Dealing with problem customers
I spent a couple of happy summers working behind the bar in a Devon resort. Great job in many ways but made all the better when you could take revenge on a problem customer or four.

Back in those days you could smoke in pubs and the bar had a separate children's area where smoking was barred, but as a consequence kids weren't allowed in any of the other sections of the pub.

Now most people saw the sense in this but there was always one family a week who didn't get it. Either they tried to light up in the children's room or they brought the kids into the main bar. Once the error of their ways was explained most backed down.
Some didn't, at which point Pete the landlord would have to be pulled away from sinking pints of Directors with the locals in the main bar - an event that would mean days of slightly sarky comments from him about staff 'not being able to get laid in a brothel' or an extended rant about the poor quality of sperm that had dribbled from my father’s undoubtedly insubstantial penis down the chunk of lard my mother called a thigh – depending on how late into the drinking session he was.

Pete, being a six foot eight ex-Marine with a face that looked like it had been dragged over the rough end of the Falklands* and biceps not dissimilar to relief maps of the Himalayas had something of an advantage in negotiations with customers. Sadly he tended not to see that others not blessed with the same advantages might have a tougher time with it.

So instead of disturbing him we'd be polite but firm and get the families to shift their precious little snowflakes into the children's room where they couldn't run around without their clothes on, play catch with the vintage horse brasses or vomit down customer's legs**.

99% of people were fine with this, or chose to leave, but for the really arsy ones got a special gift. We'd throw in a round of drinks for the kiddies.

Now you might think this was rewarding someone for being a gitwizard but the dilute orange juice the pub, and I understand most pubs at that time, used had an important quality, besides looking more disturbing that Robert Killroy-Silk's skin. It contained ephedra.

Ephedra, sadly banned since 2004, occurs naturally in bitter oranges and used to be added to crap dilute orange juice to give it a tang. However, its effect on small children was a joy to behold, being roughly the equivalent of giving them Kate Moss’ daily dose of nasal supplements while applying slight electric shocks to the motor response centres of their brains.

Before long the little bastards were deep in the midst of a speed crisis, particularly if they’d gulped down the free drink as soon as possible, which they invariably did. They'd find it impossible to keep still, the hands would start flapping and food would be an anathema. Inevitably they became completely uncontrollable and could legitimately be asked to leave the pub.

We’d take side bets as which parent would lose it and hit their snot-covered little charges before the end of the lunch. As an additional bonus we knew the parents faced an afternoon of sheer hell until it wore off.

The moral of the tale, be nice to your bar staff. The wages are shit, the hours are long and we have to take our amusement where we can find it.

* It had
** All real examples
(paxvobiscum, Thu 5 Feb 2009, 23:57, Reply)