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Today was another fun-filled day of slinging drinks. Actually, I did have fun, but two people stood out enough early in the day that I thought to myself, "These are going on customerssuck.com!"
First, the touron. (For those of you who missed the other threads mentioning this, a touron is a tourist moron.) My hotel has three bars, one of them being the rooftop bar, which is on the top of the tallest building (all seven stories of it) on this tropical island paradise. In addition to the bar, there is a great observation deck, and truly a spectacular view. I was up there getting something I needed for the pool bar, where I was working today, and had the following conversation with a lady who came in from the observation deck.
TOURON: "Can you see Cuba from here?"
JESTER: :blink blink: "Um, at 90 miles away...no." [She may not have known that Cuba is 90 miles from Key West, despite the signs all over town that say "Cuba 90 Miles."]TOURON: "Well how far CAN you see from up here?"
JESTER: "Um, I don't know, actually. Probably depends on your vision and how clear it is. I am guessing about 10-15 miles?"
And here I am thinking how the heck am I supposed to know this stuff? There are a lot of variables, and chances are some people can see further than other, and the variety of weather we get down here is definitely going to affect it. And later a sailor friend of mine confirmed what I said...he said probably about 12 miles from up there.
And now the SC. As I said, I was at the pool bar today. And I had not one, but TWO couples come in to the pool area with coolers of drinks. Now, normally we don't mind when people wander in with a drink, as that is standard operating procedure in Key West (yes, you can wander the streets with your drinks!), but a whole cooler of drinks? No. A, it goes it against our liquor license to have people bringing in outside drinks (though as I said, we can let one slide), and B, neither the hotel nor the bartender is going to make any money on nitwits like this. I told the first couple I would have to ask them to put the cooler back in their room, but they were more than welcome to enjoy the drinks they already had, and I would be more than happy to provide them with more drinks throughout the afternoon. They understood completely, and complied. I went to the second couple, and repeated my little speech to them.
SC: "Why?"
ME: "Well, it goes against our liquor license for people to bring in outside drinks."
SC: "Well, it must have changed."
ME: "What?"
SC: "Well, I've been doing this for five years."
Riiiight. The old "I've been doing this forever" ploy. Uh huh. Sure.
Now, some of you may be thinking, "Jester, it's a pool....why can't they bring a cooler to a pool." Let me ask you this....would you ever walk into a regular bar with a cooler of drinks? And if you did, what kind of reaction do you think the establishment would have? Right, and right again. And yes, Virginia, there are signs posted on the doors to the pool area stating just this. NOT that anyone reads signs, of course.
Other than that, it was an okay day....not hugely busy, but better than my last two pool bar shifts, I had a couple friends stop by, and got to flirt with the latest chickadee that is semi in my life via text messaging. Perhaps one of these days we may even have a real date.
First, the touron. (For those of you who missed the other threads mentioning this, a touron is a tourist moron.) My hotel has three bars, one of them being the rooftop bar, which is on the top of the tallest building (all seven stories of it) on this tropical island paradise. In addition to the bar, there is a great observation deck, and truly a spectacular view. I was up there getting something I needed for the pool bar, where I was working today, and had the following conversation with a lady who came in from the observation deck.
TOURON: "Can you see Cuba from here?"
JESTER: :blink blink: "Um, at 90 miles away...no." [She may not have known that Cuba is 90 miles from Key West, despite the signs all over town that say "Cuba 90 Miles."]TOURON: "Well how far CAN you see from up here?"
JESTER: "Um, I don't know, actually. Probably depends on your vision and how clear it is. I am guessing about 10-15 miles?"
And here I am thinking how the heck am I supposed to know this stuff? There are a lot of variables, and chances are some people can see further than other, and the variety of weather we get down here is definitely going to affect it. And later a sailor friend of mine confirmed what I said...he said probably about 12 miles from up there.
And now the SC. As I said, I was at the pool bar today. And I had not one, but TWO couples come in to the pool area with coolers of drinks. Now, normally we don't mind when people wander in with a drink, as that is standard operating procedure in Key West (yes, you can wander the streets with your drinks!), but a whole cooler of drinks? No. A, it goes it against our liquor license to have people bringing in outside drinks (though as I said, we can let one slide), and B, neither the hotel nor the bartender is going to make any money on nitwits like this. I told the first couple I would have to ask them to put the cooler back in their room, but they were more than welcome to enjoy the drinks they already had, and I would be more than happy to provide them with more drinks throughout the afternoon. They understood completely, and complied. I went to the second couple, and repeated my little speech to them.
SC: "Why?"
ME: "Well, it goes against our liquor license for people to bring in outside drinks."
SC: "Well, it must have changed."
ME: "What?"
SC: "Well, I've been doing this for five years."
Riiiight. The old "I've been doing this forever" ploy. Uh huh. Sure.
Now, some of you may be thinking, "Jester, it's a pool....why can't they bring a cooler to a pool." Let me ask you this....would you ever walk into a regular bar with a cooler of drinks? And if you did, what kind of reaction do you think the establishment would have? Right, and right again. And yes, Virginia, there are signs posted on the doors to the pool area stating just this. NOT that anyone reads signs, of course.
Other than that, it was an okay day....not hugely busy, but better than my last two pool bar shifts, I had a couple friends stop by, and got to flirt with the latest chickadee that is semi in my life via text messaging. Perhaps one of these days we may even have a real date.
I'm reminded of a youth ministry conference I attended in Orlando when I was a volunteer on my former church's youth ministry staff. A bunch of us (I think 20 or so, including participants and conference leaders) were sitting around the hot tub at the main pool the night after the first day of the conference. Being good Lutherans, somebody had a cooler full of beer and Smirnoff Ice (for the beer drinking challenged). We noticed a hotel staff person do a double-take at us when passing and go to a house phone and place a call. Shortly thereafter, we were visited by security, who told us to have fun but we needed to move the cooler 20 feet away from the edge of the hot tub and pour any drinks we had into plastic cups, which the hotel's pool bar provided us at no charge (the pool bar closed long before the pool did, actually not long after this confrontation with security, and the bartenders left a stack of cups out on the bar for us to take as necessary throughout the night).
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