Tolerance.
Monday 4 June 2007
Christ, my buttons were pushed tonight.
We all have a breaking point, and I like to think mine is not only well in the distance, but pretty firm. The last week I've had a few guests, mostly owners, somewhat jokingly telling me that from time to time I'm 'rude' to them, but after discussion what they've agreed is that I'm basically blunt. To the point. A 'straight talker', somebody said.
Fair enough. I can certainly live with that.
Tonight, however, I had so much fucking abuse that one more incident would have seen me going not only past the edge, but so fucking beyond it I'd probably have lost my job.
The problem was that the two incidents I experienced basically happened at the same time... twice.
On Friday, Jabba and Worthy had problems with these two women who got absolutely rat-arsed, starting groping up other women on the dance floor, threatened and swore at other guests (in front of children), and when ejected, repeatedly cursed at and threatened Jabba and #2, even going so far as to raise a glass to them. Pisshead women really are the worst.
The thing was, they tried to come back in on Saturday and when we told them they were barred, they were shocked; they clearly had no memory of any of the incidents and were absolutely apologetic and humble. That, we assumed, was that.
No.
They came back again tonight. I'd never seen them before but Worthy noticed them sneak by us, nodded to me and I escorted them back outside again. They were already pissed, and while not really abusive, were certainly a bit full of it. They kept on asking what they'd one, why they were barred, etc, but I wasn't interested and just told them they had to leave. Worthy, however, started going through all the things they'd done again, and while he did that I turned my attention to two other blokes, and a child, who were coming up to the door.
"Have you got your passes, lads?" I asked.
One of them pulled out his wallet. "I've got mine, mate," he said.
I turned to the other guy. "You got yours mate?"
And then he immediately got funny.
We've discussed this many times at work. While a group showing up without any passes at all is a no-no, if enough people in a booking have remembered their passes then, more often than not, if they're actually, you know, polite, we don't really have a problem with it. Especially if we know their faces. I didn't know the face of either of these guys, however, and one of them went straight into 'cunt' mode.
"Oh come on," he said, "I'm here with my kid. What am I going to do?" and started to push by.
"I'm sorry, mate," I replied, "You can't come in here without a pass."
He started giving it all this and that until I pointedly told him - twice - that if was going to have that kind of attitude he wasn't coming in at all. He shut up then and sent his mate off to get his pass for him (from inside the complex, where he'd apparently left it). The guy returned soon enough and the twat went inside, but not before making some sarcastic remark. I've started to develop a pretty reliable radar for tossers in the club and immediately sought out Jabba to give him the lowdown on the dick, suggesting we may have a problem later. I saw him once again that night, when all he said was 'Alright mate', and I figured (again, foolishly), that that was probably that.
Maybe an hour or so later I was at the door when a big family group came out, with multiple prams, etc, and to be honest I wasn't paying an enormous amount of attention. But when someone asked me for my autograph, I looked around and saw it was the tosser. The passes that guests use to get into the complex have various animal prints on them (for some daft reason) and the current one has a bear, but he seemed to think it was a monkey. "That's your picture on there, isn't it?" he said. He was laughing to himself in that way that people do when something they've said is only funny to them - I clocked his missus and she looked absolutely fucking horrified, as did the other people with him - but he thought it was the best thing ever.
As he'd kind of come up on me out of nowhere I was caught on the backfoot a bit, but I really wasn't in the mood. "You don't want to do this," I said, and stepped up to him. He just carried on walking, pushing out his pram and laughing, while his wife told him to be quiet and everybody else just kind of got on with it. I could feel the heat rising within me and it was one of those times where you were kind of hoping that he'd do something physical, just so you'd have an excuse to punch him in the nuts and then stamp on the side of one of his knees. But he just fucked off laughing that stupid laugh and it actually made me feel a bit empty; a bit ashamed of myself, to a point, because of my inability to react in a way that I found satisfactory, and he found to be a problem. But your options are so fucking limited. Unless a patron actually tries to force violence upon you, there is little you can do. You can roll with it and 99.99 per cent of the time I can wisecrack anybody into a corner, but because this guy was acting like such a prick in front of his wife and child, I just felt like I couldn't do anything. And I'm guessing he knew this, because as said when he was by himself earlier in the night he just did as he was told.
Probably two minutes had passed when Worthy called me into the main bar. I went inside and lo and fucking behold, the mouthier one of the two women had somehow got back into the complex and was sitting at a table having a pint. I went straight up to her and told her, again, that she was barred and had to leave now.
"I'm going to finish my pint," she said.
"You're not," I replied.
"Well, wait till my husband gets back and I'll go."
Husband? Up until now I was pretty sure she was located somewhere on the right-side of 'flaming' and 'lezza' but I gave her the benefit of the doubt. Seconds later this bloke walks up behind me. "Is this him?" I ask her, and she nods.
"Sorry mate," I say, "But your wife has been barred from the complex, and must leave."
"My wife?" he says, "I only met her twenty minutes ago."
The cheeky cow.
I tell her she has to leave now and she stands up, with her glass. She starts giving me all this lip about how I'm this and that (mostly, a wanker) and that she wasn't doing anything wrong, blah blah fucking blah. Eventually she agrees to go but only if her 'husband' can be with her when we escort her outside. By now we've decided to take her through the nearest firedoors, and agree with the plan as it'll make things easier. However, she goes to leave with her half-full pint and when I grab it to stop her, she raises it in a way as if she's going to use it as a weapon. Remember that this is all taking place in a packed main bar and a lot of people are watching. Jabba is nearby and while she begins to rant and rave again, I whisper to him that we're almost certainly going to have to physically remove her. This is something we've never done with a woman before and to be honest raises all kinds of complications.
But then she suddenly downs her pint and starts to go towards the back doors. The man comes along for the ride but I can tell by his face that he's bitten off more than he's prepared to chew and he doesn't stay for long. Once outside, she truly unleashes her torrent of abuse but Jabba and I just humour her, agreeing with what she's saying just to keep her moving. We get her out the back gates where she announces that her real husband is actually the 'chief of police' - you know, like in Cagney & Lacey - so we just step back inside and close the doors behind us. But that ain't good enough for her; no, she has to open them again. Jabba steps up to hold them firm but another violent burst from her catches his arm, which pisses him off no end. He slams the door open and she goes flying a little bit, but no harm done. Now, however, it's all about how she's 'only 5ft2' and how these two 'bald rugby bastards' were picking on her. We tell her the police are now going to be called and I make a call up to the lodge to try and scare her away, but she just gets more abusive, telling us how she's going to be back later with weapons, friends, etc, and finish us off.
Lovely.
Finally, she walks away and out of sight, but we can hear her for a long time, mouthing off at our ghosts and giving us all the details about how much trouble we're both in. The silence that followed was bliss, and Jabba and I respected it by saying nothing at all; we just looked at each other and shook our heads.
This all happened over about fifteen minutes. It left me reeling a bit to the point where, pissed off as I was that I felt I'd handled the first situation badly, but had had enough abuse and name-calling to last me a lifetime, I was in no mood for anything else. For the rest of the night I kept expecting one or both of these fuckwits to turn up again, probably and actually fucking armed, and my mindset was 'Fuck it. To hell with the consequences.'
It's probably a blessing for all (myself absolutely included) that they never did. But, man, I'm still fucking pissed.
posted by Sheamus @ 3:30 am
