Here's something I find interesting: men in the club are forever being told by (male) security guards to pull their pants up. But...when a woman's t-shirt as-excuse-for-a-dress rides up over her rump to expose her ass, she is allowed to walk around like that. No analysis, just a real time observation.
The club where I work is situated in our city's downtown area. There is a potential for a lot of fights and other shenanigans that go on outside the club after closing time, so the area (as a matter of public safety) is flooded with a police patrol unit called "the bar detail." I appreciate the bar detail for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that I can walk to my car with a sense of security that only a beefed up police presence can provide. But they are not there to be my personal security detail, they are there to provide a public service. 15 minutes before closing time, they block the (one way) street to allow the flood of patrons to exit our club without having to wait for traffic or walk in front of traffic and get squished like a special-ed squirrel. These cops also (most of the time) provide a preventative presence for any would-be trouble makers. I think blocking the street off makes perfect sense. There are others who don't see it that way. These people, who are mostly owners/managers of the high end residential lofts in the neighborhood, complain that the police presence makes our area look like a murder scene. They claim that their renters complain of being awaken by the bright lights of the cop cruisers. They complain that lease holders are looking to terminate their leases early because of the perception that the area is dangerous. Please. Before the area was zoned for Mixed Use, it was strictly a commercial district. Our club has been operating as such for 11 years, while these residents have been there for around five years. Where do these people get off complaining about the nightclubs in the area? These clubs were there when they moved in! It should be a matter of disclosure by the property managers and a little bit of research on the part of prospective tenants. After all, would you move near a train track then complain about the whistle?
The 19th Amendment, the one giving American women the right to vote, was ratified 90 years ago today.There has been progress made by my gender since then in the areas of employment and wages, and socially in general. Despite this progress, I see night after night in the club repeated slaps in the face to feminism.
1)Women sitting on men’s laps in order to score a free drink
2)Women getting pinched in the ass, grabbed on the breast and generally sexually harassed and they do nothing to stop it
3)Women wearing clothes/shoes that look extremely uncomfortable because that’s what men say makes them look sexy
4)Women fighting (with fists) against each other…over men
Me being the feminist that I am, here’s how I would (and sometimes do) handle these four situations:
1)Buy my own drink with the money I earned at the job that I have because of pioneering women in the early 20th century
2)If a guy grabs my ass, tell him to cut it the hell out before I break the offending hand
3)I wear whatever is comfortable and am still damned fashionable.I like my skin covered up so I can show it to whomever I like, not to the whole world
4)No man is worth getting into fisticuffs with a woman
After nine decades of Women’s Rights, why are some of still acting like we live in Bedrock and have to be at Fred Flintstone’s back and call?
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
No, I’m not a vampire, I work in a nightclub
Among the negative aspects of working in a nightclub is the terrible schedule. I’ll give props to my coworkers for whom this is a second job; these folks get out of work no earlier than two in the morning and have to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed early the next morning. While I don’t share the same plight (this IS my “day” job), I do suffer the effects of a disturbed sleep schedule.
A typical work night for me starts at 9:30 and ends at around 2:45. People assume that because that is the middle of the night, I must go home and just crash. That is not so in my case. How I explain it to people is like this: suppose I was working a nine to five job. I wouldn’t come home and go to sleep during the six o’clock news. I do the same thing a “normal” worker would do. I get something to eat, watch a little TV, and do housework. Even my dog is on this schedule; she gets walked at three in the morning like the average family pet does at 5:30 PM. There are even nights when I venture out into my neighborhood to take a walk (an activity that presents its own set of problems, but that‘s for another post).
The problems with this vampire-esque schedule come during the day. Doctor’s or hair dresser appointments need to be scheduled in the early afternoon, and there is NOTHING worth watching on TV during the day. Without TV to entertain me, it would be nice to be able to call a friend for some social time, but I can’t. Most people I know work “normal” jobs. I spend the day watching movies (thank goodness for Netflix Watch Instantly) and putzing around the house. Or I browse Facebook to see what the rest of the world is up to. I’ll tell what they are up to: they are doing normal day time things like working. The first status update is usually GMFB (good morning Facebook) to which I sometimes reply: stop saying good morning when I haven’t gone to sleep yet.
I wonder if I should audition for True Blood…
"I pull up at the club, VIP. Gas tank on E but all drinks on me"
I have about 1700 Facebook “friends,” most of whom I wouldn’t recognize in the checkout line at the grocery store. They are not really my friends, they are 18-25 year old, typically urban, patrons of the nightclub where I work, and I am privy to the minutiae of their daily lives because my job requires me to use social media to “promote” business. Their status updates come fast and furious, and because of their apparent need to update the world on EVERYTHING they do and think – minute by minute – I have virtual, real time access to a day in their lives.
Let’s look at a typical Friday, when a mid morning status update might be “about to hit the mall to cop a fly outfit for the club tonight.” The club where I work, because of its size and popularity among urban young adults, is likely the club of which they speak. Intrigued, I check back a few hours later and the same person may say “hit the Facebook inbox if you need me, the cell phone is cut off.” Cut off. As in they didn’t fork over the fifty dollar pay as you go fee in enough time to keep the text messages rolling. Interesting. Fast forward several hours. The same person who likely paid two hundred dollars for an outfit they will wear once is walking around the club in said disposable outfit carrying a three hundred percent inflated bottle of Moet champagne at one hundred fifty dollars a bottle. It doesn’t stop there. These cell-phone-is-not-as-important-as-Moet people are rarely alone, most “roll” in groups of three or more. To commemorate their night out, this group absolutely has to have photographic evidence of the money they spent on the booze and the cool clothes. They go to the club’s photographer and have an instant photo taken for ten dollars. But wait…there are five of them but only one photo, what to do? That’s easy enough, four more copies at ten dollars each. Let’s stop for a moment to do the math. Two hundred dollar outfit + one hundred fifty dollar bottle of champagne + fifty dollars worth of photographs. That’s four hundred dollars, with only the photos as a tangible keepsake of the night. Going back to that cell phone that was cut off for non-payment, they could have easily paid three, if not four, months’ worth of bills and rented a movie for their Friday night entertainment. But it’s not about the entertainment. It’s about being seen by their peers as valuable because of the money they appear to possess. Sociologists call this bad money management “false consciousness”; I call it plain bad money management.
False consciousness can most easily be explained as ignoring your current circumstances while adopting a lifestyle not your own in order to gain perceived value from those around you.
It’s one thing for me to marvel at, even make fun of, this bizarre behavior, but that doesn’t get to the root cause. More important than what they are doing is why they are doing it. I blame urban popular culture. I don’t think I have heard a mainstream hip hop song in the past three years that didn’t have some reference to this excessive spending behavior. The rap stars are singing about what they do. They spend a lot of money on stuff. That stuff includes nice club clothes and overpriced champagne. What it also includes is – ready? – cell phone bills. These young adults I see in the club are so wrapped up in emulating the image portrayed by the spending habits of these rap stars that they overlook a fundamental difference between themselves and these rappers, namely that the rappers have the means to “ball” when they go to the club. I’m looking forward to a time when our patrons can come in and have fun within their means, rather than try to outdo each other with the “I bought TWO bottles of Moet, and you only got one, HAHA” attitudes. Another time, I think I might look at why this behavior causes fights and how those fights can be avoided.
