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xiphiasI've been getting ready for a couple days now.
I shaved. I have no beard. This is the bit which I most dislike about the job, especially since the dress code DOES allow beards, but the beverage manager was being extra-careful because he's new and unsure of himself, so he just decided to ask me to be clean-shaven. So I am. It looks bad, and my face hurts, because the reason I wear a beard is because shaving hurts and leaves my face raw.
But that's the only downside. And, since the dress code does allow beards, maybe, after I'm settled, we'll see if something can't be done. Dunno.
So, I've been buying stuff to get ready. I've got new black pants -- I bought the pants at Sears, but went to Men's Wearhouse to have them put suspender buttons on them. While I there, I bought Lis a purple silk handkerchief, because Lis should have a purple silk handkerchief. I've got new white shirts. I've got new Rockport work shoes, designed for people who are on their feet all day -- Solup, at Solup's Shoes in Malden (and if you live in or near Malden, as several of you do, and have trouble finding shoes that fit, you should go to Solup's Shoes) told me that he sold a pair to Mike, of Mike's Donuts in Everett, and Mike loves them. They're good shoes.
Lis decided that I needed to have a new Zippo for my first shift, and we went to the mall, to a Things Remembered, and bought a Zippo, which we had "Xiphias" engraved upon, in a Gothic Blackletter type font, and a little two-shot hip flask, upon which we had engraved "Xiphias Gladius." This means that I can now carry two shots of liquor to, for instance, a friend's house, in order to inflict something upon them.
We got directions on public transportation downtown. It's easy; the Hynes/ICA Newbury Street exit is about a hundred yards from the employee enterance of the building. So I did Commuter Rail to North Station to Hynes/ICA,
I made sure to have All My Stuff with me. I downloaded a couple of books from the Baen Free Library into my PalmPilot -- as well as a drink guide, just in case. I dusted off the corkscrew that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
vonbeck, I believe it was, got me, pocketed my Shiny New Zippo, made sure that both my Wave and Flair were on my belt (I may be the only person in the world who bought a Flair. And I rarely use it, because the main thing the Flair has that the Wave doesn't is a waiter's corkscrew, and I've got a top-of-the-line waiter's corkscrew. But there's enough on it to make it worthwhile), threw a couple books into my bag, rolled up a black vest, and one of my black bowties and put them in my bag, and headed out.
No trouble finding the place. I saw Orlando and said hi, he seemed pleased to see me. He was heading out at the end of his shift. Filled out some paperwork, then went into the employee cafeteria for some dinner (it was about 4, and they serve dinner from about 4 to about 7, I think).
One of the nice things about the Harvard Club is that they feed you. It's not just that they give you meal breaks; they give you food for your meals. And usually pretty good food, too -- I mean, it's the junior chefs who do the cooking for the staff, and the senior chefs are doing cooking for the members, but it's still decent. They've got a steam-table set up for buffet serving. Today they had manicotti with red sauce, turkey, salmon, red beans and rice, and a white vegetable-ricotta lasagnia. The red beans and rice were dry, but everything else was good. I think they train new cooks by having them cook for us, which means that the food can be as bad as "eh, whatever", and it gets up to "damn good" as the cooks get better. Also, the desserts are good, because we get the leftover cakes and pastries and so forth. We also get a few leftover meals here and there, but you have to be in the right place at the right time to do that.
See, let's say that you've got a function, like a wedding or a bar mitzvah, or a conference, somthing like that. And you've got maybe a choice of three entrees. Now, let's say the people planning the event know that usually, about 50% will order Option A, 30% will order Option B, and 20% will order Option C. Plus or minus two percent, let's say. So you need to make enough Option A for 52% of the people, Option B for 32% of the people, and Option C for 22% of the people.
So, you've got six percent too many meals.
You ever wonder what happens to those meals? Or, for that matter, the meals for people who just didn't bother to show up?
We get them. The staff eats them. Don't worry, they don't go to waste: leftover meals are one of the perks of working at a place that does functions.
So, we get (simple) food specially prepared for us, and we also get all the leftover fancy food.
That was all a long digression.
About 5, Tess came down to the beverage office to take me up to the Commonwealth Lounge. He showed me how we set the thing up, where stuff is stored, and so forth.
It's going to take me a few shifts to get completely familiar with where everything is, and to be able to reach everything without having to think about it, but that's not too much of a problem.
Tess is about my height, and much skinnier. He's from West Africa; I don't know what country off the top of my head. He HATES working the Commonwealth Lounge most of the time, because it's far to easy for him. He gets bored. He likes to be moving, he likes challenges. The Commonwealth Lounge is not a terribly challenging bar to work once you know what you're doing.
You make drinks for the members who are sitting in the lounge, and you make drinks for the waitresses who work the Boston Room, which is the sort of main dining room of the club. But the Boston Room is only like fifteen tables, so there's rarely more than a couple dozen people in there. And they mostly order wine, maybe soft drinks, maybe a beer or two. As far as mixed drinks go, we're talking gin and tonics, vodka tonics, real simple stuff. Perhaps I'll get bored with this after a couple months and want to find a more challenging bartending position. Dunno. We'll see.
Tess has mainly been doing functions, now, and not doing to Commonwealth Lounge, because there's more challenge that way.
Except tonight.
See, once a year, the Harvard Club hosts a wine-tasting event. That, itself, doesn't have that much of an impact on the Commonwealth Lounge. It's a members-only bar, so the first part of the night, the challenge mainly consisted of explaining to people that it was a member's only bar.
Tess showed me a good trick for that.
See, the way the Harvard Club works is, you have a member number. And after you do something that would be expected to cost money (eat dinner, buy drinks, etc.), the server gives you a little card, you write your member number and name on it and sign it, and the server writes on the back what to charge you for.
What Tess suggested is, if someone comes in and asks for something, you hand them the card and a pen, and, if they start automatically filling it out, you start making their drink. They're members.
But if they look blankly at the card in confusion, don't start making the drink. As if they are a member, or if they're here with a member, and, if they are, help them fill out the card. If they're not, explain apologetically that you're unable to serve them, because it's a member's-only bar.
I've discovered one thing that may be a challenge for me: Janet, the head waitress in the Boston Room, had me make a vodka martini for someone at one of her tables. She made me start over because I put vermouth in it.
Okay. What kind of freak drinks COLD WELL VODKA WITH AN OLIVE IN IT? But that's how this person apparently likes them, and he ordered a second one just the same as the first one.
Freak.
But that was the most difficult thing that happened in the first half of the night.
Right.
So, yeah. The bar is only open to members and to their guests. And the Harvard Club was mainly full of non-members who'd shown up for the wine-tasting event, which is HUGE. But we didn't get any traffic because of it.
But, see. . . the head of the largest wine distributor there, he's a Harvard grad, and a member of the club.
And, after the event is over, he brings his entire company over, maybe twenty, thirty people, and lets them all drink on his tab.
Which means that suddently we were as busy as if twenty or thirty people who had just been told that they weren't paying for their own drinks showed up in the bar.
It was actuallly fun. Tess did most of the actual bartending, because he tends bar at superhuman speed. I did some simple stuff like pouring wine and beer, and I wrote down everything that the thirsty locusts drank, for biilling purposes.
I think I done good. I had a blast. I understand that it won't usually . . . or ever . . . be this lively until NEXT year when this gentleman lets his company drink on his tab.
What else? A lot of the people who work there now worked there when I was there last. One of them asked, "So, you still married?" I assured him I was, and he seemed somewhat surprised. (I think there's something vaguely scary about the worldview behind that reaction.)
Lis picked me up from work at about tenish. She'd bought me prezzies -- cookies, the new Al Franken book, and stuff for my face to make it hurt less.
My second shift is tomorrow. I apparently did pretty good for "way, way, way more people than ever show up show up" night. Tomorrow -- well, today, now, it's after midnight here -- we'll see how I do in a more normal shift.
Tess's comment about being slammed our first night was, not only that he was happy that I was there, and could therefore do barbacking type things (getting another bottle of Gray Goose Vodka, getting another half-case of Amstel light, and so forth), but, as he said, "I'm glad it's busy for training. I couldn't teach you stuff about the bar if it wasn't busy -- I can't show you how to do things if I'm not doing things."
And at some point, I need to write up an LJ entry covering the rest of my first day of Hebrew School -- I don' t think I actually got past the actual start of class.
I shaved. I have no beard. This is the bit which I most dislike about the job, especially since the dress code DOES allow beards, but the beverage manager was being extra-careful because he's new and unsure of himself, so he just decided to ask me to be clean-shaven. So I am. It looks bad, and my face hurts, because the reason I wear a beard is because shaving hurts and leaves my face raw.
But that's the only downside. And, since the dress code does allow beards, maybe, after I'm settled, we'll see if something can't be done. Dunno.
So, I've been buying stuff to get ready. I've got new black pants -- I bought the pants at Sears, but went to Men's Wearhouse to have them put suspender buttons on them. While I there, I bought Lis a purple silk handkerchief, because Lis should have a purple silk handkerchief. I've got new white shirts. I've got new Rockport work shoes, designed for people who are on their feet all day -- Solup, at Solup's Shoes in Malden (and if you live in or near Malden, as several of you do, and have trouble finding shoes that fit, you should go to Solup's Shoes) told me that he sold a pair to Mike, of Mike's Donuts in Everett, and Mike loves them. They're good shoes.
Lis decided that I needed to have a new Zippo for my first shift, and we went to the mall, to a Things Remembered, and bought a Zippo, which we had "Xiphias" engraved upon, in a Gothic Blackletter type font, and a little two-shot hip flask, upon which we had engraved "Xiphias Gladius." This means that I can now carry two shots of liquor to, for instance, a friend's house, in order to inflict something upon them.
We got directions on public transportation downtown. It's easy; the Hynes/ICA Newbury Street exit is about a hundred yards from the employee enterance of the building. So I did Commuter Rail to North Station to Hynes/ICA,
I made sure to have All My Stuff with me. I downloaded a couple of books from the Baen Free Library into my PalmPilot -- as well as a drink guide, just in case. I dusted off the corkscrew that
vonbeck, I believe it was, got me, pocketed my Shiny New Zippo, made sure that both my Wave and Flair were on my belt (I may be the only person in the world who bought a Flair. And I rarely use it, because the main thing the Flair has that the Wave doesn't is a waiter's corkscrew, and I've got a top-of-the-line waiter's corkscrew. But there's enough on it to make it worthwhile), threw a couple books into my bag, rolled up a black vest, and one of my black bowties and put them in my bag, and headed out.No trouble finding the place. I saw Orlando and said hi, he seemed pleased to see me. He was heading out at the end of his shift. Filled out some paperwork, then went into the employee cafeteria for some dinner (it was about 4, and they serve dinner from about 4 to about 7, I think).
One of the nice things about the Harvard Club is that they feed you. It's not just that they give you meal breaks; they give you food for your meals. And usually pretty good food, too -- I mean, it's the junior chefs who do the cooking for the staff, and the senior chefs are doing cooking for the members, but it's still decent. They've got a steam-table set up for buffet serving. Today they had manicotti with red sauce, turkey, salmon, red beans and rice, and a white vegetable-ricotta lasagnia. The red beans and rice were dry, but everything else was good. I think they train new cooks by having them cook for us, which means that the food can be as bad as "eh, whatever", and it gets up to "damn good" as the cooks get better. Also, the desserts are good, because we get the leftover cakes and pastries and so forth. We also get a few leftover meals here and there, but you have to be in the right place at the right time to do that.
See, let's say that you've got a function, like a wedding or a bar mitzvah, or a conference, somthing like that. And you've got maybe a choice of three entrees. Now, let's say the people planning the event know that usually, about 50% will order Option A, 30% will order Option B, and 20% will order Option C. Plus or minus two percent, let's say. So you need to make enough Option A for 52% of the people, Option B for 32% of the people, and Option C for 22% of the people.
So, you've got six percent too many meals.
You ever wonder what happens to those meals? Or, for that matter, the meals for people who just didn't bother to show up?
We get them. The staff eats them. Don't worry, they don't go to waste: leftover meals are one of the perks of working at a place that does functions.
So, we get (simple) food specially prepared for us, and we also get all the leftover fancy food.
That was all a long digression.
About 5, Tess came down to the beverage office to take me up to the Commonwealth Lounge. He showed me how we set the thing up, where stuff is stored, and so forth.
It's going to take me a few shifts to get completely familiar with where everything is, and to be able to reach everything without having to think about it, but that's not too much of a problem.
Tess is about my height, and much skinnier. He's from West Africa; I don't know what country off the top of my head. He HATES working the Commonwealth Lounge most of the time, because it's far to easy for him. He gets bored. He likes to be moving, he likes challenges. The Commonwealth Lounge is not a terribly challenging bar to work once you know what you're doing.
You make drinks for the members who are sitting in the lounge, and you make drinks for the waitresses who work the Boston Room, which is the sort of main dining room of the club. But the Boston Room is only like fifteen tables, so there's rarely more than a couple dozen people in there. And they mostly order wine, maybe soft drinks, maybe a beer or two. As far as mixed drinks go, we're talking gin and tonics, vodka tonics, real simple stuff. Perhaps I'll get bored with this after a couple months and want to find a more challenging bartending position. Dunno. We'll see.
Tess has mainly been doing functions, now, and not doing to Commonwealth Lounge, because there's more challenge that way.
Except tonight.
See, once a year, the Harvard Club hosts a wine-tasting event. That, itself, doesn't have that much of an impact on the Commonwealth Lounge. It's a members-only bar, so the first part of the night, the challenge mainly consisted of explaining to people that it was a member's only bar.
Tess showed me a good trick for that.
See, the way the Harvard Club works is, you have a member number. And after you do something that would be expected to cost money (eat dinner, buy drinks, etc.), the server gives you a little card, you write your member number and name on it and sign it, and the server writes on the back what to charge you for.
What Tess suggested is, if someone comes in and asks for something, you hand them the card and a pen, and, if they start automatically filling it out, you start making their drink. They're members.
But if they look blankly at the card in confusion, don't start making the drink. As if they are a member, or if they're here with a member, and, if they are, help them fill out the card. If they're not, explain apologetically that you're unable to serve them, because it's a member's-only bar.
I've discovered one thing that may be a challenge for me: Janet, the head waitress in the Boston Room, had me make a vodka martini for someone at one of her tables. She made me start over because I put vermouth in it.
Okay. What kind of freak drinks COLD WELL VODKA WITH AN OLIVE IN IT? But that's how this person apparently likes them, and he ordered a second one just the same as the first one.
Freak.
But that was the most difficult thing that happened in the first half of the night.
Right.
So, yeah. The bar is only open to members and to their guests. And the Harvard Club was mainly full of non-members who'd shown up for the wine-tasting event, which is HUGE. But we didn't get any traffic because of it.
But, see. . . the head of the largest wine distributor there, he's a Harvard grad, and a member of the club.
And, after the event is over, he brings his entire company over, maybe twenty, thirty people, and lets them all drink on his tab.
Which means that suddently we were as busy as if twenty or thirty people who had just been told that they weren't paying for their own drinks showed up in the bar.
It was actuallly fun. Tess did most of the actual bartending, because he tends bar at superhuman speed. I did some simple stuff like pouring wine and beer, and I wrote down everything that the thirsty locusts drank, for biilling purposes.
I think I done good. I had a blast. I understand that it won't usually . . . or ever . . . be this lively until NEXT year when this gentleman lets his company drink on his tab.
What else? A lot of the people who work there now worked there when I was there last. One of them asked, "So, you still married?" I assured him I was, and he seemed somewhat surprised. (I think there's something vaguely scary about the worldview behind that reaction.)
Lis picked me up from work at about tenish. She'd bought me prezzies -- cookies, the new Al Franken book, and stuff for my face to make it hurt less.
My second shift is tomorrow. I apparently did pretty good for "way, way, way more people than ever show up show up" night. Tomorrow -- well, today, now, it's after midnight here -- we'll see how I do in a more normal shift.
Tess's comment about being slammed our first night was, not only that he was happy that I was there, and could therefore do barbacking type things (getting another bottle of Gray Goose Vodka, getting another half-case of Amstel light, and so forth), but, as he said, "I'm glad it's busy for training. I couldn't teach you stuff about the bar if it wasn't busy -- I can't show you how to do things if I'm not doing things."
And at some point, I need to write up an LJ entry covering the rest of my first day of Hebrew School -- I don' t think I actually got past the actual start of class.