Makin’ Hell – SG Phillips

December 3, 2022

        My buddy Grant and I always talk shit about this townie bar we always go to when we hang out, Ziggies. Ziggies is good, but we like to conflate it with a different bar nearby, the Cozy. I’ve seen two race riots there. During the first one my buddy Perez rescued me from getting decked by a pool cue when my stupid white ass tried to break up the fight that started it. I was pretty wasted, an n-bomb already got dropped, loud enough for everyone to hear, very arrogant of me to think I could put a stop to what was obviously going to happen. We all ran out on our tab, but like I said we were all pretty wasted. I don’t much remember the second time, but both riots happened on Dollar Shot Night (which was on Wednesdays, but sadly they stopped doing Dollar Shot Night after the third Wednesday night race riot occurred— though I’m not sure why). Cozy is a bar I only ever end up at 2:00 AM and I always catch a ride with someone else and they’re always driving drunk, usually my buddy Grant. 

        Anyhow me and Grant don’t call The Cozy “The Cozy,” we call it “Shitties,” or “Shiddies,” ala Shitty Ziggies (but there’s no real relation). The real Shiddies (Cozy) has a polite attentive staff but they’re plagued by a grim clientele because the real Shiddies (Cozy) is the only place in town you can drink until 3 AM on a Friday or Saturday. But at me and Grant’s made-up Cozy you can only smoke in the bathroom. Not on the porch, not inside, you can only smoke in the one commode in the men’s bathroom, with the door shut, and someone else better be taking a shit, and you better not know them, or we (the Shiddies staff) will call the police. This rule gets more elaborate but I’ll move on. At the real Shiddies (Cozy) you get what you order, but at me and Grant’s Shiddies you can only order a warm IPA for 10 dollars and you sit on deck chairs and the staff yells at you if you’re on your phone. Unless you want an IPA, in which case you get served Bud Light. There is one hard liquor at Shiddies, and that’s Kamchatka, but it’s not real Kamchatka it’s just Everclear diluted in one-flush-Shiddies-smoking-section-commode-water down to anywhere between 60%-80% (Vodka is supposed to be 40% but we only hire distillers that are passionate about doing a shit job at Shiddies). And if you’re so down-bad that you actually want a shot of Kamchatka we serve you a shaken Absolut martini in a pristine glass that’s coated in ice-cold vermouth and it’s on the house. So much for the gustatory experience with Shiddies’s mixology, onto the staff—

The vetting and interview process for working at Shiddies is mad baroque, which is to say that it’s shitty. You can only work at Shiddies if you have a PhD, specifically a different field than any of your future coworkers so that you can’t make small-talk easily, and also you can’t care about the subject you just have to have done the PhD because you sorta fell into it, and Shiddies has to be your second job. To serve drinks at Shiddies you basically have to be a tenured professor. I’ll get to the why and how of how Shiddies is fully staffed with tenured professors in a moment but I need to discuss the staff rules first. Staff Rule #1 at Shiddies is that you are required to be on your phone at all times, specifically doing something that is a better use of your time than serving toilet-vodka and Absolut Martinis and warm IPA’s and Bud Lights to upset customers at Shiddies. This rule is strictly enforced so that all staff are properly annoyed by and rude to all Shiddies customers at all times, because all Shiddies customers obviously deserve to be treated this way. Shiddies is mostly staffed by divorcees. Staff rule #2 is that every shift at Shiddies a randomly selected server will be given a small Rx bottle of Russian Xanax that you must have sold out to customers (and only to customers) by the end of your shift or you go to jail. Your coworkers get a bonus if they help management lie to the cops about it so that Shiddies can press charges. Staff Rule #3 is that Shiddies is open-carry, but only for staff. Part of the Shiddies uniform is open-carrying a loaded glock (because there’s no safety on a glock), but, and this is critical, Shiddies servers are required to not have a gun license. In order to open-carry at Shiddies you must not have a gun license, in order to be a Shiddies employee you must be breaking at least one law all times on any Shiddies premises, though go-getters that manage to break several laws at once consistently will get an “Exceeds Expectations” during their Mid Year Review— as long as the particular laws broken don’t involve selling Russian Xanax to customers or lying to the police about your colleague being ordered to sell Russian Xanax to customers. Shiddies management (ie: me and Grant) frowns on that kind of double-dipping. Rule 3.1 is that if you are caught double-dipping then you have to wear a t-shirt with a racial slur on it for the duration of your shift. Rule 3.2 (regarding open-carrying): Shiddies management (ie: me and Grant) will make accommodations for tenured professors that do have gun licenses in order to hire them on, but me and Grant haven’t worked out details yet. I believe it involves juggling. Most importantly: Rule #4 is that any Shiddies customer that has had more than 15 drinks is allowed to hold any servers’ gun. 

Our corporate motto (as Shiddies is obviously owned by a global conglomerate) is that Everyone Is Unwelcome, Even Us— but you can’t tell anyone the corporate motto (that’s Rule #6 but I forgot to mention). This motto is taken so seriously by Shiddies Management (ie: me and Grant) that we (me and Grant) hire actors to play customers who are friendly with the staff so that Shiddies looks cool enough for people to come to and then not feel cool enough about. The actors playing the customers are also paid to be mean to the bar staff when out of character, one hour before and one hour after their shift. Pay for all starts at 750k/year (because Shiddies has shittily managed finances, also this is how we are staffed by adjunct professors) but, and this is important, Shiddies does not offer healthcare. Shiddies heavily recommends that you do not have healthcare if you work at or are a regular at Shiddies. If your healthcare provider finds out you work at or have even stepped inside of a Shiddies you are immediately considered high risk and your insurance rate quadruples, because Rule #7 (forgot to mention) is that all staff are required to present their manager with a positive COVID test at the beginning of each month to be put on schedule. Employee Contracts are binding for 4 years, unless your first name is David, in which case, feel free to quit whenever (me and Grant don’t know any Davids).

 

Company car and phone are provided, and also mandatory. All employee transportation must take place in a Shiddies-provided 1996 Honda Civic (color: beige) and all transportation to work must be live-tweeted to the @ShiddiesShitBarFuckingShit Twitter account as said employee drives their 1996 Honda Civic (color: beige) from their Shiddies-provided iPhone 6.

 

It’s shit luck working here, regardless, welcome to the team, we look forward to working with you!