Weekend Update

Tonight you won't find me at 50 Plates or behind the bar anywhere else. Nor will you see me pouring beers and shaking cocktails on Saturday. Instead, I'm taking a long overdue vacation to Palm Springs. I won't be blogging while I'm gone, and, to be honest, I probably won't even be checking emails or answering my phone. I'm going to sit on the edge of the Salton Sea, do a little fishing and just relax for a while. Perhaps a good hike or two at Joshua Tree will do me some good as well.

I posted a picture of Isaac from the Love Boat because he is my favorite fictional bartender of all time. I actually read a pretty funny top 10 list of fictional bartenders that you can read here. I think Isaac deserved more than honorable mention, but thats just my opinion. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Sunday, I'm driving over to Temecula to do some wine tasting with my friends Jason and Grace. I'm particularly fond of Hart and Thornton, and I'm always pleasantly surprised by the quality of the wine in Temecula.

I just had some punch recipes published in this weeks edition of the Portland Mercury. You can check them out here.

Its also looking like I might get a chance to collaborate again with one of my favorite Portland chefs. I don't want to let the cat out of the bag, but this should be very very cool.

Lastly, I've agreed to facilitate a couple of cocktail classes as items for upcoming Holiday Charity auctions for a couple of worthy charities. If you are interested in either me donating some more of my time for a good cause that you might be aware of or if you are interested in bidding or which charities I'm supporting, shoot me an email and I'll be happy to share all of the pertinent details.

I'm rolling out of the office right now and going home to pack. I'm turning off the old cell phone, taking my watch off and heading for vacation. No deadlines, no conference calls, no crazy calls in the middle of the night. See you all when I get back.

Do you still want to work here?

Ok, time to come clean. In addition to working at Meriwethers I also have one other bar job. I won't identify it, more out of self preservation than anything else. I will say that its a very large place that isn't known for creativity in its cocktails, and as a bartender, I am one among many. Why do I work there? Greed. The work is exceptionally easy and the money is good. I work at Meriwether's because I love the concept, most of the people, and Tommy Habetz's food. This other job is strictly about the dollars. I show up, clock in, work hard, and go home. I try not to socialize much and I keep my interaction with management to a minimum.
For a few months, I've known that I would be attending last weekend's UCLA vs Oregon State basketball game in Corvallis. My father was flying up and I wanted to spend time with him rather than trudge off to work and leave my father to fend for himself every evening.
Starting in early December, I informed the head bartender in my area, the head bartender of the entire place and the manager of my area that I needed Friday through Sunday of last week off. I made sure I repeated this information to them constantly, and both the head bartender for the place and the manager wrote down this information to ensure that they would schedule me off.I repeated all of this as we got into January and I received assurances that I would be taken off the schedule.
Guess what? I wasn't. So last week, they apparently thought that I no showed, no called for three straight days, usually a recipe for unemployment in the restaurant world. Lucky for me this place isn't exactly run like most places. Last year, I knew someone who failed to show up for an entire month, and she still works there.
Well, yesterday was my first shift back. I came in, clocked in, no problems at all. As I was stocking the bar, one of the managers approached me and asked me if we could talk privately. When I met with him, the first words out of his mouth to me were,"Do you still want to work here?". Thats when it hit me that no one must have taken me off of the schedule last week. I explained that I had requested vacation time and had done exactly what the head bartender and bar manager had informed me to do. I then received a stern lecture about "you don't need to be here if you don't want to" or something like that, I wasn't really paying attention as I was thinking to myself that management screwing up my vacation request and then blaming me was about par for the course at this place. Its the Peter Principle in action.
Every time I still roll into work at this job, I get grumpy because I know that some sort of unnecessary drama will unfold or some senseless new rule will be introduced to the frustration of all. I know that this should be a sign to me, I should just cut my losses, quit the job, and move on. And perhaps I'll finally quit talking about it and actually do it now that I've had some time to think. Because this morning, when I started reflecting on my manager's question about wanting to work there, I think the real answer is no. Its not worth the headaches and frustration anymore.