Drinking on the Job

Last night was the going away party for one of the managers at Bardeaux. Now Bardeaux is run by an organization that runs about 7 or so bars in the area, so I'm constantly meeting people who are all my bosses in one form or another. And last night they were out in full force. I generally get some kind of warning...they'll introduce themselves to me (not many people who aren't VERY confident around the bar will do that) or I'll hear one of them murmur to another "who's the new guy behind the bar" or something along those lines. And so I wasn't quite prepared when a "customer" followed his drink order with "Where's your black shirt?"

Since Bardeaux is a pretty small bar, there's no "standard uniform." There's only a few staff, so the management doesn't need everybody always looking the same. But all the same, I wasn't quite sure who this guy was, or how much control he had over my paycheck. So I politely explained that my black shirt was dirty from the prior day's work and was in the wash. He looked at me incredulously and after a moment's pause followed with "You only have ONE black shirt?" He looked stunned, as if I had just told him that we had run out of water.

Now a little bit more unsure of myself and who this guy was and just how important he was, I told a little story about how I'm new from the states and only brought one black collared shirt and hadn't gotten the chance to get another and etc etc etc...

So that seemed to appease him for a little bit and he went on his way. A little bit later he came back and bought some shots, including some for myself and Adrian (the other barman working). I figured that he had forgotten about his little outburst earlier, or that he had forgiven the color of my shirt, since he was now buying us drinks. But the moment that Adrian and I tipped back our drinks, this guy looks over at the manager and yells "Angelo! FIRE these two for drinking on the job!"

Uh Oh

So it actually turns out that this guy is in charge of the organization that I mentioned earlier, and owns 50% of Bardeaux. So his word is law. But apparently he also likes to come in and mess with the new bartenders and keep them on their toes. So I get to keep my job. For now. But you can be sure that I'm going to buy myself a few more black shirts.