Last night I finished up my first week of bartending at Buller Pub in Recoleta. I’m a bit drained but pumped for the connections and Spanish practice I’ll have through this job.
I still have a ton of names to remember but I think I came up with a good system. I find characteristics about the person that relate to his or her name and use them as clues. For example, one waitress Pamela, has huge Pomelos (grapefruits). Although I have trouble looking her in the eyes when I call her, I haven’t forgot her name once!
Working at Buller has also given me the opportunity to catch up on my early 90s West-Coast Hip-Hop (finally). Turns out, during the week (when their isn’t a in-house DJ) there is a heavy rotation of gangster rap pumping through the walls. I’ve come to find out that one of my bosses really loves the melodic beats of Long Beach’s own, Snoop Doggy Dog. During the song Deep Cover where the canine lyricist talks about killing undercover cops I asked my boss if he knew what the guy was talking about. I explained the words and he told me he didn’t care because he thought the music had good rhythm. I just found it humorous watching a family sit down for a nice dinner as Snoop Dogg starts singing “Stay strapped cause niggas bust caps every day, yo – The 1-8-7 don’t stop, on undercover cops.” Oh well, I guess Death Row lives on at Buller.
Okay so let’s talk day 2 when things got flat out embarrassing. Before I left for work last Wednesday, my roommate Mariangela told me I needed to shave. So, I ran into the bathroom to clean up my scruff as fast as possible so I wouldn’t be late. Needless to say, I cut myself real bad right under my nose and blood started pouring out immediately. Don’t panic I thought, I figured I had a good 10 minute cab ride to plug the hole. However, when I arrived at the bar the only thing I had managed to do was freak out my cab driver and soak two napkins in blood. After about 15 minutes of walking around the block trying to stop the waterfall I figured it was time to head inside before it got too late.
As soon as I walked inside it was like a hot waitress convention at the hostess stand (most of whom I’ve never met before). I had to give each of them a hello kiss while trying not to get blood on their shoulders. And as if it couldn’t get any worse… when I walked up to the bar my boss and 3 other managers were standing there watching me walk in like I’d just got punched in the nose. After trying to explain what happened in Spanish (unsuccessfully) they told me that I wasn’t even supposed to come in that day because the only one who spoke English wasn’t working. It took about 5 minutes for me to translate what they were saying and I said “okay” and left (walking by all the waitresses again).
I laughed the entire way home (still bleeding).
