Post by stoopidstu on May 20, 2006 7:30:58 GMT
I'm topying with the idea of writing my life down as I just have no interest in sitting in front of a webcam and talking about it... here is the first part; let me know what you think.
Walking into the Job Centre, I took several glances around the place to take in the surrounding people. These were the men and women that I had joined on the dole queue; the middle aged work shy, the young wasters, the druggies… I shouldn’t be here.
Up until three weeks ago I had no reason to visit these pits of patheticness because I had a job, a job that I loved and had no intention of leaving. That decision wasn’t mine to take, it wasn’t my supervisor’s or my mangers either. The great order to release me from my terms of contract came from the company itself. To be honest with you, in a lot of ways I’m the innocent party in all of this.
It wasn’t me swallowing, smoking or snorting drugs of any kind that night. When the Police raided the building I was the one of only two people who were co-operating with Durham’s finest because I knew that it was a mess and maybe we, as a collective, had gone too far this time.
As I’m writing this on March 27th 2006 I look back and I realise that the thing we had in that place will never be had again. No amount of cash would beat it; no fancy job title would be above it. When we were in there we were all somebodies in this town, if we weren’t working but out relaxing; people knew who we were.
I’m talking about the nightclub known as Mr. Bojangles, and the pub below it known as The Plastered Parrot. These days the Bojangles part of it is a lap dancing club, but when I’m in there I still see the old place. Downstairs has changed a lot, but I can still see the Parrot, but recently it’s getting another refurbishment. It doesn’t matter what they do to it, turn it into a Cactus Jacks or whatever, I’ll always be able to see the old place and remember the old times.
Back in May of 1999 I was in Darlington College of Technology studying on a GNVQ Intermediate course in Information Technology. I use the term studying very loosely because I used to wait for someone’s work to come out of the printer, steal it and claim it as my own. If I wasn’t doing that I was chilling out in the park, or sitting in the canteen drinking hot chocolate.
There was this one day when I sitting with a black kid named James Smith. He was alright, I knew him a bit but not all that much, think he was from Birmingham or somewhere. Pretty self assured, a bit arrogant… after all these years he still greets me with an “Alright, Steve?”
Some guy that he knew came over and they were talking, James was asking about a job. This guy’s name was Leon, and he claimed to be Assistant Manager or something along those lines. Your first lesson is right there; if a barman tells you he runs the place, take it with a pinch of salt. But anyway, Leon mentioned that there were a couple of jobs going at the bar he worked at and offered James the chance to go down for an interview. It was then when I stepped in and asked about getting me an interview, Leon said to just go in with James and I’ll have one too.
Couple of days later it came to the interview, it was a pretty basic one. I remember we had to turn up in black trousers and a black t-shirt and the interview lasted all of five minutes. I’m not sure of what was asked but James got asked to work that very night, which was expected since he knew Leon and I didn’t know anybody there. I was told that I could have the job but they weren’t sure what sort of hours I would be given.
The next day I met up with James to ask how it went, he enjoyed it and said that he’d been told to tell me to go down on the night because I might be working.
Here comes my big night, first time in a night club too! I got there at eight to start work, or so I thought. Leon said that it wasn’t that busy so I might not be needed, so I said that I would wait around just incase it does. When the clock hit eleven the place was still pretty quiet so I said to Leon I was going, he then said for me to come back on the Saturday night because it was a big night and would definitely be busy.
When Saturday came around the place was packed out and it was hard to just walk through the crowd of people, I had never seen anything like it. Thankfully I was actually asked to work, but it wasn’t as a glass collector… they were putting me on the bar.
The only reason I was put on the bar was because I was aged eighteen at the time, they didn’t know that I had never poured a pint in my life, never been clubbing, or even under-age drinking in a pub. The till was simply a sea of buttons, the fridges a collection of coloured bottles. I knew what Bud, Guinness, Carling, Cider and Vodka were but when it came to Castaway, Wine and Hooch, I didn’t have a clue!
Linda was the bar supervisor at the time, she was middle aged and worked there because she enjoyed the atmosphere. I know she wasn’t happy getting lumped with a bar virgin on such a packed night. But to her credit, she tried to help me out as much as she could and I’ll always appreciate that. She said that it was wrong for me to be on the bar with no training on this night. You know when you get a pint of lager, the head forms roughly ten percent of the pint? My pints were ninety percent head!
Through my errors, that everybody but me found hilarious, I managed to get through a really hectic spell on the till for an hour. I think the rest of the staff were fed up of me looking at the till with a blank expression on my face as I searched for a button, because after that hour I was told I didn’t have to do anymore bar work. Also, they had enough glass collectors so I didn’t have to work, neither did James.
We decided to stay around for a bit and see what the scene was like, it was wandering around that we found out it was so packed because the club had Nigel Benn DJ’ing. If you’ve never heard of Nigel Benn, he was a one of the best boxers to come out of Britain and I urge you to search out his fight against Gerald McClellen, but that was a couple of years ago and he’d now turned his hand to being a DJ.
James and I then went upstairs into Bojangles, and this was the first time I found out who the bosses were.
Behind the DJ box to the left there is a door, back then it housed the amplifier and sound equipment. Standing there looking really pissed off were a couple of guys dressed in suits, they were looking at something through the door and cursing a hell of a lot. The smaller and skinnier of the two with dark hair was Carl, the assistant manager whiles the taller one, a bit tubby and with short fair hair was Shane. From what I gathered from that scene was that Carl was the quiet one while Shane was mouth piece of the couple. Typical cockney attitude, it was “fucking cunt” this and that so he came across to me as very unapproachable.
Apparently the sound system had blown up so it had thrown the plans for Nigel Benn down the toilet. I would learn years later that Shane had actually paid Benn’s fee out of his own pocket so I can’t blame the guy for being pissed. The final solution was to switch Benn downstairs and have it down there. However, the place wasn’t as big in the Parrot so when they did it they just about had everybody in the building downstairs.
Nigel Benn ended up playing a forty minute set instead of the original planned two hours, if the fire department had checked the building that night they would have had the club closed down it was that packed. A lot of punters felt cheated and wanted their money back too, but as the night went on and they got drunker, their complaints subsided. Also in all the commotion somebody popped the fruit machine open and took all the cash, without anybody noticing.
When I found out that Shane had paid for it himself, I also found out that he made almost all his cash back except for £1,000. Looking at how much it went wrong that was pretty lucky.
That was my first taste of working in a night club, and I was blown away by just how different a working life this could be. I also learned that if something goes wrong, it’s better to give the punters something rather than nothing and to just get the job done… aslong as you don’t break too many laws.
Walking into the Job Centre, I took several glances around the place to take in the surrounding people. These were the men and women that I had joined on the dole queue; the middle aged work shy, the young wasters, the druggies… I shouldn’t be here.
Up until three weeks ago I had no reason to visit these pits of patheticness because I had a job, a job that I loved and had no intention of leaving. That decision wasn’t mine to take, it wasn’t my supervisor’s or my mangers either. The great order to release me from my terms of contract came from the company itself. To be honest with you, in a lot of ways I’m the innocent party in all of this.
It wasn’t me swallowing, smoking or snorting drugs of any kind that night. When the Police raided the building I was the one of only two people who were co-operating with Durham’s finest because I knew that it was a mess and maybe we, as a collective, had gone too far this time.
As I’m writing this on March 27th 2006 I look back and I realise that the thing we had in that place will never be had again. No amount of cash would beat it; no fancy job title would be above it. When we were in there we were all somebodies in this town, if we weren’t working but out relaxing; people knew who we were.
I’m talking about the nightclub known as Mr. Bojangles, and the pub below it known as The Plastered Parrot. These days the Bojangles part of it is a lap dancing club, but when I’m in there I still see the old place. Downstairs has changed a lot, but I can still see the Parrot, but recently it’s getting another refurbishment. It doesn’t matter what they do to it, turn it into a Cactus Jacks or whatever, I’ll always be able to see the old place and remember the old times.
Back in May of 1999 I was in Darlington College of Technology studying on a GNVQ Intermediate course in Information Technology. I use the term studying very loosely because I used to wait for someone’s work to come out of the printer, steal it and claim it as my own. If I wasn’t doing that I was chilling out in the park, or sitting in the canteen drinking hot chocolate.
There was this one day when I sitting with a black kid named James Smith. He was alright, I knew him a bit but not all that much, think he was from Birmingham or somewhere. Pretty self assured, a bit arrogant… after all these years he still greets me with an “Alright, Steve?”
Some guy that he knew came over and they were talking, James was asking about a job. This guy’s name was Leon, and he claimed to be Assistant Manager or something along those lines. Your first lesson is right there; if a barman tells you he runs the place, take it with a pinch of salt. But anyway, Leon mentioned that there were a couple of jobs going at the bar he worked at and offered James the chance to go down for an interview. It was then when I stepped in and asked about getting me an interview, Leon said to just go in with James and I’ll have one too.
Couple of days later it came to the interview, it was a pretty basic one. I remember we had to turn up in black trousers and a black t-shirt and the interview lasted all of five minutes. I’m not sure of what was asked but James got asked to work that very night, which was expected since he knew Leon and I didn’t know anybody there. I was told that I could have the job but they weren’t sure what sort of hours I would be given.
The next day I met up with James to ask how it went, he enjoyed it and said that he’d been told to tell me to go down on the night because I might be working.
Here comes my big night, first time in a night club too! I got there at eight to start work, or so I thought. Leon said that it wasn’t that busy so I might not be needed, so I said that I would wait around just incase it does. When the clock hit eleven the place was still pretty quiet so I said to Leon I was going, he then said for me to come back on the Saturday night because it was a big night and would definitely be busy.
When Saturday came around the place was packed out and it was hard to just walk through the crowd of people, I had never seen anything like it. Thankfully I was actually asked to work, but it wasn’t as a glass collector… they were putting me on the bar.
The only reason I was put on the bar was because I was aged eighteen at the time, they didn’t know that I had never poured a pint in my life, never been clubbing, or even under-age drinking in a pub. The till was simply a sea of buttons, the fridges a collection of coloured bottles. I knew what Bud, Guinness, Carling, Cider and Vodka were but when it came to Castaway, Wine and Hooch, I didn’t have a clue!
Linda was the bar supervisor at the time, she was middle aged and worked there because she enjoyed the atmosphere. I know she wasn’t happy getting lumped with a bar virgin on such a packed night. But to her credit, she tried to help me out as much as she could and I’ll always appreciate that. She said that it was wrong for me to be on the bar with no training on this night. You know when you get a pint of lager, the head forms roughly ten percent of the pint? My pints were ninety percent head!
Through my errors, that everybody but me found hilarious, I managed to get through a really hectic spell on the till for an hour. I think the rest of the staff were fed up of me looking at the till with a blank expression on my face as I searched for a button, because after that hour I was told I didn’t have to do anymore bar work. Also, they had enough glass collectors so I didn’t have to work, neither did James.
We decided to stay around for a bit and see what the scene was like, it was wandering around that we found out it was so packed because the club had Nigel Benn DJ’ing. If you’ve never heard of Nigel Benn, he was a one of the best boxers to come out of Britain and I urge you to search out his fight against Gerald McClellen, but that was a couple of years ago and he’d now turned his hand to being a DJ.
James and I then went upstairs into Bojangles, and this was the first time I found out who the bosses were.
Behind the DJ box to the left there is a door, back then it housed the amplifier and sound equipment. Standing there looking really pissed off were a couple of guys dressed in suits, they were looking at something through the door and cursing a hell of a lot. The smaller and skinnier of the two with dark hair was Carl, the assistant manager whiles the taller one, a bit tubby and with short fair hair was Shane. From what I gathered from that scene was that Carl was the quiet one while Shane was mouth piece of the couple. Typical cockney attitude, it was “fucking cunt” this and that so he came across to me as very unapproachable.
Apparently the sound system had blown up so it had thrown the plans for Nigel Benn down the toilet. I would learn years later that Shane had actually paid Benn’s fee out of his own pocket so I can’t blame the guy for being pissed. The final solution was to switch Benn downstairs and have it down there. However, the place wasn’t as big in the Parrot so when they did it they just about had everybody in the building downstairs.
Nigel Benn ended up playing a forty minute set instead of the original planned two hours, if the fire department had checked the building that night they would have had the club closed down it was that packed. A lot of punters felt cheated and wanted their money back too, but as the night went on and they got drunker, their complaints subsided. Also in all the commotion somebody popped the fruit machine open and took all the cash, without anybody noticing.
When I found out that Shane had paid for it himself, I also found out that he made almost all his cash back except for £1,000. Looking at how much it went wrong that was pretty lucky.
That was my first taste of working in a night club, and I was blown away by just how different a working life this could be. I also learned that if something goes wrong, it’s better to give the punters something rather than nothing and to just get the job done… aslong as you don’t break too many laws.
