Bartender poets

Armed with our newfound resolve to pursue other avenues of employment, we determinedly set about looking for jobs when we felt like it. For the next couple of weeks, we spent as much time as we could honestly be asked to looking for both apartments and jobs. The first task proved to be astonishingly hard, being that everyone here has visions of becoming uber rich off the visiting tourists, and as such every apartment in town is only made a available on a touristic basis for outrageously inflated prices that would make Dick Cheney blush. As for the second, we had much more success, being only that we hadn't actually had anyone say "no", just had no one call us back and only 2 different places laugh in our faces when we asked (this is true, two seperate people at different locations actually broke into laughter when we approached and said we were looking for work. Apparently this is the height of comedy here. Laugh it up.)

After a substantial amount of time of searching, we were a bit disillusioned with the whole thing, until Bariloche decided that we'd had enough and and relented a touch. We found another hostel, one which was actually nicer and seemed a lot cooler than the one we are in, which agreed to let us stay there for only 300 pesos a month, a 120 peso discount for us. This seemed like a good call, so we told them we'd move in the next day.

The following morning, we packed up all our gear, made awkward excuses for leaving the hostel where we'd lived for so long that frankly I think we own part of the mortgage by now, and hauled all our gear over to the new place. We arrived to find the same guy who quoted us the price from before looking abashed. This did not bode well. He told us the price had changed, because the owner had decided it wasn't enough. I informed the guy that there is a special ring of hell for people who back out on quickly arranged accomodation deals, and that him and his boss could look forward to several eternities in succession of being force-fed their own entrails while Martha Stewart laughed at them around giant mouthfuls of chocolate cake. He seemed unimpressed.

Like Lucy pulling the football away seconds before Charlie kicks it, then grinding her heel into his crotch in a clockwise twisting motion, Bariloche had once again pulled the rug out from under us. This was the proverbial last straw, and after kicking a potted plant around the lobby of the building housing the hostel for a while (for which I feel a bit of regret, as the plant had really done very little to deserve this treatment, and wanted only to spread its own particular brand of leafy joy to all who saw it), I calmed, and we discussed our options. We were both ready to give up on Bariloche, given that we could find neither work nor place to live, and consign it to the list of places that will be nuked the minute I get my hands on the firing codes. Our major constraint was our ski gear, which would have to be handled in some way. We could try to sell it, but frankly it would probably not go quickly, so we would have to stay for at least a short period. Plus, we didn't want to leave without at least skiing a few times, so the decision was made to move back to our previous hostel, our tails between our legs, and stick around for a short period, enjoying ourselves and trying to pawn off our extra gear on whomever we could. After a week or so, we would leave for Buenos Aires to live there for a period. The decision made to leave Bariloche, we made the necessary arrangements.

As the saying goes, whenever God closes a door, he pokes one of his enormous flaming fingers through an adjoining wall to create another avenue of escape. That same night, decision made, we received a phone call from the manager of a bar where we had dropped off our resumes, saying that he wished to interview us the next morning. Like a dog who has been kicked a few too many times, we didn't really get our hopes up but warily agreed, ready to dodge the coming kick and deliver a devastating blow to the crotch if Bariloche tried to trick us again. The bar was a new incarnation of the most popular bar in town (Wilkenny, as we've written about in previous posts), set to open soon up in the ski village on the mountain. If we couldn't be ski instructors, the next best thing would be bartenders, and if we were going to be bartenders, the best place to do so would be at Wilkenny, or this new version of it. Actually, the next best thing to being ski instructors would be international millionare playboys, sleeping each night in a different one of our houses located throughout the world on giant piles of money, surrounded by a harem of supermodels/killer ninja bodyguards. But bar work would rock too. This looked promising . . .

The next day, we rose at what for us was an ungodly hour in order to make our 10:00 interview. Somehow we managed to get showered and dressed, and showed up a full 3 minutes EARLY. Shocking to those who know us, I'm certain. The bar was still in a state of construction, having carpenters everywhere busily hammering and sawing, or whatever carpenters do. There was sawdust everywhere, and it seemed quite impossible that the place would open anytime soon. We were instructed that Rodrigo, the man who would be interviewing us, would arrive soon, and we should sit and wait. An hour and a half later, we were still sitting watching the mayhem that passed for construction. I'm all about tolerance and acceptance of other cultures and their ways of doing things, but I don't care where you're from, making someone waste a full hour and a half of their lives without even phoning to say you'll be late is just plain rude, and deserving of at least wounding, if not absolute dismemberment.

Finally, Rodrigo arrived to give us the most cursory interview I've ever had. It consisted of two questions: Which of us was which, and if we had experience (to which "yes" was all he required. I certainly hope he's never on the interviewing board of a hospital hiring doctors, or one may find the scalpel about to penetrate their abdomen held by a crude cartoon drawing on a Trapper Keeper of a chimpanzee with really kickass sideburns and rollerblades with totally rad flames coming out the back). He hired us on the spot, but being as we were unprepared for this to happen, especially so quickly, we continued trying to answer non-existant questions to his retreating back as he went back to whatever had previously occupied his time. Afterwards, we stood outside for a bit, confused, and tried to piece together what had just happened. We both were in agreement that it appeared we now had jobs, but were unwilling to fully accept the fact until we'd actually shown up and worked. The one piece of information we had was that the bar would be opening that Friday (this being a Wednesday), and that he would call us with the time we were supposed to come in.

Thursday night, we actually did receive a call, saying we should come in at 4 on Friday. At 4, we arrived at the bar, to find it still totally unprepared to open. It appeared that no progress had been made since the previous time we'd been in, and there was no way the place would meet the planned opening time of 9 that evening, only 5 hours away. There wasn't even furniture, and whatever the men running every which way were doing, it certainly wasn't making the bar a habitable environment.

The bar/restaurant/club was not named Wilkenny, as we expected but instead bore the curious name of Mute (moo-tay in Spanish, although there is no actual word mute in Spanish, and the bar was indeed named the english word "mute"). We thought to ourselves that this was fortunate, as the apparent theme was going to be bar staff who couldn't speak, and as such we wouldn't have to say a word in either spanish or english while working there (we were later disabused of this notion). The place (once it was finished) is actually quite swank, large and open on the second floor of a complex of buildings fronting the large open area around which the whole ski village is built, with huge windows facing the slopes. The inside is decorated in light blue and white, with white leather furniture and lots of dark wood. During the day, it is a restaurant which serves lunch and dinner, and at night it changes into a club, complete with a shiny disco ball and DJ. There are two bars, a large main one and a small auxilary bar in the corner. Generally a cool bar, it certainly wouldn't look out of place in San Francisco.

As for that Friday, we were immediately "instructed" by Rodrigo to begin doing something to the auxilary bar, and lacking any real definite idea of what it was he wanted, began generally moving things around and shrugging at each other. Since our resumes claimed we had about 3 years of bar experience between the both of us (a slight exaggeration of the fact that I once worked in a restaurant/bar in England for 4 months as a waiter, and maybe two nights helped out behind the bar pouring beers and screwing up drinks, and Tyler has only drank in them), we tried to make it look like we knew what should be done. Using our best judgement, we generally got the thing set up somewhat decently, stocked with booze and beer, and ready for the night.

At 8:45, 15 minutes to opening, a chunk of the staff began assembling the tables and chairs, not a good omen as to our ability to get the place off the ground on schedule. Of course, we didn't make the 9 deadline, but managed to pull the place astonishingly together in time for 10, when people began showing up for the opening night party. Most of the people who showed up were friends of the new owners, and apparently they are popular folks, because the place was jammed packed in only an hour or so.

Tyler and I spent the rest of the night behind the bar, frantically pouring drinks and hoping that what we thought the customers had said was indeed what they wanted. I'm certain a number of confused people walked away from the bar sipping their gin and tonics and wondering why it was made with whiskey and grenadine, topped with a splash of whipped cream. The DJ, perhaps getting a little excited at this great new gig, kept infintesimally cranking up the music with each new song, till by the last 5 or 6, we couldn't even make out what each other were saying, let alone the waitresses and customers yelling meaningless sounds at us over the bar. All in all, despite the frustrations of the waitresses in getting us to understand what they were saying, it was a successful night. If we didn't convince anyone that we had a ton of bar experience, at least we may have proved that we were a better choice of new employees than any of the stray dogs roaming the streets of every place in South America. So we've got that going for us. Which is nice.

As I sit finishing this post, I have exactly a half hour left before we have to go run and catch the bus to ride up to the mountain for yet another day of work. At this point, it being Sunday, we have worked over a week at the bar, and have as of yet to cause any major fires or flesh wounds. And once in a while, we've actually successfully made drinks. Yesterday, for the first time, I actually got to use the cocktail shaker and vibrate the living crap out of a Caparihna, which when finished actually looked like it might be drinkable. For now, it's entertaining, and we should be able to keep afloat for at least the next couple of months, if we decide that's what we want to do.

Which brings up another interesting little factoid in our current schemes: did you know that it is actually possible to earn less than a dollar an hour? That's right, slave wages aren't just for starving third-worlders anymore! Tyler and I at the moment are working for, as calculated six times in disbelief, about 80 cents an hour. You may go back and read that again if you so choose, but I assure you that the numbers will not change. In local currency, that comes to about 2.50 pesos, and about 20 pesos total per day. This sum at the moment covers our lodging, and our food, with no allowance made for my hefty pornography expenses. For the moment, that should suffice, but we are currently looking for cheaper lodgings so that we can actually afford to ski, our stated purpose in being here. Right now, we're waiting for the high season to end with the close of July, so that the ticket prices will lower, and the hordes of people on vacation will leave us to ski awesomely in peace to an awesome guitar-wailing soundtrack from Foreigner.

That pretty much brings us up to speed, as we are now well on our way to fulfilling the dream of Cocktail. Now I just have to perfect my bottle flipping techniques, as the bar manager is beginning to get annoyed at the sheer volume of broken liquor bottles.

- posted by Micah @ 2:53 PM