#10

Double figures, baby.

Moving on...

Of late, I finally cracked the 'working-behind-a-bar' egg. (So now I can tell people that when they ask me!) My first proper experience being Friday night at Harlequins Rugby Club, down in Twickenham.

I was a tad apprehensive, only because I'd never really done it before. But our fellow staff and Bar Manager all seemed nice. We were split into 'teams' - which was basically areas along the bar. My team of 3 consisted of myself, a guy who spoke little English and a portly African girl with a loud voice and a brain whose reasoning centre was clearly non-existent.

Excellent. Fan-bloody-tastic.

Once the mob started arriving and then of course started drinking - problems started to arise. The African girl insisted that I stay on the tills while she took all the orders, gave me cash etc. This may sound efficient...it wasn't.

She was mad.

The tills we were working with had 3 operations, meaning one person could put an order in - then if someone else needed to use it, all they had to do was press a button, it would switch over to a new order - saving the previous one. Logical, easy and useful.

Madwoman did not understand this quantum leap in technology. I had given up her stupid method by this stage and was taking my own orders and pouring my own beers. She was in the middle of an order, but not at the till and I was ready to exchange a quick transaction. I switched over the operation and she freaked.

"No no no no no! What are you doing, that was my order!"
"Yeah I know, it saves it - it didn't go anywhere."

All the while she was arbitrarily stabbing the till and making it beep and boop - completely erasing hers and my order.

Moron.

Also, due to her portliness - it was difficult to manoeuvre with beers in your hand - especially when she was violently grabbing my arm telling me to get on the tills. Eventually she got to go home early, even though she was drinking wine and talking on her phone. GASP.

Why is all of this crazy crap happening to me! More to come I suppose.

Before I let you go back to your futile, meaningless lives I thought I'd tell you about a couple of strange British customs regarding beer.

Firstly, they like warm beer. Yeah I don't know either.

Secondly, a good portion of beer drinkers drink what's known as Shandies, also known as Lager Tops. What is this, you ask? Well it's mostly beer, topped off with a dash of lemonade! Now I thought this was solely for the ladies. I was wrong. The blokes like a hint of lame in their beers.

Admittedly, I haven't tasted it yet - it could be nice, but at the moment I'm abstaining on pure principal and spite.

Go make yourself a shandy, get back to me.