Maths.
Thursday, 19 July 2007
We stuck it to the man tonight. Hell, yeah.
Four of us on duty, but only two licensed doorstaff. Now, legally, the policy at my place is that at all times there must be two licensed doormen in the main complex, and one in the lower bar. The Lodge normally does the lower bar, but today is her day off. Nobody else likes or wants to do the lower bar. So, collectively, we thought: fuck it.
One thing I'm not sure I've ever mentioned is that The Lodge gets paid more than the rest of us. This is because (1) she was the first licensed member of the team to sign on the dotted line, and refused to work for less and (2) she's a woman. That sounds a bit sexist, and it is, but not on my part - companies bend over backwards for female DS (perhaps ironically.)
As I think I did mention, I had a meeting with the female head of security t'other day who informed me that there was absolutely no room for upside on our hourly rate, and that The Lodge was paid what she was because she had to work the lower bar alone. "It's more equitable that way," I was told, laughably.
There's nothing personal about all this - I've grown to really like The Lodge, and to be honest she's as embarrassed about all this shit as we are pissed-off.
More policy: no unlicensed doorman is allowed to work the lower bar alone. Now, this presents a little mathematical problem for the company (which is starting to resemble The Umbrella Corporation more and more each week.)
Lynch (#2) didn't begin his shift until midnight, but shortly afterwards he called over the radio to say he wanted to see all doorstaff together after the main complex was shut down (the lower bar was already closed, but he'd twigged that nobody had been down there all night.)
Fine. We closed the fucker down, and went to see him.
"Right," he says, "There was four of you on tonight. Why was nobody down the lower bar?"
"Well," I replied, "I had a meeting with nameofthefemalesecurityboss on Monday and she explictly told me that the reason that The Lodge is paid more than us is because she has to work the lower bar by herself. However, we won't be paid that same money if we have to do it."
"Moreover," I added, "We only had two licensed doormen on duty tonight. We've also been told that at all times we must have two licensed members of the door-team in the main complex. We felt that, given the numbers of locals on the site lately and the problems we've had, it made sense to keep one licensed DS on the main gates and one in the clubs."
Lynch suddenly realised that this was going to be a problem at least twice a week - i.e., on The Lodge's off-days - until more licenses arrive (they're all being 'processed' by the SIA) or by some miracle we have more than two licensed DS on duty. "Hmmm," he mused, "We're fucked, aren't we?"
The reality is that Lynch doesn't really give a shit. What matters here is this will filter through to herthatwillbeobeyed tomorrow and come Saturday I'll be dragged into some shitty meeting to ask why I've made statements about things that she'll claim she never said. When she so fucking did. I ain't backing down - go on, sack me, and everyone else. You're fucked, me old sons.
Worker bees can leave.
Even drones can fly away.
The queen is their slave.
posted by Sheamus @ 3:00 am
