he expected her to attack me. And I think she would have done if her old man hadn't suddenly said, "Oh, forget it. Come on... COME ON!" and literally dragged her away.

They then ran into my boss around the corner and moaned about not being let in. "Actually..." he said, and informed them that we were right to turn them away. They went ballistic.

They actually returned later with day passes and were chock-full of the warmth of sarcasm. "I hope the security on our caravan tonight is as good as on this gate," he said, "But I know it won't be."

"I dunno... if you tell me where you're staying, I'll pop round at four with a baseball bat," I wanted to say, but really couldn't. Still, in their fury they'd let their name slip and are no doubt being gassed as we speak. Or possibly being offered an upgrade.

posted by Sheamus @ 2:00 am

Saturday 14th
Sunday, 15 April 2007

Cor blimey guvnor.

I had to nip into work earlier today, before I was due to begin my shift, to change my bank account details on the payroll. Well, it was all a bit sombre when I got there but my boss was too busy to inform me of what had happened, but promised to fill us all in at 6pm.

Turned out the complex was robbed last night; well, almost. This chap had hidden himself away at closing time on Friday night and decided he may as well empty the £500 fruit machines while he was all by his lonesome. He was knowledgable enough to know he couldn't leave the building without setting off all the alarms so he stayed hidden. Only problem was the stupid bastard fell asleep under a table and was discovered by some shocked cleaners at 6am today. In his panic, he bolted, leaving behind his swag-bag.

Well, it was all captured on CCTV of course - the entire complex is basically an episode of Big Brother - and the crook only fucking well turned out to be a 'close friend' of Captain Jack's! Worse, he was staying with him at the time and Jack had only been cheeky enough to slip him a fake pass to move in and out of the complex without the rest of the door team telling him to fuck off.

End result: Jack's been fucking suspended while an investigation is going on. Nobody knows if it was an 'inside job' or whether he was involved at all - from what I can deduce it appears to be just a fucking crappy bit of judgement on his part - but those in-the-know have said that nobody has ever returned from a suspension at the park. Time will tell. The thing is, I don't think him going is a positive development at all. Not only will it leave us consistently short-staffed but for all of his flaws he does have the experience and does have some skills that are bloody useful. If he's involved at all, then fine, he's fucked himself, but otherwise, I'm not sure it's anything more than a major bit of bad luck based on stupidity on his part.

What this meant tonight is that on the busiest shift I've ever seen - there were easily 1500 people in the nightclubs - there was only two of us on. Two. Early on tonight I'll admit I had a very bad feeling and was picking up all kinds of nasty vibes, but unbelievably it went as smooth as Kelly Brook's bottom. But that isn't the point; as I've said before, this job brings enough risk with it where there is a chance you could die, and it quite frankly is not fucking good enough. We have a new bloke starting this Monday, and while it's going to be nice to have another body, what's the odds he turns out to be a right cunt? I was amazed during my SIA training that the guys I was with were all decent. You expect one or two tossers on things like this. So we're due one.

Incidentally, Bilbo was meant to be working tonight but never showed up. What a guy.

In other news, I saw Barry from Eastenders at the Crypt last night, and earlier on for a drink in the Brass Monkey. He was actually on very good form; while he's a bit of a berk and naturally it's not my kind of thing, all kudos to the guy because he does have a pretty good voice and his performance in Extras is class. The only slightly tragic part is that he was surrounded by lackeys and it was all a bit like art-imitating-life-imitating-art.

Or something.

posted by Sheamus @ 3:25 am

Hallelujah.
Thursday, 12 April 2007

My biggest gripe tonight is that the entire complex was basically deserted from 12.30am but did we close at 1? Did we fuck. Even though I was told by the bar staff that between 1am and 1.30am they only took nine fucking quid we didn't call last orders until ten to two. Fucking ludicrous.

It's funny the difference a week can make. Seven days ago Captain Jack was firmly at the bottom of my PSR (Personal Security Rankings) but despite the odds he's moved above both Bilbo and The Lodge this week. Earlier tonight Bilbo, who was off to work the lower bar told us, "Look, don't worry about your breaks. I'll be back up at 10.30pm and you can all go on your breaks then." Did we ever see him again? What do you think?

Cunt.

You can understand why, but one of the shitest things about this job is being unable to accept the offer of a drink from a punter. I get at least two a night, and I know damn well if I accepted them I'd get more. But this isn't the 1980s; you can't do this line of work and be knocking back pint after pint. You just can't. It still sucks though. But it's all so worthwhile when you realise the power - and I'm absolutely referring to the mental here, and not the physical - that you, as a sober person, have over a drunk when anything threatens to kick off. They seem so slow and obvious. It's incredibly revealing. You should try it.

An escalating problem over the past couple of weeks has been the presence of intoxicated staff in the main bar at closing time. We're talking about little groups of 6-8 here. Most of them are okay and leave without much bother, but there's two or three who fall somewhere between 'tossers' and 'dildos'. A couple of them are barstaff, and they're the cunts I mentioned previously who always serve the underage girls just because they've got their tits on show. Utter wankers. The complex is trying to crack down on this but it's a tricky one; they're torn somewhere between ensuring that the staff don't become a nuisance but also relishing getting back 10-20 per cent of their day's pay in one or two hours. It's all money, money, money around here, and fuck you if you try to inject some sense into the equation.

Mr Sorry came up to me earlier and wanted a quiet word. "Look mate," he said, "Is there any chance I can see the CCTV tapes from last night?" I told him that (a) it wasn't my call and (b) either way it seemed pretty unlikely. I asked him why, and he said, "Well, I've been accused of touching those girls up and my missus is going fucking spare." I knew this would happen. I said as much last night. The wife says one thing to me, defending 'her man', and then thinks about it and immediately starts accusing him of the crime. Women. Still, I've learned a lesson here, and that's to be fucking careful what you say. Especially to drunks.

I'm off to begin my two day's vacation. Be good.

posted by Sheamus @ 3:40 am

Always four sides to a story.
Wednesday, 11 April 2007

Yesterday, this guy comes to the main gates without a pass. We don't let anybody in without a pass. He's a bit aggressive from the offset, and when I won't budge, starts getting a bit funny. "My missus is inside with me pass," he says, as they inevitably do.

Call her then, I say.

"I don't have a phone."

"I can't let you in, mate. Wait a bit and the other security guy will be back and he'll walk you up."

"You get him on the phone now."

"He'll be back in a minute mate."

"You're telling me I can't go in; I want him here now."

"Yeah, in a minute."

Then he storms off. I never saw him again.

Tonight, at about 7pm, he showed up again. Except amongst the thousand people I'd seen pass since, I didn't recognise him. Still, he came up to me to shake my hand. "Sorry about last night mate," he said, "I'd had a bit of a shit day."

"Er..." I said, "What happened last night?"

He laughed and I shook his hand anyway. Why fight it? At least three times a day somebody apologises to me about something that I have no memory of whatsoever. Just accept it. Usually, when I go home, it'll come rushing back to me, but this job's a hell of a lot fucking easier if you let the people come to you.

And indeed, around 9pm he came back out of the complex and by then I'd remembered who he was, told him, and shook his hand again. End of.

We were massively understaffed tonight, of course. Only four turned up, and two of them - The Lodge and Bilbo who, despite the odds, returned to work - went down to the lower bar. This left Edmonson and myself doing the entire complex by ourselves. We did four hours on the gates that keep out/allow in the riff-raff from/to the main complex. What this meant was that if anything kicked off in one of the bars, we'd be at least two minutes away from doing anything about it.

Fine. At ten, we moved up to the main doors, which kept us about ten seconds away. However, because it was so busy and because we were only two, most of our time was being taken up right at those doors. Every so often one of us would have a quick walk around and it's really just a massive stroke of luck that the bars never really got too full otherwise we could have had a major problem on our hands.

However, all that said, around midnight we get a call over the radio from one of the park security guys, who we'll call Johnson. He's a nice enough guy who (a) really wants to be on the doors instead of park and (b) comes down to the complex all the time anyway, using the excuse that he's "helping out the guys", because his missus works down the lower bar and, post-11pm, moves up to the top to have a few drinks. By all accounts, it gives them a bit of quality time, even if this is to the chagrin of the other chaps on park.

Anyway, back to his message: "ALL DOORS TO THE SHOWBAR. ALL DOORS TO THE SHOWBAR." Well, we go rushing in, and I'm there first. The lights have been switched on on the dancefloor and there's a bunch of people there. I quickly single out two blokes, probably 19-20 years old, and two younger girls that they're with. I ask Johnson what happened and he tells me that a fight was about to break out between these lads and another chap at the other side of the bar.

I look over ther, and see a woman, seated with a baby in a pram, gesturing wildly to this man. And guess who it is? That's right, Mr Sorry from earlier. Well, I walk over, and catch the end of the conversation. They're both fucked out of their skulls, and the gist of it was that he was asking her if he did anything wrong, and she was telling him that he had not. That it was them. It's always them. I asked her what had happened and she said the two 19-20 year olds had started dancing 'aggressively' near her baby.

By now, the two other blokes and their girls had gone outside and Mr Sorry disappeared somewhere. I went outside to get a bit more information and was informed that the girls had stated that while they'd all been dancing Mr Sorry had been touching them up on the dancefloor. That puts another spin on it, I thought. They also told me that Mr Sorry's wife had rushed off outside. I went to find her, and lo and behold, there she was. Pissed, of course. I asked her what had happened, and then let it slip what her bloke had been accused of. "We've been married for 17 years," she said, as if that was some kind of alibi, "As far as I know he's only been with me." So that's two strikes, basically. She was, however, quite adamant that he was only dancing, and that what actually happened was the two other blokes got aggressive with him because he was moving around a bit too much for their liking. So, I went back inside and informed the complex manager of what I'd been told. I figured while I was chatting to his missus the rest of the door team was talking to Mr Sorry, but they didn't actually know who he was. I spotted him outside the main bar and took him outside to his wife. As they walked off, it dawned on me that, in, I'm sorry, that typical woman's way, she probably said those things to me in some kind of automatic defense of her man, but on the way back to their caravan probably starting breaking down in tears and accusing him of fondling some young girls. "The doorman said he saw you," she probably said. Great.

I went back inside to speak to the complex manager in his office. I wanted his verdict on what action needed to be taken, but he'd had a quick review on the security cameras and his opinion was that all it looked like was a bunch of pissheads dancing a bit too close together and getting the wrong idea; Mr Sorry, dancing and moving/staggering backwards, had brushed his extended arms against the two girls while facing the opposite way. The girls' reaction tipped off their men, and etc, etc, blah blah fucking blah.

This story had four sides:

1. The mother thought the two blokes were dancing too aggressively near her child; she sided with Mr Sorry.

2. The two girls accused Mr Sorry of feeling them up.

3. Mr Sorry's wife stated that the two blokes had been aggressive towards him.

4. The complex manager, and the camera, told us it was just a bunch of pissheads.

Everybody thinks their version is the truth.

Thank fuck tomorrow is my last day of the week.

posted by Sheamus @ 3:30 am

Women, equality and Kit Kats.
Tuesday, 10 April 2007

Well, only four did show up tonight (possibly thankfully, thrillseekers), but it was so bloody quiet I'm pretty sure we could have coped with less. Did that mean we closed up nice and early? Did it fuck.

Two of our doorstaff have gone AWOL; one is Bilbo, who hasn't returned since his episode on Saturday. The other is our second female doorstaffer which is far more of a problem. Before we had it set so there was at least one lady on the doors each night of the week. Now, only five nights are going to be covered, and as it's far more important to have a woman in the main complex than the lower bar this means the rest of us will have to rotate the solo shift on the latter, which quite frankly sucks all kinds of tedious arse.

The lady we have left - The Lodge - is actually the most qualified of all of us. This also means she takes the most piss. Before the recent events she did the lower bar every day she was in; this was fine with the rest of us because, as said, the lower bar is more than a bit dull. She loved it, however, as she's friendly with the manageress and basically spends most of her time sitting around, sipping coffees and having a good-old chinwag. To be honest, that's fine. As said, we were happy for her to have this seemingly cushty shift, as the rest of us find it utterly boring. Worse, given that we're all greedy bastards who like to squeeze in several extra meals a day, being stuck down there means we can't exercise our fifty per cent off at Burger King at 10pm.

Tonight, however, because the other lady appears to have done a runner, The Todge had to come up to the main complex. To be honest, she's a nice enough person but because she's the most experienced of all of us, and the only woman, she knows damn well the chances of her getting fired are slim-to-none. What this means is that she takes every opportunity to do the things mentioned above - most of which revolve around sitting down - and tonight was no exception. Even Captain Jack called attention to it - she disappeared for a while until he found her sipping on a Coke in the main restaurant and chatting to a few punters. She must have been there for half an hour. Now, we're all entitled to a break - allegedly - but did she announce it? Did she fuck.

Ah, the break. I haven't mentioned this. Legally, we have to have a half-hour break per each eight-hour shift. We're told we have to take it. In fact, we're automatically docked half-an-hour's pay each shift to ensure we do take it. This is all well and good. The hard and fast reality is that my average daily break since I've been here has been somewhere between seven and ten minutes and the most I've ever had is about fifteen. Does this matter? Does it fuck. A few of us have pointed this out and the answer is always, "Oh, you must take your break." So we've wised up. If we finished at 2am, well shit... we actually finished at 2.30 am. Have some of that, mother-heifers. The best part about all that is that we're positively encouraged to act this way by the middle-management.

You want to hear something funny? Our missing female doorstaffer did two of the 9am-6pm day-shifts per week too, on Wednesday and Thursday, and now they're basically unattended. They need to be covered, however, and Captain Jack actually had the nerve to ask if any of us lads would fancy doing those too. On top of our current schedule. "It sounds bad," he said, "But if you think about it, over two days that's 32 hours. A lot of money." Yeah, 9am-2am on back-to-back days, not forgetting for all of us we'd also be working 6pm-2am on the Tuesday beforehand, too. Forty hours over 2.5 days. Fuck off, in other words.

I shouldn't complain though; there are some perks. Why, just tonight the complex was over-delivered eight boxes of bags of Mini Kit Kats and we were told to take as much as we wanted. I grabbed four bags, and will get some more later in the week. What? Free is free.

Earlier tonight I had the pleasure of working the DJ booth. What this means is ensuring that those nasty punters don't try and smoke and drink on the dance floor or - heavens, no - dare to step within about ten yards of any of the female ENTS team doing the old wheels of steel.

What this means for me is being an eternal filter for fuck-awful song requests ("Have you got that one by that bloke? Oh, you know...") and having at least one late-forties, enormously-breasted female divorcee coming over to you each and every hour and asking you to smile/dance/listen to her talk bollocks. That's not really fair, as most of them are sweet enough people, but fucking hell they don't half talk some shit. And it's boring shit, too. If this job wakes you up to anything it's how unbelievably uninteresting a drunk person can be. This, however, and of course, is inversely proportional to how unbelievably fascinating they feel they are. And we all do it. I'm a firm believer that alcohol brings out the 'real' person, but if that's actually true then human beings really are the most insufferable pseuds.

posted by Sheamus @ 3:15 am

Getting back what you put in.
Monday, 9 April 2007

Sunday is definitely the best day. It was heaving tonight, but peaceful as pie and that's the third Sunday in a row it's been like this. It dragged a bit at times, but generally things were OK. Only real area of complaint was that only three doorstaff showed up, and as one of them was Cap'n Jack, that means only really two were working. Still, rumour has it we'll have seven attending tomorrow, but if more than four check in I'll do my shift eau natural.

I forgot to mention one particular incident yesterday. We had, for some reason, a lot of Irish in, and by 'Irish' I mean the stereotypical traveller kind. As I said I was working the lower bar and the girl there with me - who shall be known as The Lodge - noticed that one group of six or seven males and females had sneaked in a litre of vodka and were making themselves little drinks on the side. Well, obviously we can't have that, but instead of just taking the bottle off them and then returning it at the end of the night, The Lodge decided to not only pour it down the sink, but point it out to them while she was doing it. "It's company policy," she later lied through her teeth to me. Well, all I could think about was how it had to kick off, and the shit I was going to take from these four beefy Irish lads anytime now. Except it never happened. The Lodge got a stream of abuse and I believe they were eventually barred, but they were nice as pie to me. Still, talk about match to a fuse.

However, one other group of emerald travellers didn't fair so well. The adults were all fine but when one little seven-year old girl decided she'd stick her arm up the two-pence fountain machine and try and grab one of the toys for herself without paying, God stepped in and turned her wrist and elbow into lead. To say she got stuck is a bit of an understatement. It took about five adults, a bottle of Fairy liquid, a bag of ice and a bucketload of tears to get her out. The family left in shame and while you never like to see kids in pain, she was trying to tea-leaf us. So, it worked out well in the end, really.

posted by Sheamus @ 3:00 am

Mutiny for the bounty.
Sunday, 8 April 2007

A so-so night work-wise with nothing much happening really; I spent nearly seven hours of it down the bar at the lower end of the park and while it was busy it was uneventful.

However, there was gossip to be had, and it came with a barbed tongue.

Seems like while I was away one or two things happened, and most of it seemed to revolve around team concerns with the most senior member of our group. That's senior in experience, not years. We'll call him Jack. He's been working here for a couple of years and while I respect that he's done his dues and doesn't really want to concern himself with the bullshit, there's a big difference between that and doing as much as you can to keep yourself away from the nitty-gritty. In this job you're only as strong as the weakest link in your chain, and while he may not necessarily be it per se, he does enough of this little annoying things to cause ripples. Yesterday, by all accounts, Jabba was involved in quite a serious situation and Jack didn't turn up to assist. Now, there's a pretty blatantly fucking obvious code in this job and that is if you actually want to fucking do it, then want to fucking do it. It's easy to showboat and say you're a doorman and then conveniently not actually be there when there's something brewing. We'd heard a few rumours involving Jack's absenteeism from others but benefit of the doubt and all that; one of the main problems with this job, and this firm, is everything seems to be somebody's version. At least be decent enough to provide somebody with enough rope.

Well, we've been doing that, and folk aren't happy. Jabba was seriously pissed, as was another chap who we'll call Bilbo. Both took their concerns to our boss but Bilbo mistakenly opening the case with, "You're risking a mutiny..." to which the boss basically replied, "Well, you know where the door is." Now Jabba's even more pissed. Bilbo's fuming to the extent that he's offering people jobs in another complex at double the money, but that stinks so bad that even the flies are suspicious.

But then the plot thickens. You see, Jack is a gentleman of colour. This is of no concern to me but last year there was, it seems, another black fellow on the doors and he became involved in an incident where our boss was accused of racism. Now, by all accounts those accusations were unfounded, but the event went on record nonetheless. Now, my firm and particularly my boss seem to be shatting themselves at the possibility of that kind of name-calling resurfacing, and hence turning a massive blind eye to anything involving Captain Jack.

Or... that may be just your typical B.S. that always seems to circulate whenever anybody is looking for an excuse.

Still, Jabban's hinting about leaving and all I can think about is, "Fuck. That basically just leaves me on the doors on Saturday."

i.e., I'll be dead in a month.

The problem is that quite frankly we're not paid enough to put ourselves in a position of genuine risk, but we're expected to do so. Without going too OTT in this job you could die. It's unlikely, but it can and does happen from time to time. And so if you're taking on that kind of risk, albeit one that only crops up from time to time, you expect to have back-up and you damn well fucking expect support. Right now, we have none of that.

Incidentally, last week I arrived at work after everybody else was there. They were having a meeting with the boss and when I walked in Bilbo told us about a situation that had occurred the previous night. A guest had come up to him and said, "Yeah, I was talking to your boss earlier...", to which Bilbo responded that they couldn't have been as it was the boss' day off.

"No, no... earlier, up in the main bar..."

Bilbo asked the guest to describe him, to which he said, "You know, stocky guy, a bit shorter than you, unshaven..." etc etc.

Well, it turned out that he was describing me. We all had a laugh about it and then I said to my actual boss, "Yeah, I am in charge, aren't I?" I think this might have backfired as I've been given the cold shoulder even since.

However, walking away, it suddenly hit me. I was gutted. And here's why. Bilbo is about 5ft5. I couldn't give a crap that somebody thought I was made of boss-like material. All I could think about was:

"How could they think he was taller than me!?"

posted by Sheamus @ 4:07 am

Mental.
Thursday, 5 April 2007

Yesterday, a lady came up to me and asked me to keep an eye on her grandson; he was about seven or so, and specifically she asked me to ensure he didn't leave the complex. I said I'd do the best I could, but it really wasn't my job. Besides, there are thousands of kids swarming around. Unless they're causing trouble, one pretty much looks like another.

Well, she repeated the same request tonight, except this time the kid wasn't around. I said, again, I'd do my best, etc etc, blah blah blah.

Well, later on a bunch of kids came up to me and said that there was this one child who was jumping up and down on one of the arcade machines, swearing at everybody, kicking people, and generally being a right pest. I went up to him, and it was that same seven-year old (although I didn't really cotton on to this until later.)

To be honest, he looked a sweet enough kid. I got him off the machine and asked the others again what he had been doing, and they said the same stuff, but added he'd also been sticking his fingers up at everybody. So, I crouched down to his level and said something like, "Listen mate, you can't really do that..."

And the little bugger stuck his fingers up.

After tracking down his grandmother it turned out the little chap was autistic. Nothing much to be done there; he seemed, as I said, sweet enough, and I basically turned a blind eye from that point forward, but did keep an eye out for him when I could. This episode, however, turned out to be the nicest story of a night that could only be described as mental. Now, I don't mean any offense, but that term works perfectly on a two-fold basis tonight - one, because all kinds of crap kicked off and, two, it did appear to be, for want of a better term, 'special needs night'.

Everybody needs a pass to enter the complex. The pass is king; the pass, in fact, is gold dust. Without it, you're back on the street. Now, typically, this is fine. Most people accept and understand that if we let passless locals into the complex they're getting for free what everybody else is shelling out for. However, if you're one of those 16-year old jailbaiters I mentioned yesterday this doesn't concern you. What does matter is getting those 'well hot' boys you met earlier today down Priory Meadow into the clubs. You can accomplish this like so: enter the complex with your best mate, both of you with valid passes. Later, leave the complex alone, and go and meet one boy outside. Return with said boy, quickly flashing passes to avoid close inspection from the door staff. Then, other friend leaves complex, meets other boy, and repeats. If more boys are available, keep doing this until x locals are inside the complex. Heck, why not invite a few more of their female mates, too. Before you know it, it's a fucking party.

Now, a week or so ago this was clearly going on but we were none the wiser. However, since being told a few days ago that so many locals had crept past us we've really sorted ourselves out; fuck me if we aren't on stealth mode 24/7 now. Nobody in the 12-17 bracket gets past us without a thorough pass inspection. A quick flash won't do, honey, in every sense. The funny part about this is that a certain percentage of kids seem to just forget their passes, but instead of walking miles back to where they've left them, they'll either borrow or steal one off of somebody else. This means that another person is without a pass. Often this is one of their friends, so they'll go back outside and hand this rogue pass to a mate, then come back in alone knowing we'll let them re-enter because we've already seen them. The friend then enters with the dodgy pass.

Well, that shit ended tonight. If you were 12-17, you were fucking checked if you even breathed a bit too closely to the exit doors. What we discovered was thrice-fold: one, that a core group were sharing about five passes between about ten of them; two, that a few of the jailbaiters were actually locals who'd been coming here for days; and three, that when you catch people out they more often than not go fucking loopy.

One kid smashed his mobile phone up in front of us. I mean, literally to smithereens. The shattered pieces were still there when I finally left at 3am. Others whose passes had expired several days ago start going to such ridiculous lengths to justify why this has happened and how it was actually okay that at some point you find yourself admiring their chutzpah.

Ultimately, I ended up confiscating a whole bunch of passes, two 17-year olds got carted off the site and an entire pack of rabid locals went home with their tails firmly between their knock-kneed legs.

After all that, it got better. Then the adults started losing it.

One chap who we let in was being shown out literally 25 minutes later for being loud, abusive and offensive to the ENTS girls. Once outside, he threatened to bottle all the 'fat bald bouncer cunts' and went so mental that I suspected for a second or two that he might actually spontaneously combust. The situation got to a point where his 'mother' - actually a carer - turned up to deal with it; she didn't fancy getting near him, however, and explained to us that he'd recently had a brain hemorrhage and was prone to doing this. Yeah, great idea to take him on holiday and get him plouged with alcohol then, love.

Another chap entered the venue totally pissed and was soon escorted out. Later, I was called to a 'disturbance' outside and turned up to find him face down in a hedge with his trousers around his ankles, somewhere mid-shit. Obviously I wasn't going to deal with that. That's for the boys in park. About twenty minutes later, though, he turned up at the main gates again. We saw him off, but fucking hell, he must have been walking on a pant-full of logs.

The owner I mentioned a while back did actually turn up and apologise. Actually, what he said was, "I have no problems with what happened last week mate," which with analysis sounded a bit less like an apology from him and more like he was accepting one from me. However, everybody I've spoken to says he's a good sort and it was very out-of-character so I'm prepared to leave it at that, assuming it doesn't happen again. He left quietly enough tonight.

With thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ and/or Lucifer, depending on who is really in charge, I'm now just beginning two wonderful days off, so don't expect much from me until early Sunday morning. Until then, take care of yourselves.

posted by Sheamus @ 3:59 am

Jailbait Rock.
Wednesday, 4 April 2007

Each night of the week there's some kind of cabaret performance in the adult bar and being absolutely frank most of the time it's dreadful; fifty-something never-beens who will probably do anything for sixty quid and a cab ride home who, most of the time are, at best, a distraction, and often actually turn out to be a major negative. One 'comedian' last week almost incited the audience into a riot, he was so awful.

Tonight, however, the male singer who turned up - late forties, shaved head - was actually half-decent. He had a well above-average voice and while as per usual he just churned out a bunch of 'classic' covers he did them well enough and had a good-enough grasp on the half-shot audience to be fairly entertaining. It's easy to be overly critical when you're stone-cold sober and looking po-faced from the back of the room but hat's off to him. He did alright. A rare bird indeed.

Birds of a far more frequent nature are the once or twice mentioned 15-16 year-olds in push-up bras and mini-skirts who seem to be multiplying in numbers each and every day I work. Now, I'm alright - I'm a happily married man* - but Jesus Christ these girls are jailbait personified.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but when I was 16-years old and skipping the only two lessons I had each week in the sixth form at school the average bra size amongst the ladies in my year was, at best, a B. Sure, you'd get the odd C-cup now and then but the only time your peepers ever stared wide-eyed at a set of Ds, or more, was on a girl who, let's be fair, was fairly equally proportioned. You know, 5ft2 and 14 stone, with Coke-bottle glasses and greasy hair. OK, so you probably still would, but somewhere between 15 and 18 you become almost certifiably mad.

About a decade ago I remember reading that the average female bra size had increased to a C. Nowadays, in the heady climate of 2007, if it's anything less than a D I'll quit the West and live out my dream life as a Tibetan monk. I'm not sure if they - and by 'they' I of course mean men - put something in the water or what but tits are everywhere.

That's all well and good, but tits on a 15-year old are bad news. Particularly when over fifty per cent of them are on view.

Now, don't get me wrong - I like breasts as much as the next man - but I have my limits. A code, if you will. But not everybody shares this samurai-like existence. And that's where yet another problem keeps cropping up.

I've already mentioned a couple of times about the problems with underage drinking and, specifically, service. Now, it's alright for me to be funny about very young girls in very tight tops because, quite frankly, I am old enough to be their father. In fact, in some cases, I probably am their father. But for a 19-year old bartender a 15-16 year old girl is a lot less of a taboo. Particularly when her norks are resting on the bar. Now, while there's almost no chance of him getting anything more than a smile and a cheeky conversation - her dad, after all, is probably less than 50 yards away at all times - it does tend to mean that he turns one or two blind eyes to, you know, actually asking her for ID and stuff because, fuck me, even if she held it up in front of his face his eyes would never leave her decolletage.

What this means is, as per usual, yours truly and the other mugs who turn up at 6pm have to pick up the pieces. This means ID checks around the clock, often in front of parents who don't give a fuck and more often that not will then turn around and continue buying the drinks for their nubile offspring even after we've pointed at a scoreboard which clearly states 'nil point'.

Believe me, if I had a pound for every time this has happened in the past week, I'd have enough to buy one of the young ladies a top that fits. The upcoming lecture to the barstaff comes free.

* Honest.

posted by Sheamus @ 2:43 am

Dilemma.
Tuesday, 3 April 2007

Earlier in the week a chap pulled me to one side at the bar and asked me to keep an eye on his "mate". Except, the reality was he'd only just met him, but in that drunkard way that we all do, they were now very close. Well, the guy's story was pretty tragic - his new best friend had very recently lost his wife in a car accident and he wanted me to keep an eye on him as he was going at it pretty hard. No problem, I said. The guy then added that I might want to keep an eye on him as well as he was an alcoholic. He was very drunk, but he then laughed it off and said he was only kidding.

No problem.

Well, he's been very drunk every night this week and it's pretty blatantly fucking clear that he is an alcoholic. Better, his entire family appears to be either taking the same express train or already at the fucking station.

The thing is he's an incredibly pleasant guy; he's not offensive, bad mannered or aggressive in any way. He just takes forever to get out of the club.

His wife is a pisshead too, and while he's quite animated and talkative, by midnight she just sits there like a zombie. We had to kick his eldest son out earlier because he was absolutely wasted but still trying to get drinks at the bar - again, like I wrote a few posts back, it didn't help that despite being told not to one of the barstaff was either still serving him or turning a blind eye when somebody paid for his order. The last straw was when he downed a double-Sambuka/Red Bull right in front of this barman and I had to cart him out. He went pretty amicably, but Jesus Christ - way to make our job more difficult.

Now, the alcoholic guy's eldest daughter is about 15-16 and one of those girls who is always wearing some skin-tight, barely-there number that pushes her tits up to her eyeballs and her arse halfway out of her shorts. She's pleasant enough but struts around the complex like she's what everybody came to see. As a result, all the 15-21 year old blokes there hit on her 24/7 which pisses her dad off to the nth. It can be a pretty lewd place at times and he's already had to tell a few chaps to fuck off. The reality is, of course, that if anybody wanted to have a serious go at her or she wanted a crack at them by midnight he's too far gone to do much about it anyway. She could be shagging ten blokes a night on the dancefloor and I'm not sure he'd really notice.

He also has a 4-year old daughter, and this is really where my problem is. As said, tonight both he and his wife were completely gone and as usual were the last family left in the club after closing time. So it's about 1.30am and his wife has been escorted out of the bar by an also-pissed owner and taken him. Meantime, he's left with his sleeping 4-year old and he has to get her home. He has to carry her home, basically. We can't do it. If he'd have been in a coma in the floor we'd have had to do something, but legally we're taking on all kinds of risk if we offer to pick her up and walk her back to his pitch.

So, one of the guys cleared a huge walkway between the chairs and tables for him to take her home. He woke her so he could put her coat back on - believe me, it was fucking freezing outside tonight - and then watching him take about fifteen minutes to tell her it was OK while she cried constantly and then prepare himself to lift her was one of the most tragic things I've ever seen. We made sure he made it out OK and he seemed like he had his balance under control, but Christ... these are not things you really should be privy to. And I don't just mean that in an eyewitness sense - what has that guy's life come to that tells him it's OK to be the only person left with his 4-year old daughter in a club at 1.30am in the morning, and he's pissed out of his fucking skull?

posted by Sheamus @ 2:36 am

Crazy chicks.
Monday, 2 April 2007

Extremely busy again tonight but the punters went out easily enough around 1am - most of them were even singing - so nothing to complain about really. We had a full team on both days this weekend, plus the football security boys, so it was easy enough.

Speaking of them, I'm not sure if I mentioned this but if you think of the stereotype of the 'bouncer' then that's exactly what they were - one wonders if they slipped through some of the SIA's cracks as they had history of violence written all over them, and acted like it. They're back again in May when the entire complex has been booked just for the footballers. That's going to be a riot, I'm sure. We've been told all we need to care about is our staff, but I can see that all going a bit tits up.

The only real bother tonight was with women - one particularly mental one who had already received multiple warnings yesterday followed some bloke into the toilet and offered him no-strings sex. His missus found out and the two ladies went at it and had to be separated. The sexee was barred. I never witnessed any of it but it sounded great.

Later, and somewhat annoyingly, I was pulled to one side by one of the security higher-uppers and informed that we'd let "twenty to thirty locals" in to the complex. I couldn't believe it, and at first thought he was accusing me of having done it alone. But he wasn't - it was just a word of advice. The number still sounded high and all I can imagine is that they must have all blagged passes off of other people. The problem is that if anything is going to kick off there's a good chance a local will be involved, so we'll have to be a bit more vigilant in the future.

It's supposed to be quiet the rest of the week and I feel we're going to be overstaffed; still, that's better than how it was a week ago. Roll on Thursday, redux.

posted by Sheamus @ 2:18 am

Busy, busy, busy.
Sunday, 1 April 2007

Fairly straightforward tonight. The place was jam-packed and the busiest I've seen it to date - at least a couple of thousand people - and kids were swarming everywhere, all mental and random like kids are. The alterno-security team looked like stereotypical bouncers but were decent enough, even if they did clock off at 12.30am to have a few pints at the bar. Me? I finished at 2.45am, but there was a bonus as some moron had left six double-vodka Red Bulls unclaimed when he fucked off home. Even the cans hadn't been opened. Result.

The incident with the owner I had earlier in the week appears to be heading towards some kind of resolution - he was contacted by management and, perhaps not surprisingly, or possibly conveniently, has no memory of what happened. He wants to come and see me this Wednesday to apologise so we'll see how that goes. If he's straight up I'm fine with it; otherwise, we're looking at a summer of endless tension, and nobody wants that. Interestingly enough, I saw one of his sons out and about down town on my day off on Friday, and I could see he was trying to place me but couldn't. Blanked me tonight, though, the cunt.

We actually had a full team in operation today for the first time since I've started. The most seasoned doorman returned from a week off and immediately began barking orders about and telling the rest of us what to do. The problem is he's at least ten years younger than the rest of us and earning the exact same money, so pretty quickly we all decided we didn't really give a fuck. He's alright but a bit of a Jack-the-lad type, and prone to saying he wants us to do XYZ while he goes off and takes a 30-minute break in the staff room and then claims it was only ten.

Met another new chap tonight as well, who claims to own his own security firm and offered me a spot on his team working this year's Glastonbury festival. Five days/four nights and you camp over. It's almost double what I'm earning now and could be an experience, but I remain unconvinced at this moment whether he's straight up or full of it. I'll keep an open mind until I learn otherwise.

I tell you what - one day off was not enough. Roll on next Thursday.

posted by Sheamus @ 3:30 am

A Dirty Job

Contact Me

Recent Musings

Archives

Women.
Monday, 30 April 2007

Dancers. Or 'cunts', as they're more commonly known.
Sunday, 29 April 2007

Microsoft staff photo, c. 1978
Friday, 27 April 2007

The death of Shrek.
Thursday, 26 April 2007

Dirty Shirty
Wednesday, 25 April 2007

Shirty
Tuesday, 24 April 2007

Top o' the morning to ya.
Monday, 23 April 2007

Piss, Polish paedos and spit.
Sunday, 22 April 2007

Paedos and nymphos.
Thursday, 19 April 2007

"There's a paedophile in the building, REPEAT... A PAEDOPHILE IS IN THE BUILDING..."
Wednesday, 18 April 2007

We ain't got Jack.
Tuesday, 17 April 2007

The usual shit.
Monday, 16 April 2007

Saturday 14th
Sunday, 15 April 2007

Hallelujah.
Thursday, 12 April 2007

Always four sides to a story.
Wednesday, 11 April 2007

Women, equality and Kit Kats.
Tuesday, 10 April 2007

Getting back what you put in.
Monday, 9 April 2007

Mutiny for the bounty.
Sunday, 8 April 2007

Mental.
Thursday, 5 April 2007

Jailbait Rock.
Wednesday, 4 April 2007

Dilemma.
Tuesday, 3 April 2007

Crazy chicks.
Monday, 2 April 2007

Busy, busy, busy.
Sunday, 1 April 2007

A Dirty Job

Contact Me

Recent Musings

Archives

Women. Monday, 30 April 2007

Dancers. Or 'cunts', as they're more commonly known. Sunday, 29 April 2007

Microsoft staff photo, c. 1978 Friday, 27 April 2007

The death of Shrek. Thursday, 26 April 2007

Dirty Shirty Wednesday, 25 April 2007

Shirty Tuesday, 24 April 2007

Top o' the morning to ya. Monday, 23 April 2007

Piss, Polish paedos and spit. Sunday, 22 April 2007

Paedos and nymphos. Thursday, 19 April 2007

"There's a paedophile in the building, REPEAT... A PAEDOPHILE IS IN THE BUILDING..." Wednesday, 18 April 2007

We ain't got Jack. Tuesday, 17 April 2007

The usual shit. Monday, 16 April 2007

Saturday 14th Sunday, 15 April 2007

Hallelujah. Thursday, 12 April 2007

Always four sides to a story. Wednesday, 11 April 2007

Women, equality and Kit Kats. Tuesday, 10 April 2007

Getting back what you put in. Monday, 9 April 2007

Mutiny for the bounty. Sunday, 8 April 2007

Mental. Thursday, 5 April 2007

Jailbait Rock. Wednesday, 4 April 2007

Dilemma. Tuesday, 3 April 2007

Crazy chicks. Monday, 2 April 2007

Busy, busy, busy. Sunday, 1 April 2007

Women.
Monday, 30 April 2007

Dancers. Or 'cunts', as they're more commonly known.
Sunday, 29 April 2007

Microsoft staff photo, c. 1978
Friday, 27 April 2007

The death of Shrek.
Thursday, 26 April 2007

Dirty Shirty
Wednesday, 25 April 2007

Shirty
Tuesday, 24 April 2007

Top o' the morning to ya.
Monday, 23 April 2007

Piss, Polish paedos and spit.
Sunday, 22 April 2007

Paedos and nymphos.
Thursday, 19 April 2007

"There's a paedophile in the building, REPEAT... A PAEDOPHILE IS IN THE BUILDING..."
Wednesday, 18 April 2007

We ain't got Jack.
Tuesday, 17 April 2007

The usual shit.
Monday, 16 April 2007

Saturday 14th
Sunday, 15 April 2007

Hallelujah.
Thursday, 12 April 2007

Always four sides to a story.
Wednesday, 11 April 2007

Women, equality and Kit Kats.
Tuesday, 10 April 2007

Getting back what you put in.
Monday, 9 April 2007

Mutiny for the bounty.
Sunday, 8 April 2007

Mental.
Thursday, 5 April 2007

Jailbait Rock.
Wednesday, 4 April 2007

Dilemma.
Tuesday, 3 April 2007

Crazy chicks.
Monday, 2 April 2007

Busy, busy, busy.
Sunday, 1 April 2007