The 3 Types Of Gay Bar Manager
So, ya wanna make friends & influence people? Wanna be life of the party & still party? And make great googly shitloads of money? Perhaps the job description "gay bar manager" rings a bell? Well, THINK AGAIN, motherfucker:
Managerial Type 1:
"Mommy Dearest"
In the crib, mommy & daddy supported you; in a private business, the owner supports you: Whether you like it or not, you are expendable, the owner is not; otherwise, get another job, where, of course, same rules apply.
As Mommy Dearest you know this, but can't accept it. Although the owner hired, trained, empowered, and pays your ass, you proclaim yourself queen and super-boss. As such a manager you use your power not to maximize business interests, but your own personal interests: You undermine the owner by being the staff's best friend, constantly culling favors and distributing awards, however unwarranted and undeserved. The staff becomes your family, you their sacred yet sacrilegious mother, and everybody's happy, right? After all: "Fuck The Man!"
Inevitably such a traitorous, incestuous house of cards comes crashing down. Discipline: Impossible—This manager is used: You then try to "win your children back" by giving even more unjustified and undeserved privileges. Of course, you are further used. Mommy Dearest then freaks and over-compensates by rebuking staff in a manner completely devoid of all reason or context. Your moods explosive and arbitrary, the staff will come to hate you; your decisions irrational and destructive, the owner will eventually fire you. Wanting to have your title and your tricks too, you wind up unemployed and rather dry, stirred, not shaken.
Managerial Type 2: "Jedi Knight"
Obi-Wan and Luke chill in a bar, all's cool. The Wizard is congenial and friendly until provoked, creating an Incident: Out flies his trusty lightsabre, trolls go down, his weapon just as rapidly and efficiently tucked away, no problem, situation normalized.
We all need social reinforcement. The gay bar environment further fuels these flames, as friendships, tricks, shared experiences whirl in an insatiable vortex of hysteria, pageantry and shadiness. Wanting to have some fun ( who wouldn't? after all, why take such a job in the first place? ) as Jedi Manager you must somehow balance fraternization with loyalty and the maintenance of control: You accomplish this by being friendly to all, until responding spontaneously and aggressively whenever any situation, directly or indirectly, threatens owner interests.
Since staff priorities are typically the exact opposite of owner interest, "just doing my job!" is taken for betrayal, even signs of schizophrenia, by staff. One second you're One Of The Boys, and the next, you're reading employees for tardiness, inefficiency, bad attitude, disrespect, intoxication, vandalism or theft. The James Bond question arises incessantly: "Will I be loyal to my 'friends,' or the mission?" As a successful Jedi Manager, you keep your self-respect ( and job, for that matter ) by respecting those above, not below.
Eventually, however, the situation must reach a stand-off: Although the owner can differentiate between Mommy Dearest and Jedi Knight, the staff sure can't. To them, you're just as whacked as Mom, the cycle continuing endlessly until you've permanently lost all your 'friends': Finally, you can either quit, or become ...
Managerial Type 3: "Agent Asshole"
Dressed like a Tarantino hoodlum with a pricier suit, Agent Smith, on The Matrix payroll, had only one mission objective, to kick ass. "Sentient programs" who are "everywhere and nowhere," these motherfuckers experience no conflicts of interest, no questions of loyalty, hardwired as they are, right into The Man, the evil, unseen Mainframe. But we respected them, thought they were cool: After all, these guys were indeed "just doing their job," and they did it well.
Analogously, call yourself Agent Asshole, a hardhitting, non-bullshitting, all-business asskicker & cocksucker. You never fraternize or fuck staff or customer, never bump or pump: You walk around stone-faced, eternally vigilant, making no small-talk, neither asking for nor giving any favors. Totally sacrificing friendship for professionalism, arbitrary personal morality for sound business ethics, you make no compromises, and therefore can never be compromised. Your loyalty is toward nothing but your job description, you work for nobody but the owner, defending that interest, incessantly and exclusively.
Agent Asshole's assets go beyond profit maximization: Maintaining discipline is effortless and never complicated, since managerial motivation remains totally apparent and unambiguous. Ironically enough, such a disposition works better for staff, too, since decisions can never be second-guessed, and emphasis is placed where it belongs, solely on job performance. Choose Agent Asshole: Although a pill, you can never be used, and will not only be feared, but respected, and job security is assured ( so long as the business stay open ) . Sound cool? Only thing is, dressed and acting like this, you might as well be a pit manager at Caesar's or selling bonds for Morgan Stanley: Once you've learned these lessons, what the fuck you doing managing a fag bar, faggot?
So, dress appropriately—Or be smart, and stick to bartending.
