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 Message 22457 of 22774 in Behind the Bar
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Subject: Are bars that rip off their bartenders common?
From: TheNewbieBartender
Posted: Fri Mar 4. 2011, 16:22 UTC
Hey guys, let me start off by saying I'm a new bartender. Also, sorry for such 
a long post.  I feel I need to be thorough though.
Anyway, I landed my first job in this profession randomly about a month and a 
half ago and I've been loving it so far.  My customers and the people I work 
with are great and besides the distance and the fact I have to work The Oregon 
Lottery, it's the perfect job for me while I try to save up to go to grad 
school.  
Lately, however, I've heard and experienced things that I've found troubling 
to say the least. My bar has the very unusual practice of not requiring it's 
employees to count out  their till at the end of a shift.  This is because we 
don't always get physical slips to account for lottery money.  That's all 
collected by the accountant in the morning.  In any case, over the last couple 
of weeks I heard about what happened to the guy who I replaced.  Apparently, 
he had a thousand dollars missing from one of his tills.  The thing is, a 
number of my regulars have told me that they were there while this guy was 
counting his money before his shift and that he called my boss to tell her 
that a thousand dollars was missing.  She said it was fine and to just let the 
accountant know the next morning.  The next day she ends up accusing him of 
stealing and fires him.
Obviously, a lot of stuff is spread around in bars that isn't true.  However, 
my one coworker who worked at my bar the longest just recently quit out of the 
blue.  A week goes by, everyone knows she quit but no one knows why.  Last 
night she walks into my bar while I'm beginning to close expecting to see 
someone else working.  She starts talking about a lot of things but one thing 
that stuck out was when she mentioned that when the bar wants to get rid of a 
bartender, they'll start telling them that their tills are short.  She said 
she's seen it happen to multiple bartenders.
The next day I get a call from my bar and they tell me my till is a hundred 
dollars short.  Let me tell you, I personally find this to be impossible.  The 
night was so slow that I had enough time to and did count back my money 3 
times. But since I don't have the materials to count back my till for the 
night, there's no way to be sure.  
This brings me to my question: is it common for bars owners to be crooked?  I 
talked to one Portland bartender about it and she says it that she's been 
hearing more stories about similar things happening, especially with bars 
dealing in the Oregon Lottery.  I hope more than anything that I'm just being 
paranoid and that the people who used to work at my bar are just disgruntled, 
but I feel that this is impossible to ignore.  I want to move up to a better 
bar, but in order to do that I need a good reference and I obviously can't get 
one if I get fired for being accused of stealing.  
Thanks to those who read this monster of a post. Sorry for it being so all 
over the place.  I was trying to be as concise as possible.  
On a lighter note, if you have any advice for a novice bartender, I'd love to 
hear it.  And any references to bars in the Portland area that might be hiring 
would be great as well.


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