Divino is full of winos. Not the good kind.

Hallo blog, and fans. Have you missed me? Many things have changed in my life. Here are a couple of updates.

Firstly, I lost my job at the good ol' wine bar, which I can name now: Divino, the devil's lunchbox. One week they were reluctant to schedule me, after having promised me whatever shifts I wanted (of course), citing some mysterious 'consultant' who didn't want to schedule anyone. Bizarre. I started worrying about getting another job, but thought, well, i've worried about this many times since I started working there. They are probably just disorganized, as usual.

Well, I show up for my friday shift and meet said consultant (who is actually a really nice guy) and he tells me that the mean chef/manager Hugh and the boss, Nicoletta, had been fired. Ted, the big bossman, fired his own daughter! Ah, it made me giggle for days. Donald (consultant) told me that they may or may not be shutting down, and may or may not be firing everyone and starting from scratch. He advises me to start looking for another job, and is kind enough to offer himself as a reference. I figure I've done my fighting for that place, and I'm done.

Now, I think what precipitated this was probably what happened on Wednesday night, the one shift that week I did work. Wine rep Paul came in with about 5 bottles of red wine, 3/4 full. They ranged in price from $50-$250, and he let my try them. Yum. Hugh and Nicoletta proceeded to stay there all night drinking the rest of these bottles. Hugh, plastered, with a big red wine mouth, decides it's a good idea to open a $90 bottle of wine, start making everyone cocktails with expensive lychee liqueur that can only be found in Vegas or somewhere, and giving everyone shots of his 12 year Macallan whiskey. Hugh proceeds to invite in Moe, the neighborhood urchin, for shots of tequila. The poor guy knows immediately he's being made fun of, and walks right out. I should have done it sooner.

As owner and manager devolve into children taking pictures of themselves lying on the floor, the sous chef has also polished off an entire bottle of white cooking wine, and the place is still full of customers. It's 12:30 at this point, door still wide open, blinds up, customers drinking, employees drunk, and past the liquor licence. The two of them kept singing "VIVAAAA LAS VEGAS" because the bossman Ted was on vacation there, thus leaving them to drink away the bar's profits, as usual. They must have forgotten the cameras.

Well, I polished off my expensive whiskey and got the hell out of there, just as the underage employee from the gelateria next door entered the bar. I don't even want to know what happened next.

In conclusion, I'm looking for a new job. I'd like a nice day job, one with a steady paycheque and fewer drunk assholes. I'm sick of mean managers who are misogynistic and usually homophobic, and dirty old men who actually hug me and kiss me on the neck (!!!) and I have to smile because they are the owner's friends. I've had enough of the industry, at least for now. Though of course I'm keeping my army bar job. That pays union wages.