Home time

I work anti-social hours. That's obviously anti-social for me, highly social for just about everyone else.
When I finish a shift, I've been on my feet for between 4 and 17 hours depending upon the day, the venue and the number of venues I've worked. No real sitting down during this time, often a little adrenaline, some physical exertion and a whole load of standing around talking shit.
When I get done I'm often tired, hungry and fairly awake. I don't caffeinate particularly, I don't do the red-bull, energy shots or stay awake drinks, when I do get home from work I don't want anything getting in the way of my beauty sleep.
I often fancy a high calorie, high protein, high flavour, high fat, high salt snack to stave off hunger 'til the morning. I am thus drawn to the late night fast food venues nearest to the venue. I know the really popular one, that'll be full of all the scum I've been battling on and off all shift.
I go to the other one, quieter, still capable and less dickhead filled.
I'm known there by name, if I'm coming late, I've got the man's number to get my order in.
Most of the time, it's very quiet by the time I'm getting there, taxi, drivers, barstaff, dancers and other doorstaff make up most of the custom. I don't get on with all of them but it's friendly, sober and necessary. Most of the drunken few who stumble in don't really pay much notice. They want food and their or others beds. Frankly that's really what I'm after and wrapped and ready to go, I take my heartstopper home to enjoy, out of my boots, feet up in front of some pre-recorded televisual tedium. Arteries won't thank me for it but at least it stops me losing weight.

Eye bleach again

The middle of a steady night and a female aged between 30 and 50 approaches the front door with other female company. She's out on a big night, fancy dress, a real head to toe mess.
We'll start with the patent leatherette gladiator heels with shiny shiny goldie looking bits. Moving up we have distressed fishnets straining against flabby calves and thighs to I'm sure leave an orange bag look to the skin underneath. These wobbling nets of flesh are topped with far too short, far too tight shiny shiny PVC hot pants. The effort of the night having ripped the fishnets just at the top of the thigh so a large hole springs up showing without hatching the smudgy tattoo disappearing under her shorts. The feat of engineering holding the taut PVC together is surpassed only by the boned black low cut corset with the shiny shiny goldie sequins.
This leads us to the mass of wobbling breast, pressed up and flattened until abutting the chin. It too wobbly and topped with two over-ripe red stained trout pout lips which appeared like they were both asymmetric in wonderfully different ways.
Fake lashes thrown into relief by shiny shiny metallic eyeliner from lashes to the eyebrows halfway up the forehead.
As we carry on up, we encounter wiry, plastic hair extensions giving a huge volume to the rats nest of hairspray and backcombing. The scalp showing pale at the roots against the swirling mess of random strands going every which way.
The entire tapestry of bad choices was overlaid onto a fake spray tan so dark, she looked like a fully dessicated leathery embalmed mummy. Even down to the clumping of the sepia tones into wrinkles of the compressed and deformed bosom.
She came in and made her way to the reception desk. I made the mistake of looking into the club to see her group pay in. There after the horror of the front I see a fish-net hungry bum , chewing a pair of tiny PVC shorts into her crack and freeing a flash of white sanitary towel to weave itself through the tights.
More eyeball bleach required for all involved.

Starting Out

I've had a few questions about being new to the doors so here are a few gems of distilled wisdom for a new starter.
You can be big and sturdy or small and fast but you must be able to keep your head.
Don't get emotionally involved with the things you come across. Some punters will have traumatic tales, insults will be slung at you, fists will be slung at you. They don't know you, they likely never will. Let it wash past, you react to what you want to react to, don't get wound up. If a punter or a colleague can press your buttons you've given them control of the situation.
Don't be a perfectionist, just get it right and get it to stick.
There are way too many grey areas, too much haze of misinformation and miscommunication to get it perfect. You'll make mistakes, actions will have unintended consequences, situations will change and you won't have control. Accept it, learn the lessons & don't linger on it.
Enjoy the work, it's not glamorous or appealing but if you want to keep at it, enjoy it.
It's a people job, you work in teams, you'll meet a huge number of people. Make an effort to be friendly and you can have really fun nights of it and enjoy coming back. If you're cold and stony, you'll find the reception you get is cold and stony and is that something you're going to enjoy heading back in the next night. There can be all sorts of fun to be had, be a part of it.
It's not for everyone.
It's an odd job, bad hours, no respect, a half arsed management and some shifty characters in every direction. If it doesn't suit you, get out, don't be a bad doorman who doesn't want to be doing it. There's no medal for sticking it out, just accept it and move on.
These 4 should get you through most of it but getting badged and getting started is the beginning of a long steep learning curve.

Oi, No!

One night, busy-ish, the usual blend of little men trying to be bigger, big men with little girls and older ladies looking for thrills. Not a great deal of class to them but not real scum, not expecting too much crazy shit to be happening. I go on a little wander 'round the venue and discover in a fairly high through-put corridor a couple having some heated emotional exchanges. Not tears and pleading but angry stances, air fairly blue from points shouted over each other on both sides.
Not bad for amateur improv dramatics but not what we want in a nightclub. I interrupt, or at least place myself in both of their personal space, and declare it's time they took the argument outside. Neither of them acknowledges the comment verbally but both start moving towards the main door, still screaming over each other. I follow from a little distance and let my colleagues at the door know we're on our way but not in any hurry. No jackets to collect, no friends to say goodbye to, the slow procession to the door continues. I've not been paying too much attention to the type of conversation they've been continuing at full volume.
Just as they reach the door the aggravated lass says something akin to "You're just like Jake" to the aggravated lad. He very explosively snaps and lunges for her. The pair are a pace from the front door pair, I'm a pace behind him, shout out 'Oi No'. One colleague grabs the girl from behind and draws her clear of the oncoming flail of fists. The other lad grabs the nearest arm and tries to pull him out the door. His pull coincides with my surge in momentum and the lad is slingshot into the street. He topples off balance, my colleague sensibly keeps hold and he is slingshot into the wall beside the front door. He splats into the poster promoting another night of discount alcohol and loud music. He then kind of deflates and slumps to the floor. The lass is released and heads across the doorway, looking concerned for her lads state. Looking concerned, she bends down to him, spits on his face, kicks his sprawled legs and struts off smoothly towards the taxi rank. We had a little chuckle to ourselves and waited for the fallen little soldier to raise himself up and make his way on.

Old haunt

I revisited a venue I've not been at for a few years. I used to work there a few years ago, fairly non stop. It's a six night a week doorwork venue. I used to do all six of them with a couple of other lads, only to have the team padded on the hectic nights. This worked well, we knew the venue, we knew the customers, the staff and the barred list.
It was a pleasant, middle of the night venue most of the time. Punters fuelling up but not staying long, not much to appeal to the illicitly chemically enhanced, well observed toilets and alert staff kept the barred list refreshed. I'd like to think we reached a critical mass of drug users, sellers and fools barred so it became bad business to spend valuable time trying to sell to folks who weren't interested.
I revisited for a couple of hectic shifts, being the padding this time. It seems that a good deal of the work we'd done is still there, most customers have fun, drink and move on. What did seem to have changed was the staff, bar and floor, were not on the ball. I'd not worked there in a while and things inevitably change and their purpose shifts. The staff were less clued up on serving drunks, less aware of broken glass, spilled drinks and dirty tables. I'm sure minimum wage has gone up a good old chunk since I was last there. Still got to find a couple shagging in the loo and a couple of lads with summer colds so all's right in the world. That really does say a great deal about how twisted my view of the world and my role in it has become.

Feeling it

The first few good weekends of the summer have arrived. The sunshine of a week last saturday and then the bank holiday pay day weekend brought the first busy nights since the new year. The sunshine, the open beer gardens, the lack of confinement to sweaty, smelly interiors has seen folks out longer, drinking hard for longer days.
For business, it's finally good news, more customers, out for longer, more money spent, lower wage percentages and better profits all round.
For me it means, more muppets to knock back, all day drinkers are not all night winners from a letting in point of view.
More all day all night drinkers, fall asleep more, throw up and fall asleep more, fall over more and get in more drunken brawls.
This all means I've been running around and carrying drunken folks a lot more than I had been recently. I've been feeling old when I get off shift. Time to quit the bulk training, shift to speed, stamina and cv training again. Normally I get ahead of this but this year it's gotten ahead of me, must be old age kicking in, either that or I'm just getting slow.

Really don't

Now I say hello to all sorts of folks, young and old, male and female, pretty and rough. For just about all of those folks, I try and greet them with an "evening" sometimes followed up with an "how you doing?" or an "y'alright?". Not brilliant or witty but sincere on the most part and a good way of establishing some social contact which can stand me in good stead for later in the evening.
If I know the punter, either as a friend, or a regular, they might get a handshake or a "how's it going?". I'm not one of life's great conversationalists when I'm working, at least not within earshot of the punters.
What I really don't want is punters, female or male, hugging, frotting or mounting me as a form of greeting. I've worked gay night enough that this happens from men and women, even at 'straight' venues. It's not my style, it's not very professional looking and quite frankly I'm embarrassed by this ridiculous show. If out socially, this might be acceptable, but even then it'd be unlikely. The running jumping, hugging hump is not an acceptable greeting to any person at work unless you're a disney animal or a cup winning footballer. I'm neither.