Are you a bad customer?

Do you think you're a pretty decent customer at a bar? Really think about it. Have you ever done one of these things?

 Ordering your drinks

• Don't wave or shout 'oi' at the bartender, please. We just won't serve you 'til last. 
• Also, waving your money at us doesn't work -  we don't go all magpie like "Ooh, look at the shiny shiny, I must serve them now!"
•  "What's the cheapest?" A fellow barmaid pointed this one out. How about you drink what you like. If you can't afford to, why are you out?
• We are capable of remembering more than 3 drinks, so don't say it like you're talking to a baby. Okay, so I'll double-check and say "Was that one with coke?" and you can say "Yeah'. I'm half just making conversation with you really, be grateful. 
• Don't lay your money down on the wet bar and make me scrape it off like a desperate idiot. I wouldn't just lay your change on the bar - I put it in your hand.
• Do not ever take your ice out of the glass and throw it all over the bar. I will make eye contact throughout with an angry look on my face. JUST ASK FOR NO ICE YOU IDIOT.
• For my sanity, if you're in a group of friends and you all want a drink of water, don't ask one by one. It's not like you're even spending any money while I'm running to the tap five times over! 
• Why would you not have your money out and ready? You've just complained that you haven't been served quick enough and the bar is 4 people deep. Do you have problems or what?
• And for gods sake, just say please and thank you. It honestly ruins my mood when someone just yells 'Jagerbomb" in my face. Yeah, what about a Jagerbomb? Oh you want one do you? Sorry, I didn't realise because you didn't ask!

Making a mess

• Why on earth do boys insist on turning a shot upside down when they've miraculously downed it? It's not clever and it doesn't impress me. It just makes me clean the spot I've cleaned 30 seconds ago.
•   The same goes for a plastic cup - why turn it upside down and crush it. Why?
• Don't complain about the floor being sticky if you're going to spill your drinks over it all night. 
• I can only speak for the women's toilets, so WHAT THE FUCK? In my short time as a barmaid, we've had someone poo on the floor - right at the side of the toilet - how? Sanitary towels STUCK to walls and how do you always manage to block the toilets? I'd also like to thank the people that flooded the women's toilets yesterday as it took me 2 buckets full of water to mop up. 

Tipping 

•  First of all, I don't mind if you don't tip. As long as you say please and thank you, and maybe even raise a smile to me, I'm happy.
• But don't say "Oh I feel like tipping you because you're so good!" And then don't tip.
• I also don't want to keep the change if it's 20p, I put it in the till, sorry.
• Foreign people have been much better tippers in general. When we've been struggling to understand each other but get there in the end, a tip and and a "Thank you for your patience" makes my night 100 times better. 
• I'd also like to say thank you to the girl that simply wrote 'fishbowl plz' on her arm. I asked what she wanted in it and she just shrugged. She didn't speak to me at all, but when I gave her a five pound note back, she rummaged in her bag for two 50p pieces for me. It was lovely!

 So there you go, just be polite and you'll make a little barmaid a happy one :)

 

We are family!

Over the eight months I've worked at Quo Vadis, I've become part of the 'Quofam'. A concept that consists of a group of people working together, who enjoy working together. We enjoy working together so much, sometimes we get a little drunk together too. Some of us more than others - I won't name names *mumble*.

Did you look at Goose's crotch? Uh-oh!

Okay, so there's no place like Home? Thank god!

Anyway, here's a photo of just a few of us: (left to right)

• Lewis, my timid but at the same time bossy colleague,
• Me, back when I had long brown hair, hmm.
•  Adam, the boy who often gets mistaken for a gay, but I can assure you ladies, he's certainly not!
• Elliot/Ewut, god only knows what his name is.
• Goose, who's still in Pro Plus debt to me (I haven't forgotten!)
• Hannah, one of our fastest and friendliest members of staff
• Ginge, she enjoys being mardy.
• Dan who's unfortunately left to work in Leeds, but he was my favourite Supervisor (Sorry Lewis and Goose!)
• Last but not least, Freddie who has also left but we still go for drinks when we can, as she was my Back Bar buddy.

I'll do a full list of all our staff and what they're like, because customers need to remember that we are humans too, just doing a job. After all, you wouldn't yell the C-word a Morrisons cashier because they're taking their time, would you? Well, I hope not!

This particular night out ended in a flourish of bright red "Quo Vadis" stickers all around Home nightclub. Elliot decided he wanted to stick them on us but we stuck them on random clubbers instead, this was much more fun. A truce was called not to stick stickers on us staff anymore, but I still kept finding one about my person.

Highlights of this night include Freddie sticking one to the DJ (probably not like that...) And I stuck two on the bouncers badge. Lewis said I wouldn't, so I did!

Anyway, I love working at Quo Vadis and I couldn't work anywhere else. The Quofam are brilliant and I think it's important to see the staff getting on behind the bar. It feels welcoming.

Until we bitch about the awful customers on Facebook. Here's my particular favourites:

In at the deep end

It had been an unbearable summer, and I'm not talking about the heat. I had no university, no friends and no job. 

My boyfriend and I live together and he was working three shifts a week. It was only three shifts, but when you're stuck in a tiny flat alone for seven hours with literally nothing to do, the boredom really gets to you after three whole months.

Don't get me wrong, I was a brilliant little housewife, doing all the washing, having his tea ready on the table for him and the flat was always spotless. It was because I nothing better to do. I was climbing the walls! 

I needed a job so badly. 

I'd been talking to a promoter at Scy nightclub in Lincoln about a job as he reckoned he could get me one. I hadn't heard anything for ages, until I bumped into him when I left the flat to go to the pub - all dressed up, may I add. Now, this seemed to help for some reason as the next week I was starting my first shift at Quo Vadis.

Now onto the good stuff. 

Basically, Back To Mono is a fantastic 60s club night, held at Quo Vadis on the first saturday of every month. It's also one of the busiest nights, which the lovely promoter failed to tell me.

I looked at the bar and could hardly see over it - I'm only 5"1! That wasn't the worst of the night though. Supervisors Mike and Dan went through the till with me so many times - I just couldn't remember where things were at all - even though there's a tab that says 'draught' and 'spirits' etc.

Grab a glass, scoop the ice into it, set it down on the bar, pour the shot into it, pour the mixer into it, tell the customer how much it is, take their money, enter it into the till, and give them their change. It's really not difficult...

But I simply could not get the hang of putting the ice in the glass before I set it down. I was so shoddy, I'm cringing about it now. 

Thankfully, Mike's way of making me practice shot pouring with a water-filled vodka bottle ten times to match a medium glass of wine has proved very effective.

So, it's the busiest night of the month and someone has called in sick, the new girl can't do anything, so what happens? They make me glass collect!

The whole night I was stacking up, carrying and washing endless glasses. I was so tired and my feet hurt, I was genuinely considering never coming back - I just wasn't cut out for the job. 

But I did go back, and got praised for being so helpful glass collecting as they really needed those glasses because they were running out. That was back in September, and eight months later I'm a Supervisor at the place.

If you get stuck doing the shitty jobs, stick with it and do a great job. One day, you'll be in a great job.