Rats on a Sinking Ship

So now that I'm a member of the Rat Race, I can look at things from the perspective of one of those rats. And I finally have an answer to a question that's been bugging me for years - what goes on in a rat's head as he leaves a sinking ship? Not surprisingly, it runs something along the lines of, "What the fuck am I doing here, and where's the nearest exit?!"

As you can probably tell, I'm about to rant about the bar, again. Don't worry, I'll try to keep it short. I worked there last night, under the watchful eye of the owner and the manager. The owner took me aside to criticize me about the fact that I ripped off the previous night's tab halfway through the title. A simple mistake, not even one that damaged any important information, but it still earned me a lecture on "I don't know if you're stupid or just not paying attention, and if you do this again, it could mean your job." I swear, if I wasn't going to quit in a couple weeks, anyway, I would have walked right out of bar then and there.

Instead, I walked behind the bar, where I got to share my space and job with our manager, or should I say, micromanager. She's a horrible little hyperactive woman whose only qualifications for the job seem to be a joy in making life difficult for the staff, yelling at them in front of coustomers when we have done nothing wrong, trying to show us how to do our own jobs (which we can do far better than she), oh, yeah, and sleeping with the owner. I forgot to mention that our manager is the owner's girlfriend, didn't I? And I also forgot to mention that she only speaks Spanish, which means that every time she wants to communicate, she either draggs the only Spanish-speaking employee away from whatever job he is doing at the time and forces him to translate, or she just screams in Spanish, waves her arms around, and acts like you've somehow never learnt Spanish just to spite her. What the hell? Even assuming she had any managerial skills to begin with, why do you hire a manager linguistically incapable of communicating with her staff? If your employees speak English, isn't it a good idea to get a manager who can speak the common tounge? I'm not saying this as some asshole white kid who thinks the whole world should speak English - I've paid my dues, am to some extent TRI-lingual, and will be working on a fourth lingo in a matter of months - I'm just saying that she should either learn to communicate without a translator or give the job to someone else.

On the note of those ultimatums, I've decided I finally know why this place is such a dive. The owner doesn't really care, anymore. I've talked with some of the regulars, who can recall the days when the Venice Bistro was THE place to be, when there would be four or five hundred people lined up outside to get in, when the owner had to hire professional bouncers (instead of relying on the bartender's ameture efforts), to deal with the volumes of people... And when the bathrooms were presumably cleaned on a regular basis, the cash register was not an antiquated piece of shit, technical problems were adressed with alacrity, and the backbar was adiquatly stocked with quality booze. In a word, when the owner gave a rat's ass about his bar.

The common consensus is that he's not that way, anymore. In fact, the common consensus among the regulars is that he's gone off the deep end. I'll try to be a little more forgiving than that and say that somewhere along the line, he stopped loving his bar (one of the servers swears on his mother's grave that this place is just a money laundering operation, not in inconcievable possibility). Now, I'm no businessman, but I have known several, and I can say this - when the higer-ups love their business, it shows. They go the extra mile to make things work, they take pride not in how much money they, themselves get, but in how healthy the business is. I suppouse a rough analogy would be the way someone feels about/treats their pet. When an owner gives a shit, you can tell. They lead by example, and this inspires their subordinates to emulate that example, and to care about the wellbeing of the business, too. And though I've never been particularly inspired by the business world, I gotta say, that's kindov a beautiful thing.

Alternativly, an owner can see his business as little more than a means to fatten his wallet. In such a situation, he will try to get as much return from the establishment as he can (for instance, charging outragous prices for a bottle of crappy beer), with a minimum of investment (for instance, stocking the back bar with crap booze and imitation brands). Such a business is marked by a worn, dilapidated feeling, cut corners, a high employee turnover rate, and in this case, roaches. Guess which catagory the Venice Bistro and its owner fall into?

I have a continuation of the movie idea I mentioned for Russ and Gabe a couple entries ago. The management is hell, and actually does use the establishment to launder (drug?) money. The employees discover this, and aided by the college kid's "book smarts" (I still can't belive someone used that word in reference to me at the bar), engage in an effort to expose the owner and take over the establishment, themselves. Instead of disappearing into the Peace Corps, the college kid sticks around to become the manager of the newest, hottest establishment in LA, becomes a philanthropist, marries his girlfriend on a tropical island, etc, etc, etc. A coming of age film for college grads. What do you think?

Well, OK, this turned out to be long, after all. Forgive me, there was a lot of steam to let off. I hope everyone has a nice weekend. Peace out, yo.