Tension.
Monday 11 June 2007
It's rarely a positive when you have to eject somebody within an hour of starting work.
About 7pm tonight, Worthy and Jabba kicked out a guy who had been giving the lead ENTS girl grief and - more seriously, in this place - swiping a bottle of wine without paying for it. He went peacefully enough, but over the course of the night his entire family, and all of their friends, were ejected too.
They were all your cliched London pissheads and the women - specifically, the mother and her sister (i.e., the aunty) were the worst. They always are - drunk middle-aged women are a fucking nightmare. They don't stop talking shit (usually the same shit, on some kind of endless loop) and flat-out refuse to do anything, including leaving. Worthy had been having words with some of their twentysomething kids all night and it mounted to the point where Jabba thought he was going to snap. He called us all into one of the bars to deal with the potential conflict, but also, as he informed me later, to make sure that Worthy didn't go AWOL. Because it looked that way; he had a real fire in his eyes. He was into his second all-day (9am-closing time) shift in a row and it's not a clever move on his part. He needs the money but those kinds of hours are not conducive to peak performance. I was right there when he and one of the lads were smack on the verge of swinging away and to be honest they were as bad as each other. As I said, however, the women were far worse, and took ages to get out. One of them even did a sit-down protest outside the main doors. We really need to get some Tazers. I mean, what are you supposed to do? If I rabbit-punch them I'll be the one who gets blamed.
Both the new guys were off-duty tonight but came up to the complex to have a drink. One of them subsequently got hammered, while the other - the young'un, or Potter, as we'll call him - did not, and later announced himself as a teetotaler. I'm always a bit suspicious of blokes who don't drink but Jabba doesn't either, and he's a cracking lad, so bygones and all that. However... about half-eleven Potter comes outside to get some air and promptly informs us that he's feeling really down on himself and might burst into tears at any time. And that this happens regularly. Why, why, why did he want to be a doorman, then!? It's stressy enough as it is. Jesus. If he lasts the full term - both are contracted for only one month at the moment - I'll be very surprised. I bet he proudly pulls out a Blue Peter badge next week.
Furthermore, it's not really a positive seeing one of your team getting wankered in front of all the guests/owners/staff on his first night off.
Rumour has it Bilbo is going to get the boot in a few days. This has cropped up before and nothing has ever happened, but yet another family member of his was 'rushed into hospital' tonight and he was gone before 8pm, never returning despite promising that he'd be back later. He's either the unluckiest bastard ever or some of these 'incidents' have come straight from Satan's bottom. The new night-manager (Lynch) doesn't like him anyway and neither does #1, so he's definitely on the way out. Sometime. I think the reality is that if they can find somebody solid and permenant enough to replace him, he's gone. I have mixed feelings about it. As I've said before, his heart's in the right place and when the shit hits the fan he's always there, but he's about as reliable as Chris Langham on a school trip. You reap what you sow.
posted by Sheamus @ 1:30 am
