A Fireproof Bridge

"Andy, I need to talk to you for a minute before we split."

It was 1:30a.m. and I'd walked a whole 62m up the street to to pick up my girlfriend at the bar and talk to the owner.

"What's up?"
"I gotta stop. I can't do this anymore."

He was taken aback and had a look of surprise on his face. The cigarette almost dropped from his mouth.

"Two or three shifts a week are really taking a toll on me at the office. But mainly I'm sick of the bullshit, the cliques here at the bar, the games that a few of them play. I'm out."
"I see. So right away?"
"Nah, I won't leave you in the lurch. You need to find a couple people. It's June; I can stay through August if you need."

It wasn't just the other people working there, most of whom I'd rarely see anymore as everyone migrated into "teams" of a sort, terribly clique-ish and incredibly back-stabbing. It was also him.

Andy had reluctantly hired me as a barman back in 2003. I needed some extra cash and more importantly I needed to get out of the house and back into something resembling a social setting after three years of sitting in the office or at my computers after a particularly painful and nasty divorce.

The then-manager had quit shortly before to open his own Thai restaurant having failed to convince Andy to try and make this bistro in a dead part of town where one-third of the housing is subsidised into a three-star, fine dining experience. This was after blowing around a hundred grand of the owner's money on a rehab of the place, which among other things covered the old, famous wooden lattice ceiling with beautiful white gypsum board and white paint. Gone were the pin spots everywhere and in their place some dust-collecting globes hanging halfway down from the ceiling.

Not surprisingly Andy was a bit gun-shy after this. Still, I took to the job like a duck to water despite some problems with a few of the employees which I was able to resolve over the next two years. I was there for everyone, having fallen back into my old ways from some seven years ago in a different town where I'd rescued a bar's business. I impressed regulars with American-style service and surprised regulars by learning their names and drinks quickly. This just isn't normal for Germany. The tips we received (and still do) reflected that.

After about a year I started thinking of opening my own place. I'd tried to implement a few ideas at Andy's but was blocked at every turn. Never again would this be anything but Andy's bistro. The one thing I was able to convince him to try by throwing down with my own cash was a flop. Only afterwards did I find out he'd tried it a few years ago and blown it. Had I known then I would've tried to find out what he'd done to combat the problem. We don't see eye-to-eye on a lot of things; I know what he did wrong.

And now more than a year later I'm still there every Monday night, every other Saturday night, and occasionally on a Friday or other night when all his shit staff bail an hour before opening. I told him about my plans and he knows it's even more important that he find new staff, something he's failed to do since my announcement last June. There's one new guy but Andy decided to let Mary train him.

I remember well when Mary came in for her first night. I trained her and saw immediately that she has no business in the business. For one, she can't add. She couldn't figure out the total of two €2.80 beers without running back to the bar for a calculator. I had to make her a cheat sheet. She thinks that Rachmaninoff and Chopin are suitable music for a bar. She has no overview of the location or the customers. She lets regulars wait 20 minutes for a beer.

I told Andy she was nice but not cut out for it. He sees it now but, pigheaded as he is, always does the opposite of what I say. He can't bring himself to fire her. In a fit of inspiration one normally associates with the effects of Thorazine, he had her train the new guy. To do a job she's wholly incapable of performing herself. So of course the new guy was incompetent and on a night that was so slow that any other person could've worked it alone and still been bored, the two of them crashed and had to call the owner for help running the place.

The new guy has since been re-trained by my now ex-girlfriend who I still intend to make the manager of my place. She worked one evening with him and undid all the damage. He could yet work out, but I won't be stealing him away. I'm leaving the place and only taking my ex-girlfriend. She wouldn't be there if it weren't for me. I've got dibs.

I haven't really enjoyed working there for the past year (with a couple of exceptional nights), but I've been there for Andy. So it was no surprise that he was willing to take me along to the business-only supermarket in order for me to price out items. With a tentative menu I was able to break everything down into individual ingredients and now I know what everything costs, so it's time to get to work on finalising the menu and pricing.

Of course there's a bit of Schadenfreude; Andy doesn't want me to fail per se but since I plan to follow the policies he's rejected, he really can't wait to say, "I told you so". And so it goes...