Why are coworkers always drama magnets?

We may only have a handful of bartenders here, but man, they sure are a handful.

His Royal Highness Raymond

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Raymond is our head bartender. He has worked for our little slice of heaven for over 12 years now. Longer than nearly all other staff, including most of our managers. He calls the shots about his schedule, he maintains the restaurant's alcohol inventory, and he essentially has the management eating out of his hand. [ Especially since one of our managers totally has the hots for him -- "mmm, I swear, if we weren't both taken!" ]

With Raymond, respect is not given -- only earned. I mean, at the rate that servers break free and run screaming from this place quit or get fired, he's likely worked with several, several hundred people who no longer so much as cross his mind. You need to prove you're worth his time. It took me snapping back at him when he was being a ridiculous prick [ but then again, that's nearly every day ] for him to actually see me as a person, not just a nameless server.

Having spent over a decade bartending at the same location, let's just say he's built up a few regulars. I have come to know many of them myself; in fact, I've got a couple dozen people's normal drink and food orders memorized, but my "dozens" is only the tip of the Raymond iceberg. I am completely not even remotely kidding when I say that in EVERY. SINGLE. SHIFT. there is at least one guest who'll ask me, "Where's Ray?"  "Is Ray not workin' tonight?"  "Does Ray still work here?" etc. [ Every Friday and Saturday, fellow bartender Sybil and I place bets on how many "Where's Ray?" comments we'll drudge through as we work without him ].

"Okay, well, will you tell Ray that [ insert guest's name here ] said hi? He'll remember me."  "Yes, of course," I lie. What's crazy is, he would remember them. Any of them. You know those scenes in TV crime dramas where the police interview the bartender and get the guest's entire life story which gives them the exact lead they need to solve the crime? Before I started working here, I'd never found that to be realistic. The "I-know-everybody Bartender" just struck me as a deus ex machina for the stuck writer.

Nope. He's real.

And in Raymond's case, he's also a total clean freak. One who is easily aggravated at walking in to a mess. Or anything less than perfectly spotless. And by the way, "easily aggravated" is putting it nicely. He's so nitpicky about it that his cleaning towels are always neatly folded in fourths at all times.

When I bartend lunch shifts, Raymond comes in at 4 o'clock to replace me. So essentially, by around 3 o'clock I've devolved into a nervous wreck, hustling here and there to the epic crunch-time theme song playing in my head, cleaning all sorts of things, praying that by the time he arrives, he can flash me his calm, almost-smile and utter his almost-whispered approval, "Looks good, babe." Then, our group of daily regulars [ captained by a spunky grandmotherly type woman whom Raymond calls "Mom" -- cuz, yeah, they're that close ] who arrive shortly after Raymond does, will high-five me behind his back and quietly exclaim, "Way to go, girlfriend!" And, more importantly, the entire evening shift of servers will be spared Raymond's wrath at my mistake [ from then on, though, they're on their own ].

Ramona the Daytime Fight Starter


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How do I begin with Ramona? Well, she certainly doesn't "play well with others." Weekday lunch shifts are staffed by only one bartender. Until she recently changed her schedule, Ramona worked every single weekday. By herself. She is very capable of doing so, don't get me wrong, but after three years [ at least ] of working nothing but shifts all by herself, let's just say that she's not much of a team player. We're supposed to split tips pretty evenly, but she sometimes takes a little more than her share. She tries to boss people around, and she only takes on the tasks she wants to take on, and when she wants to take them.

Like the rest of us, she'll bust her ass to clean thoroughly and get all of her prep made before Raymond comes in to replace her. Cuz we don't want to get in trouble. But does she put forth that kind of effort on the days that Sybil or I replace her? Not even remotely. It is beyond frustrating. And then, in the hectic transfer of open tabs and register tills, she'll try to get away with doing as little as possible. She'll have procrastinated on her side work just enough so that she's usually able to sneak out having skipped a few tasks. Or she'll conveniently forget to pay for the food she ordered for herself, leaving us to cover her bill. It just pisses us off every time, because quite frankly, it's not my job to do her job for her. This past Friday, for instance, I arrived at 4 PM to replace her, only to find the bar looking like Oklahoma after them tornadoes, and, although she left at 4:30, I was still doing her side work in my spare time until 6:30. That is NOT okay.

Back when I was a server, Ramona and I used to hang out with some frequency. She can be fun to spend time with outside of work, grabbing a couple of beers, venting about rude guests, gossiping about who's "secretly" dating who these days. Nothing you tell her can remain in confidence, as she'll blab any secret she knows, and asap. I swear, 30% of her time at work is spent gossiping about coworkers [ I know, I know.... pot, meet kettle ] or recounting a story about recent crazy escapades. She's one of those chicks who says she hates drama but, in reality, constantly perpetuates it.

She always speaks bluntly -- often to the point of being rude. And she's so quick to claim the description of bitch that you instantly realize how proud she is of that title. She looks forward to starting a fight with other chicks, as is evidenced by, well, getting into fights with other chicks nearly every time she gets trashed at a bar.

Even guests notice how unfriendly she can be. Sybil and I have gotten numerous comments on the subject -- most recently, "I'm glad that other girl bartender wasn't working today. She's not all that nice. Like, she's good and all, but she doesn't really interact well with the customers. You two are much nicer to deal with. You've got more positive personalities, you're much friendlier."

Ramona woke up one day recently and realized that being the daytime bartender at a cheap restaurant wouldn't cut it much longer for this divorced and newly single mother of three. So she decided to go back to school, but daytime classes cut back her daytime work hours too much and there went her income. So she picked up a nighttime bartending job at the little "Irish" pub across the street. Which means that now she is thoroughly exhausted from balancing two jobs, school, kids, their school, their extracurriculars, etc., and spends about 20% of her time complaining how tired she is. Unfortunately for us, she makes great money there [ as in, she can make in one night what it would take me nearly all week to make ], so the next 20% of her time is bragging about making SO MUCH MONEY. [ seriously, girl, if you're not going to hire me over there, then stfu :) ]

Then Ramona and her fiancé broke up [ the poor guy finally came to his senses, I guess? ], and she's been doing nothing but going crazy ever since. She's slept with infamous manwhore at work, slipped back into druggie circles, is drunk and partying more than usual [ which is saying something ], lying about her kid possibly breaking his arm to get out of work, no-call-no-show-ing to our restaurant [ but showing up just fine to her other bar later that night ], and showing up over an hour late to her shift... several times.

Basically, she went from a pain in the ass to impossible to be around.

Now, my math will show that only 30% of her time remains in which to actually do her job. And in most cases, I'm sure that wasting 70% of your time while on the clock would get you fired... But it seems Ramona is best friends with our GM, so she's safe.

lucky bitch.

Sybil the Nighttime Soap Opera Star


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Sybil overanalyzes every detail of every relationship, making mountains out of molehills. She's another one of those drama perpetuators who "hates" drama -- there are NO secrets with her, even if the secret-teller makes it clear that the conversation is to held in complete confidence. She overshares the trials and tribulations of her rollercoaster love life, to the point of alienating one of her closest friends who just got tired of hearing about it. If she's in a good mood, she's goofy and fun to be around. If she's not, well then, stand a few feet back, cuz it'll be ugly. I often times find her to be unnecessarily harsh -- example: a server is picking up two margaritas, one with a salted rim and one with a sugared rim, and he asks which is which. Sybil gave him such an ugly "Are you dumb?" look and sneered in annoyance, "Just look at them, dude. Can you not see the difference in the granules?" [ okay, yeah, it was a dumb question, but was that lashout really necessary?? ]

Essentially, Sybil and Ramona are two queen bees trying to coexist peacefully in the same hive while still subtlely vying for the position of queen supreme. They won't admit it plainly, but I think that each of them has the goal of getting the other fired.

Needless to say, most "that bartender had a bad attitude" complaints are regarding either Sybil or Ramona. Usually in those cases, I can sweep in behind them with my cheerfulness [ it's a superpower, I swear ] to pick up the pieces of the guest's experience [ and to salvage some sort of tip ].

90% of the time, Sybil is quite friendly. Certain notes her voice hits strike me as fake, to be honest, but hey, gotta make that money, honey. Sybil certainly won't waste her time engaging in extracurricular conversation, as it were, with a guest whom she knows won't tip. [ I have that bad habit... ]

Sybil and I work together really well though. Like, really well. Like, guests comment on it. Often. I can tell what she is doing and what she will be doing next, and vice versa. We know which guests I should approach and which guests she should. We have different styles of operations sometimes, but we are in constant communication and contact. Sybil is by far my favorite to work with during the actual shift.

Sybil and I actually hang out, too. Often. Sure, I realize she's not the healthiest of friends to keep around me, but she's just so much fun! It's a friendship developed out of convenience, tbh, but substantial, nonetheless.

[ p.s. she's totally my pick for queen supreme ]



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Joseph -- Speedy Gonzales

Joseph is probably the only bartender who prefers serving to bartending. As far as I can tell, that's just because he has an impressive number of regulars who want to sit in his section [ and tip him well ] but won't do so if he's behind the bar. Therefore, he only bartends two nights a week and in emergencies.

Joseph is definitely fun to work with, but he is also definitely selective in the guests he will and won't approach at the bar -- again, it's just hard to spend time on someone who you know will not tip you at the expense of augmenting your relationship with someone who actually will.

I don't know how he does it, but Joseph has some ninja skills when it comes to making drinks. He can knock out a dozen drink tickets far faster than I can, and he can clean the bar during closing twice as fast as I could even dream of being able to do. In the last hour of operation, we usually shift into a system of me interacting with all of the guests and him getting a head start on cleaning. It's a beautiful system.



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Alexander -- All over the place

It's a little hard to describe Alexander as a bartender these days. Because he's also a server. And an expo. He only has one bar shift a week, plus emergencies, and it is a shift I do not work. Back when we did work a shift together, he was my favorite. Genuine friendliness, giggles and grins, and all that jazz. Without all the drama. It's a breath of fresh air.

Nate -- Most Fun to close with

Nate also splits his schedule with serving tables. He's a bit single-focused and calm compared to me, as I am quite ADHD and chatty, but he works very well with Sybil and me. I don't think he's got real lead bartender potential just yet, but he is certainly a fantastic assistant bartender.


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I get to work with him Saturday nights and together we close the place down --with some assistance from his girlfriend/babymama, the hostess-turned-server Jenn. Once the last guests finally leave, we turn the restaurant music up ridiculously high and just jam out while cleaning. The two of them finally show their true colors, and they are so loud, spunky, and gregarious that we have more fun than should be allowed for cleaning and closing. In fact, we usually don't even notice that its taking us half an hour or even a full hour longer than it would with Joseph or Sybil in place of one of us. Nate's definitely my favorite to close with.

Jack -- Oh. Dear. God.

Jack is very difficult to work with. He operates efficiently as if in a tunnel, focused solely on the singular task at hand. That's fine when we're not busy -- but when we are, we all need to be multitasking. Which is something that he can hardly handle.

Here's the interesting thing about Jack. He quit like months ago [ he pretty much just cuts hair full time now. ], but we don't have enough fully trained and adequate bartenders to cover shifts should one or two need off at an inconvenient time, so our management just calls him in to cover shifts as needed.

I hate when he is needed.

This is me when I see Jack's name on the schedule...

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He doesn't understand simple aspects of clear communication between the rest of the bartenders, which brings quite a few hiccups into the evening.

And then -- the cleaning. Holy mackerel, the cleaning.

Seriously. The man is challenged, bless his heart.

I literally have to pick and choose simple tasks for him and tell him what to do. The man is over ten years my senior, and I have to specifically direct him to clean a certain countertop or to go get the floor cleaner from the back because we're about to clean the floors. If I do not give him clear instructions and instead just leave him to his own devices, I will have to go behind him and REclean everything he just did. His ADHD is so bad it makes my ADHD look like I'm a super ninja cleaning machine, plus he spends half the time cleaning on the phone with his son [ who doesn't understand the concept of daddy not being allowed to talk while he's at work ] or with his mom [ who's his ride home ].

The last time he and I closed the bar together, he did about 10% of the closing duties. And we left nearly an hour later than we should have left. I was furious.

Damon -- DANGER! DANGER!


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Damon is NOT a real bartender. He's a server whom the management tried to promote to bartending, and he failed. Miserably. He can't think for himself enough to figure out what to do next; he constantly awaits the next part of his step-by-step instructions. As soon as he finishes a task, he resumes his position, leaning up against the bar, watching whatever sports program is on TV.

Each of us bartenders went through only four official shifts of training to be promoted from serving. Then, we took weeknight shifts as the assistant bartender to Raymond to continue learning the ropes. Only after a few months did we progress to weekend shifts. Or even to weekday lunch shifts, for that matter, since they're staffed by only one person instead of two or three. Damon? Not so much. The managers invented ways to keep him in training. They added nearly an entire extra week to his training just to have him shadow the morning bartenders and learn the prep recipes, where the bottles go, how to set up the bar properly, etc.

And then, when he finished nearly twice the amount of training he's supposed to go through, how many shifts did the managers give him?

z.e.r.o.

Real conversation with the bar manager as Damon completed his bar training:
Me -- So what do you think about Damon as a bartender?
Manager -- [ exasperated sigh ] Well, I think he might be good... if we could ever get him to stop watching the damn TV.

Real conversation with Raymond, whose permission the managers need for pretty much any bar-related decision:
Me -- [ showing him the new schedule request sheets I'd made for the bartenders ] ...and I left off Damon from the list of bartenders, 'cuz well, he isn't one. But if the managers want to put him back here with us, I guess I'll remake the sheets and add his name...
Raymond -- No! No, there ain't no way they're gonna put him back here... [ mumble, mumble ] ... pay him extra and split our tips with him just to stand there and watch the fuckin' TV... [ mumble, mumble ] ... That ain't happenin'!
[ Raymond speaks very quietly, and I couldn't understand half of what he said, despite the fact that I was standing literally right next to him ]

SO!

These are the lovely people with whom I make and share my income. And speaking of... I should leave for work right about now.... Wish me luck!


[ degreed waitress ]