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Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Qualia

Yes I do know odd words.

As a toe-to-toe customer services physical interface operative I find occasion (most Friday and Saturday nights it's sad to say) when I have to deploy the physical aspect of my work on some unsuspecting (No really, they often don't suspect that clenched fists and bloodied noses will lead to this) punters. The world is rife with tales of my less patient colleagues removing a pint of claret from a punters nose for their amusement.This does occasionally happen, though most premises recognise this as bad for business, and the suited chimp is swiftly sent back to debt collecting/prison/the dole.

More concerning to me than the occasional act of violence by doorstaff is the punters' view that all acts of force by the doorman are violence. There is no real threat to a punter's personal safety when two doormen firmly take an arm each and wander casually through the nearest available exit. This is generally not an act of violence, but an act of force. Most folk I deal with quite happily volunteer to leave the premises. Occasionally this consent is lacking and an individuals control over their own actions may be temporarily suspended for the purposes of getting the hell rid of them, puke/blood/piss covered as they inevitably are. This is a forcefull act, this is not a violent act. It may not be a charitable act but it definately isn't a violent one.
That we reserve for the individuals/group/half pub full that decide to exacerbate the issue with direct and effective violence towards us. This is not a drunken woman swinging a handbag at 20 paces, this is 10 drunken women swinging handbags at your head at 20 inches.

If you feel you're the victim of doorman violence please, note when and where it happened and with whom. Secondly work out how much you drank, how much you swore, how threatening you were, how abusive and how violent you were. If you in the sober light of the morning (or the pretty flashing light of the blue light taxi you've summoned) you can still think that sober bored poorly paid and put upon individual was violent towards poor always innocent you then take you complaint to the management. They will, look at the cctv, possibly phone the doorman and have a chat, then they'll likely tell you to F**k off and die whilst they fall about laughing at your feeble attempt to win yourself pub justice.

FOAD short hand best not explained to the punter at the time.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

So So very true