Money Money Money

2005-06-01 at 12:44 a.m.

I had my physics exam on Monday, using up one of my two days off for it (the other was used up for biology on Thursday which is a bit of a waste of a weekend in my opinion). It went surprisingly well, I thought, though time will tell. Biology was harder and everyone disappeared off quite quickly afterwards so we couldn't go out for a drink as I had wanted. Both nights I then repaired to a nearby pub and drank myself silly to compensate. The Monday was good actually, I was sitting in the pub when I realised that they were having a pub quiz and some friendly regulars invited me to help them out, which I did although the quiz was hard, so now I know some people and can go drink there more often. Unfortunately this led to me having a bit of a hangover on my 6:30am Monday start - smelling bacon and whatnot frying all morning when you're in that state is not a pleasant experience, let me tell you.

Last week was a bit different, work-wise. They sent me to serve breakfast at our nearby hotel, which is teeny and has hardly anyone staying there, so a nice easy shift, plus I finish earlier. They even had nice Americans who tip at breakfast time which was cool. I met a few more people and was reminded several times to speak more slowly, as the non-native speakers find me hard to understand. As a consequence I tried to remind myself to use fairly simple English - and then found myself telling someone that we had a "de facto" supervisor. Typical, tell yourself to speak simply and you find yourself popping random bits of Latin into your sentences.

On Wednesday I had my first evening on the bar. I've been chatting a fair bit to the barman, David, because the evening shift is so very quiet there is little else to do, so I've had the chance to observe him at work. Its quiet in the bar too, and not too difficult. They showed me how to work the till and how to pull a pint (I always thought that was hard...turns out its not). The most difficult thing is the till really, as I've spent enough time in bars that I know what most people want to drink. However, Wednesday was a bit hectic, someone else was in the bar helping me when a group of Masons came in for their dinner (they come something like four or five times a week and are evidently the hotel's biggest customers) and demanded drink. Then they went away and an unexpected group of Masons all piled in, the other guy couldn't help me as he was serving in the restaurant and had a new staff member (with almost no English) to work with too. So I had to try to deal with it on my own but we ran out of lemonade and some guy wanted to drink shandies all night, then both the lager kegs ran out at the same time and I'm not authorised to go get more from the cellar (only a few people have the key) and in any case I would have no idea how to do that. It was a bit of a nightmare really. Still once they were gone it was better. Especially so seeing as the football was on, and a Liverpool fan was so delighted that his team won that he gave me about £10 in tips through the evening. Which was nice, and he pulled my manager aside to tell him about three times that the kegs had run out at an unfortunate time and that I had been very good on the bar really, which was slightly embarassing. Still I made a fan, it seems. Then Gary - the manager - showed me how to cash up, which I'm sure I've not really got the hang of but I'm sure I'll pick up. I know you've got to make the money balance (if it doesn't balance, you have to pay for it yourself, which is quite a good incentive not to steal I suppose but not so good if your maths is crap). I finished at midnight, though I was kept a bit late for which I'm assured I will be paid.

Friday I was on serving these Masons with their dinner after the usual breakfast shift. Which was shite, I can see why everyone hates them. We had to serve them properly, handing them their potatoes and that sort of thing and they ate and ate and demanded seconds and we didn't have enough food. Plus they were all crammed together in a small room and I am not small myself, which made it rather difficult to get past them especially when they didn't move their chairs or help in any way. Some of them were nice but its not the nice ones you really remember, but the obnoxious types. It was exhausting and to make it worse, Friday was very hot in London and despite the very welcome fact that our restaurant and meetings rooms have air conditioning, I was still sweating away. Not nice. Though while they did their little secret games we got to have a long break.

Saturday was a bit hectic, as they have a longer breakfast time. Though it wasn't as bad as we were expecting due to half the guests being in a huff because there had been a late night fire alarm which led to everyone being out on the street at 4am. Turned out Ravi had been staying in the hotel and had also had to turn out then, and he was in a bad mood. Or maybe it was the stress. Anyway there were a lot of tantrums and random screaming matches, together with a lot of comments about so-and-so being "like a woman", or "crying like a woman", this is quite a sexist place. I think thats the heat in the kitchen and the stress of the guests though, and it is quite funny although I got near to snapping myself. Particularly so the previous night when I had polished a ton of teacups, double-stacked them on a tray and carried them through to the restaurant, being conscious that that is the very limit of what I can carry, as I am on the weak side, then went back to polish the last few and was told to double-stack them...well I snapped a bit, and indignantly said I had just done them haha. Fortunately as everyone seems to have their fair share of tantrums I am excessively mild by comparison. The evening was very, very boring - not a single guest came in! I did a bit of polishing, and took some stuff into the bar to put it there, and got drawn into a conversation with two very annoying American men who kept saying how rich they were and making comments about some girl they had met in a club and how they wanted to hit her. They left, fortunately, though they later wanted room service and I made the barman take it up as they were drunk - and a good thing I did too, as apparently the guy was naked when he opened the door for his food! Aside from that I talked to David and Sasha (one of the night porters) for the four hours, mostly trying to help them with their English. I like Sasha, he seems like a nice guy, and I even persuaded him to help me with clearing the tables and resetting for breakfast which was good.

Sunday, and the reson I have not updated for a while, was absolutely manic. I was scheduled to be on anyway, but they called in David to work an extra day because seventy people booked the hotel bar until 2am. Turned out they had been a music concert and they were the artists and their friends/fans. They were all different ages, from old to children, and were nice people. But oh how they drank! We restocked the fridges and polished everything in sight and still ran out. We were kept so busy that I didn't even notice the time until 1am, an hour after my shift finished, and they were still drinking like fish so I and someone else who was supposed to finish at 11pm didn't like to leave David to be stuck with them. They did give us £20 between the three of us as a tip though, which was quite nice. I finally managed to leave at 2am, after my mum embarassed me by ringing the hotel and being put through to me because I hadn't rang her. The hotel offered me a room for the night as well but by that stage I just wanted to go home and do something with my feet. Then I slept for a very long time.

All in all its been quite a good week. Mum and dad went up north on Saturday morning and aren't coming back until Thursday, I got paid on Friday (£200! plus an unexpected £100 from the Jobcentre!) and I have bought a new CD and a pen to celebrate with. Plus the new rotas came out on Saturday and this week I have Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday off! Monday is a paid day off because it was a Bank Holiday, plus I get an extra days' unpaid holiday as they're expecting a quiet week, and Friday, Saturday and Sunday I'm working on the bar from 4-11pm which is shorter. Which means I get paid less but never mind. I like having a nice rest. Now I just have to find somewhere to replace my shoes, which are being held together with superglue, and I need to find a Dr Marten's stockist and look and see if I can find the same ones again. Which is my task for tomorrow.

As of now though I am bored with writing, and I'm going to go do something else.

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