> 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.
No. It is not common. It happens but it is not common.
PS find a new job
--
Chris
www.santafebarman.comhttp://blogs.forbes.com/chrismilligan/http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1298351116