Photo Credit: © Can Stock Photo Inc. / Feverpitched
I was just finishing my shift and had counted my tips for the night. As was expected, I carved out 10 percent for the busboys and another 10 percent for the bartender. There was a standard policy at the restaurant that once a waiter changed out of his uniform and clocked out, his first beer at the bar was half price, so I indulged in that privilege and chatted with the bartender, a really nice guy, several years older than me, and a “townie.” I was a student then and really no more than a visitor to the neighborhood, but he had lived there his entire life. I really looked up to him in a certain way since he had his own house and was out of school. He was proud of being unattached and his own man. As we used to say in my hometown, “He was a guy who had it together.”
However, that night my image of him changed in a matter of seconds. Evidently, management had been watching him for some time, as was often the case with bartenders. The manager thought he was giving stuff away for free: long pours, double shots, less ice than was standard, all the things that could be easily covered up or denied if confronted, but was definitely a way to gain favoritism from customers and seemingly improve a bartender’s personal tips. The manager sat beside me and ordered a club soda. Without hesitation, he asked what the beer I was nursing cost. I told him I got the half-price deal for just finishing my shift. He asked if it were my first beer of the evening. I assured him it was. He asked if I ever got a free beer while at the bar, and I said I hadn’t, which was true. I’d always insisted on paying, mostly in case of moments just like the one I was now experiencing—I needed the job and didn’t want to lose it over a complimentary drink.
When the bartender brought back the club soda, the manager confronted him directly. “I think you’re giving away free shots and beers, and I will find out, so you may as well just tell me now!” Well, my friend went pale and then got red-faced. He looked angry and then sorry and then, yes, he started to cry. I mean like a 4-year-old playground kid crying. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said over and over with his head down on the bar, wailing. I was torn between being so uncomfortable and completely mesmerized at the transformation going on in front of me that I think my mouth stayed open in amazement.