People Turn Mean at Last Call

Why is it that people turn mean at the announcement of Last Call?

Case in point: one Saturday night I was having a rather smooth and painless evening behind the bar. The bar was fairly busy, people were tipping and we hadn't ran out of glassware (yet). As soon as the DJ announced Last Call, the night instantly turned from peace into total chaos in a matter of seconds. It seems that whenever the DJ calls Last Lall, people rush the bar to get in their last minute drink orders. I love inflated crowd. The more people ordering drinks means the more tips the bar will make.

On this particular night everything that went wrong did. One of the signed credit card slips went missing so I had to put on a pair of rubber gloves and dig through the trash for it. Since I had to dig through the trash, it took me away from making drinks temporarily. Some customers didn't understand this. Even though there was another bartender behind the bar making drinks, people still yelled at me. One guy even whistled. Did I mention how much I hate it when customers whistle?

After the credit card slip was found, I was able to hop back into the game and quickly make drinks for customers. The first guy I went up to griped at me about how he had waited 20 minutes. I called him out and told him it hadn't been 20 minutes. I asked him if he wanted to order a drink or and argue with me. He told me to shut up. The friend he was with looked mortified and quickly apologized on his friend's behalf. It was too late. I already had a bouncer waiting behind him to escort both of the guys out.

Then I had the guy who, when he originally placed his order with me, ordered four drinks. I confirmed his drink order, repeating it back to him (just like I do with all of my customers) before leaving him to make the drinks. When I came back with the four drinks, he then decided he only wanted two of them, even though he had ordered four. What a waste of time. Now I had to scold him for ordering drinks and changing his mind about them after they were made and then explain to him why he still had to pay for all four drinks.

After that, I had to have two separate detailed conversations with customers about why we call Last Call and stop serving drinks before two o'clock. Of course in this case with these types of customers it's always my fault, even though not serving alcoholic beverages after 2 am in the state of California is a STATE LAW. Explaining a state law to a drunk person is usually a waste of time. They only hear the word "NO" and not the logical rationale behind it. Eventually you just have to walk away from those types of customers.

The best part about Last Call is when the time comes when the alcohol has been locked up for the night and that there are absolutely no more alcoholic drinks to be served, I get to say "no" to the lame jerks who were mean and rude in the first place. That's when I just point to the locked up alcohol, shrug my shoulders, smile and say "Sorry about your luck."

I especially love doing this to the lousy or non-tippers.