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Monday, December 31, 2007

Slang names

This may be giving the game away as to where I work but the slang names our scummy club patrons use really do grate on me.
The old favourite of 'big man' is relatively inoffensive, it's not wrong and though familiar isn't demeaning.
'Mate', 'Bro' or 'Brother' is just too familiar and won't get me on my best side.
The ones that really get my goat and raise my heckles are 'Mush' and 'Gadgee'. 'Mush' becoming more popular than 'gadgee' of late. The fashionability of certain terms comes and goes. These two really get me writhing. They're far too familiar, they're far too nonsensical and worst of all they suggest I'm part of a social group that includes their users. This I am not. The mere suggestion that I might be will get you seeing a whole nasty side, not just the little bits I let out every now and then.

Stick to 'Gent', 'Man', 'Fella' and 'Lad' or if you're a little older 'Bouncer'. If you start calling me 'Sir' I'll worry that you're still at school, in the forces or just out of prison. Only reasons to watch your movements with a whole load more caution and be even more sceptical and cynical than usual.

Monday, December 24, 2007

The Cavalry

Once more the boys in blue have been dropping by.
They've taken the sensible step of being out in big numbers this last week and have taken alot of work off our hands.

When we reject or eject someone sometimes they just don't want to wander on. They just keep coming back and they get more and more unruly as they return to the door. We can't just carry them off, we just have to put them off our premises and get back to work. This can get pointless, tedious, sometimes hilarious and occasionally dangerous.

This is when the boys and girls from blue light taxis come in handy. They usually just pop along and have a chat. Starting nicely, they ask what's up. They don't like swearing, they don't like threats and they don't have a lot of patience. In that way they're a bit like us.

They have what we don't, a big battenberg van that can whisk folks away to be forgotten about 'til morning. Would be cool if we got to play with cs and batons too but I think that could get messy.

Friday, December 21, 2007

Surprised

I was pleasantly surprised after all my bitching about changing staff, that a couple of good ones have bobbed to the top of the barrel. Some have proved capable so far and I feel they may even have a future in the job.

After some quiet and tedious nights on the unpredictable run up to christmas I'm bracing myself for "mad friday". The one day of the year when you just don't know who's going to be walking in through the door and when. It'll be mad and it'll be friday, contractors, builders, office workers everybody but retail and hospitality will be in causing mayhem as they drink their christmas bonuses and start their holidays with sore heads and possibly a few dealings with the police.

Monday, December 17, 2007

Why Bother?

It's reached that point again this year when I wonder why I keep doing this shit. It happens every year, usually when about this time. It's the flood of new faces that only emerge clubbing when the christmas party season and the time off associated brings them out from under their rocks.

Why am I still telling alcoholically retarded people to keep their drinks off the dance-floor? Why am I still advising the drink addled punters that they really shouldn't take their drinks onto the street? Why am I still telling the habitual idiots that they can't come in and then have to tune them out as they rant on and on in a most irritating way? Why do I have vomit, beer and brightly coloured high sugar alco-pop eating the nice polish off my boots each night? Why as a grown up do I still wear a clip-on tie? Why do I relish dirty kebab based foodstuffs when cold, sober and in need of my bed? Why do I do six nights of this shit and can't remember one day to the next?

Well they pays not bad and I really don't like mornings.

Friday, December 07, 2007

The Water Hazard

No, not golf, the horrors of the toilets in most busy nightclubs.

Imagine one thousand people in a nightclub. Imagine an average of needing at least 3 toilet visits, 10% may go for a long sit down, and somewhere about 1% go to vomit.
In total thats 3110 visits minimum, 1555 for the pink door and 1555 for the blue door.


This means they smell, are usually wet floored and are the home to some of the nastiest parts of the job. We're compelled to check them regularly to see what our punters are up to in places we can't see. Worst for business is flooding, when some retard has dropped their bottle or glass into a bowl or slung a wad of loo-roll into the urinals and flushing does the rest. The whole place gets messy fast. We have to close them off and direct full bladdered folk to the other ones conveniently located at the furthest point in the venue from the closed ones. The bar-staff then get the big gloves on and get to go fishing in the poo-fish bowl for the source of the blockage. That's one job they don't pay me enough for.

The snorting of drugs is attempted on the toilet seats but we WD40 the beasties every night and apparently that spoils all of the fun.
If we find two lads in a cubicle, they both leave the venue, it's either drugs or sleazy romance but we don't want it going on where we can't see it so it's out into the night for them.
I'll often find the student's vomiting or recovering from vomiting in the toilets and depending on the amount of vomit covering them I either guide them to the door or just verbally direct them if I really don't fancy smelling of alco-pop vom for the rest of the night.

Sadly the toilets are also the most likely place for us to get our head caved in. They're an enclosed space where you don't always know who's in there when you walk in. It's off camera and far too easy to get trapped. If you want to keep at this game for long, you keep you eyes and ears wide open when you visit the smallest room.

The most entertaining water hazard are the unconscious. If they've sat down or knelt to hurl, they can find themselves far away in the land of nod. I'll unlock the door if there's no response and try to open it. This is made alot harder if their sheep counting has led them to fall against the door. I'm heavy and can usually provide enough grunt to a cubile door to rouse even the heaviest sleeper. Once awake, and rising, never try and put a hand through the door. It's really easy to break even a thick wrist with a slip or shove to the inside of the door.

The best are those who, having had a quick shut eye on the bowl, are roused by the shouting or the opening of a door onto their head and proceed to get up. They accept your invitation to walk out only forgetting to raise their underwear or trousers from round their ankles. The shuffling naked bottom, with our without loo-roll garnish will emerge from the cubicle and it's really only our high standards of professionalism that forces us to remind them to remember what they've forgotten before they re-enter the busy club bare arsed.

Thursday, December 06, 2007

New Blood

There have been some fresh faces joining my bag of spanners at work over the last couple of weeks and it always poses a few problems. With most doorstaff who join the firm I work for, they've picked up experience working elsewhere and moved to us for better pay, longer hours etc. You'll often know about somebody before you get to work with them, you'll have some idea of their credibility. Thankfully my bosses up to now have been capable at at least picking a fair calibre of new recruits.

Now we're getting some very young fresh faces who've not really done this work before. They've got their licenses but still have lettuce ears and I think are seen as cheap staff for the company. They're wheeled out on quiet nights and we don't really get to see what they're capable of. This nags at you. When you expect all the members of your team to be up to certain standards and willing to back you to the hilt if needed.

You don't want to be heading into something not knowing if you're gonna get anyone flying in after you or if you're going to have to pull them off someone before it all ends up out on the street.
Not knowing about the new lads plays on your mind's time. In a job that's 99% boredom there's a lot of time even if there's not much mind.

Saturday, December 01, 2007

Go away

When somebodies been ejected they can really get on your nerves by just hanging around. Again and again they'll come back to the door. Again and again they'll get refused and told to go away, go home, go crawl under whatever rock they crawled out from under.

They just don't go. Whatever expectations they had of the night it's not happening, but that message seems to be the hardest one for them to understand. It's cold, dark and miserable, why stand around in it futilely when warmth and sleep are available elsewhere.

Go away and we'll both be having a better night. You because you'll not keep feeling rejected, me because I'll not have to write up the fact you've left in blue light taxi's for the night.