The wrong way to get a bartenders attention.

 I was bartending on a busy night, by myself, and no dish washer. At the bar I worked at the well I worked at was on the short end of an L shaped bar. Usually at night we closed the dinning room side and worked from the well that was closest to the pool tables. At that moment, I had three wide and five deep at my well, it was a pool league night. My attention was on the crowd I had at my well, then all of a sudden I felt something hit my back. I turned around and saw a woman standing there and she was demanding service. I acknowledged her existence, but turned back around to my well and finished serving all the people that were waiting in line. I had to do that because if I went over to talk to her at that second, I would have thrown the Point of Sale system at her and asked her how it felt. I walked over to her and said, “If you throw another coaster, you will be 86’ed!” Guess I was feeling generous.

To which she replied, “I’ve been waiting for 10 minutes.”

I told her, “You couldn’t see the line over there?” At this point I was never going to win the argument. I gave her a beer, and went about my business. A few years later I was working a different bar that she frequented and she admitted to me that she was purposely there to cause trouble, because she didn’t like the owners of that bar. So it wouldn’t have mattered if I 86’ed her, because she didn’t want to come back anyway. 

However I have heard of other bartenders getting stuff thrown at them, and people getting 86’ed immediately. Funny thing, if I would have done that at the bar I previously at, she would have told the manager, and I would have been written up for it. I hated working for a manager that didn’t have my back.

So bartenders, if you have a problem of people trying to get your attention in a rude way, throwing something back is a bad idea but a fun one, 86ing them for a short period of time is cool, but remember, when you go to any store and they have a customer that is not in line demanding service, they will either be ignored or told to go to the end of the line. Bartenders can do that too. Don’t let your customers treat you like shit, unless you plan on putting Visine in their drink. Just kidding, don’t do that!!!