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xiphiasYesterday afternoon, when I picked up our car from the mechanic, I was talking to Rick, at the desk, and mentioned that I (along with something like sixty-five other bartenders) was going to be working at Deval Patrick victory party that night. Then I corrected myself and said that I didn't technically know that it was going to be a victory party, but Rick said he was pretty sure it would be.
"And you know why? 'Cause we don't have electronic voting machines."
I mentioned that Galvin was trying out a couple in a couple towns, although always with a paper trail and with the option of not using them. Rick was reasonably horrified, and I wonder if he, like I, was one of the 18% of folks who voted for Jill Stein.
Anyway, on to the event itself:
Call was for 5 PM at the Hynes Convention Center in Downtown Boston -- if you were at the Boston Worldcon, that's where it was. Now, I'm TIPS certified -- I went through training that is supposed to let me figure out when someone is already drunk and know how to not give them more alcohol (which is the easy part) without overly pissing them off (which is the hard part). And they asked for my TIPS certification number.
Now, I didn't even know that I HAD a TIPS certification number. And the only card I had was my expired one. So I copied the number off of that one. I noticed that none of the other TIPS numbers that anyone else wrote down had the same format, so I figure that everyone else just made something up.
They fed us (an eclectic medley of whatever the hell they scrounged up as leftovers, some of which was pretty close to edible), and gave us a brief run-down on what was going on -- upstairs, there would be VIP bars, which would be open bars, downstairs would be open to the public and be cash bars. I was working downstairs. Would have been fun to work the VIP bars, but open bars don't get tips, while cash bars tend to, so it's all good.
We were set up in, effectively, the overflow room. There was a big room with balconies and big auditorium setup stuff where all the speeches happened, and our room was right next to it, with giant television screens, tables, and bars. It never got crowded enough for us to get busy, unfortunately. Busy is fun; slow is less fun. Also, busy is more money.
Our bar had four bartenders and two cash registers at it, and one barback assigned.
We had something I'd never encountered before. Female barbacks. I mean, not all the barbacks were women, but at least a half-dozen of them were, and barbacking is usually a guy thing, since it involves, primarily, heavy lifting, and, on average, men have more upper body strength. There's no reason that women can't do it, but they almost never do.
And Andrea, who was working with JJ, Bruno, Rob, and me, was really cute, too. Bruno was clearly into her -- they are both around nineteen or so -- and he mentioned that he was definitely going to get her phone number by the end of the night.
Then they figured out that they had both come up from Rhode Island to work the event -- and they lived two blocks away from each other.
Rob was the most experienced bartender of the four of us, and over the course of the night, he gave me a couple tips, which I appreciated.
As it was open to the public, we were a little more aggressive about carding than I am at closed professional or graduate student events, and we had to avoid serving a couple drunks -- including a couple people who were staggering when they showed up.
And we got to see the speeches. Which were, for the most part, fairly dull -- let's face it, we don't elect a state auditor based on his or her ability to electrify a crowd -- and, at one point, as we were staring at the giant screens all over the place, JJ leaned over and asked, "Who's got the clicker? " and Bruno said, "Yeah --isn't Nip/Tuck on?"
Still, Kennedy, Kerry (John, not Healy), and, of course, Patrick gave real barnburners of speeches, which were fun, although Bruno commented that he had a rule that he would never vote for someone who got up to a podium and started yelling (which I think is generally good advice, and principled, but which leaves one rather short of potential candidates in the United States), which, in truth, did kind of describe Kennedy's speech, and, to a lesser extent, Kerry's. Patrick's, though, didn't fall into that category.
But it wasn't until I got home that I really discovered the full extent of how well the Dems had been doing. The speeches did keep mentioning that it had been a great night, but they seemed to assume (correctly, as far as I can tell) that the audience knew the details.
So it wasn't until Lis picked me up at 1 in the morning that I found out that we'd totally gotten the House and that the Senate was in play.
We got to sleep at around 2. Lis has headed off to work, and I'm awake now, too.
"And you know why? 'Cause we don't have electronic voting machines."
I mentioned that Galvin was trying out a couple in a couple towns, although always with a paper trail and with the option of not using them. Rick was reasonably horrified, and I wonder if he, like I, was one of the 18% of folks who voted for Jill Stein.
Anyway, on to the event itself:
Call was for 5 PM at the Hynes Convention Center in Downtown Boston -- if you were at the Boston Worldcon, that's where it was. Now, I'm TIPS certified -- I went through training that is supposed to let me figure out when someone is already drunk and know how to not give them more alcohol (which is the easy part) without overly pissing them off (which is the hard part). And they asked for my TIPS certification number.
Now, I didn't even know that I HAD a TIPS certification number. And the only card I had was my expired one. So I copied the number off of that one. I noticed that none of the other TIPS numbers that anyone else wrote down had the same format, so I figure that everyone else just made something up.
They fed us (an eclectic medley of whatever the hell they scrounged up as leftovers, some of which was pretty close to edible), and gave us a brief run-down on what was going on -- upstairs, there would be VIP bars, which would be open bars, downstairs would be open to the public and be cash bars. I was working downstairs. Would have been fun to work the VIP bars, but open bars don't get tips, while cash bars tend to, so it's all good.
We were set up in, effectively, the overflow room. There was a big room with balconies and big auditorium setup stuff where all the speeches happened, and our room was right next to it, with giant television screens, tables, and bars. It never got crowded enough for us to get busy, unfortunately. Busy is fun; slow is less fun. Also, busy is more money.
Our bar had four bartenders and two cash registers at it, and one barback assigned.
We had something I'd never encountered before. Female barbacks. I mean, not all the barbacks were women, but at least a half-dozen of them were, and barbacking is usually a guy thing, since it involves, primarily, heavy lifting, and, on average, men have more upper body strength. There's no reason that women can't do it, but they almost never do.
And Andrea, who was working with JJ, Bruno, Rob, and me, was really cute, too. Bruno was clearly into her -- they are both around nineteen or so -- and he mentioned that he was definitely going to get her phone number by the end of the night.
Then they figured out that they had both come up from Rhode Island to work the event -- and they lived two blocks away from each other.
Rob was the most experienced bartender of the four of us, and over the course of the night, he gave me a couple tips, which I appreciated.
As it was open to the public, we were a little more aggressive about carding than I am at closed professional or graduate student events, and we had to avoid serving a couple drunks -- including a couple people who were staggering when they showed up.
And we got to see the speeches. Which were, for the most part, fairly dull -- let's face it, we don't elect a state auditor based on his or her ability to electrify a crowd -- and, at one point, as we were staring at the giant screens all over the place, JJ leaned over and asked, "Who's got the clicker? " and Bruno said, "Yeah --isn't Nip/Tuck on?"
Still, Kennedy, Kerry (John, not Healy), and, of course, Patrick gave real barnburners of speeches, which were fun, although Bruno commented that he had a rule that he would never vote for someone who got up to a podium and started yelling (which I think is generally good advice, and principled, but which leaves one rather short of potential candidates in the United States), which, in truth, did kind of describe Kennedy's speech, and, to a lesser extent, Kerry's. Patrick's, though, didn't fall into that category.
But it wasn't until I got home that I really discovered the full extent of how well the Dems had been doing. The speeches did keep mentioning that it had been a great night, but they seemed to assume (correctly, as far as I can tell) that the audience knew the details.
So it wasn't until Lis picked me up at 1 in the morning that I found out that we'd totally gotten the House and that the Senate was in play.
We got to sleep at around 2. Lis has headed off to work, and I'm awake now, too.
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Date: 2006-11-08 02:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-08 04:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-08 04:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-08 07:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-08 07:15 pm (UTC)At a cash bar, you've got your wallet out, you hand the bartender money, the bartender hands you change back (and all drink prices tend to be done such that you'll usually get a couple singles back as change, almost all the times you're ordering -- and if your order comes to an exact multiple of five, the bartender is going to give you five ones as part of your change).
You've got your tip money in your hand. So you drop it on the bar.
At an open bar, you don't have your wallet anywhere NEAR accessible. You've got one hand full of plate-o'-hors-doevoures, one hand full of stuff-you're-trying-to-shlep-around, a third hand full of cell-phone, and you're trying to get a drink with your fourth hand. A wallet doesn't even enter into the picture. Digging out a wallet for a tip would involve at least two hands more than you actually have when you're already running at a hand-deficit, and you're not even THINKING about money, anyway.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-08 07:20 pm (UTC)Oh well, I drive my wife crazy, when I start doing stuff that she thinks is meaningless, until, hours later, she sees that I was just planning ahead. Today, while making breakfast, I pulled out a large serving platter and put it on the table. Later tonight, while she's making dinner (nachos and finger food), she'll want it but since it's stored under the counter where we prep veggies, it's difficult to pull out while working. She'll see.
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Date: 2006-11-08 09:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-08 11:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-09 01:10 am (UTC)