A Happy New Year

I don't like clubbing. I don't like big parties with loads of people I don't know. I hate to stand beside all the dancing people, while I just want to go home. I am unbelievably bored by party small talk.
That being said, what can you do on 12/31 when there's no cute little cozy raclette party you could attend? After all, you are expected to be at a party during that night!

I decided that if I am forced to go to a party and bore myself to death, I might as well get myself paid for that. So when I got the chance to work at a party I grabbed the chance.

I was a wardrobe lady, or hat check girl, or whatever you might call that. I smiled at the arriving guests, took their coats and bags and shoes, put numbers on them and stored them safely in the wardrobe area. Nice job. All in all there were 4 of us, and I really can't say that any of the girls would have been lazy or bitchy. They all were nice, polite, they worked hard and they did their best.
Still, I was astonished to realize that all in all I thought I was the best of them. I was even more astonished when I realized that many of the minor details that did - in my opinion - raise me a little higher than the other girls were japanese characteristics. And whenever I realized something like that, I thought "Oh girls, stop being so german!"
I became accustomized to the japanese way of service so much that I found that I myself want to offer such a service to others as well (that is, whenever I'm paid for that).
That means there's just one rule that must be followed:

Our guest is the most important person.

Sounds easy, doesn't it?
Living up to that rule might be stressful sometimes, but in my opinion it is very easy to understand. The moment a guest comes near me, I will serve the guest, and fulfilling his wish as fast as possible is the number one priority.

When the party began some people had already waited outside for 40 minutes. (The doors were not opened before 9PM.) They were cold. They wanted to get out of their wet clothes. The hallway was crammed with people. Many were still outside, I was told later that some stood in a line for more than 1 hour before they finally got in.

First "stupid girl" moment

If there are so very many people there, then I don't care that one of the girls hardly drank anything that day. Even though she had her glass of water at arm's reach and lost maybe 20 seconds drinking, this must not be done in front of the customer! It was past 9PM, and she had known she would be extremely busy when people would come in, so what was so hard in drinking some water around 8PM?
Honestly, I didn't care she was thirsty. Fucking use your head, dumb bitch! Drink something before people come! That's what I did. And if you forget to do it, get a grip and hold out for that one hour in the beginning before you drink. To the guests, a drinking wardrobe lady looks like she's lazy. And even though it might be just a short moment, to wet, freezing people who are waiting in a line that moment seems longer.


Second "stupid girl" moment

There were 3 wardrobe areas.
Area 1: A kind of 回転ワードローブ, a wardrobe that was like an assembly line. You could push a button to turn it and get to the hanger number you needed.
The number signs we gave out: black metal plates

Area 2: a row of closets.
The number signs we gave out: red metal plates

Area 3: a seperate room.
The number signs we gave out: pink papers

One of the girls mainly worked at the seperate room. Still, we had been instructed before not to mix up the red and black metal plates. During the next 2 hours I had to tell her twice not to mix them up.

Around 2 in the morning, a gentleman wanted to leave. I served a load of customers as well, and I only heard her be like "but the coat is not here, where can it be?" Haha, number 163, I can still remember. So I told her to check the 136 and the 263, in case someone mixed up the numbers. The coat was nowhere to be found. The man had waited for more than 5 minutes for his damn coat. When I finally decided that I should help the girl she looked at me totally devastated. I looked at the 163 in her hand and would have loved to slap her right into her stupid face. How dumb can you be? Even if she did mix up black and red again, isn't it just LOGIC to look up the red 163 if the black 163 is wrong?
Is that really so complicated that her brain was not capable of that simple thought? The man had waited forever!!! And just for the record: WHO do you think was the one to apologize to the man for the long wait? I did.


Third "stupid girl" moment

Around 2 am, one of the girls ate her sandwich. Nice. However, she ate veeeeeeeery slowly. Soooo slowly. That's ok, if there are no guests. When she started to eat, there were no guests, but about 10 minutes later the place was crammed with people. Guess who did not decide to leave the other half of her damn sandwich for later and help?
I don't care for her breaks! She was a smoker, so she had had some cigarette breaks before, while my breaks were only two potty breaks, that's it. There were many people there and they had to wait, just because she thought that her break was so important.
We worked as fast as we could, but it took quite a while until everyone had their coats, and boots, and handbags. Sandwich girl was still eating.


Fourth "stupid girl" moment

As we would have to put the empty hangers back in their places, sorted by number, at the end of the day, the girls decided that it might be a good idea to use the short moments when no guests wanted their coats to sort the hangers and put them back in.
In itself this is a good idea. However, the wardrobes were so full that it was nearly impossible to take out a coat withouth throwing the empty hanger besides it to the ground. That means that the empty hangers made our work harder.
It would have been smart to wait with the hanger sorting until it got emptier and there were less "1 hanger holds 2 mink coats, 4 umbrellas and one leather jacket" constructions.
But the girls didn't want to have that much work later. Which was actually stupid, for I was the one to stay until 7 in the morning, so I was the one who would finally sort all the hangers and number plates in the end anyway.

What I even hated more was that they started to develop a kind of "system". Whenever a guest wanted their coat they would remove it from the hanger and directly sort the hanger back into the wardrobe before attending the next guest. Nice thought, if there hadn't been 2 problems:
a) said problem that all those empty hangers in the wardrobe made it harder to handle the coats
b) it took time and again, the customers had to wait longer.
I couldn't help thinking that they must not make the guests wait so long, they could sort the hangers afterwards!
However, they seemed kind of proud of their system.
Well, I continued to take out the hanger, give the coat to the guest and just lay the hanger on an empty table beside me. I served 3 guests while they barely managed 2.

There were countless empty hangers falling to the ground all the time. It was I who took them up and sorted them anew at the end of the day.


Fifth "stupid girl" moment

As I already said, the wardrobes were crammed so badly that it was hard to handle the hangers. Area 1 was a rotating wardrobe, so that heavy, crammed mass of coats was continuously moved forwards and backwards. As a result, some of the hangers broke. Those coats fell down. That didn't often happen in the front, but mostly in the back. Guess who was the only one who thought that above "I am not paid to crouch under a wardrobe" it's important to get the guest's belongings out there and have them ready.
I crouched around there several times. When the coats had fallen down, it was impossible to find out which number they had. So we collected those coats on a chair and had the guests identify theirs. Worked very well. All the guests were really kind. After all, breaking hangers are hardly our fault. However, one lady was furious. I had only told her that the hanger broke, and she already shrieked like "I can't believe this!!!! How could you let this happen? My coat is all dirty! Ohhh, I just don't believe it!!!" in a high-pitched, loud, almost hysterical manner.

Even though I could understand that it's not nice to think of your precious belongings falling down to the ground, I was pissed. She had not even known yet that her coat had been to the ground, but what I knew was that the ground had definitely been cleaned thoroughly before . I had crouched there for several times and my knees were not a little bit white or dusty or dirty. The ground had definitely been wiped before, it was really very clean. I had checked all the coats and they were clean. Even if the coat had been dirty, that would have been nothing but dust. On a night that's full of burning fireworks, wet snow and dirt, how can she freak out on a little dust? A little dust that had actually not even been there!?
Hooooowever I was all japanese, apologizing to her again and again.
She didn't calm down, but she eventually left.

So, for the stupid girl moment:

One lady only got one white glove back. The other one seemed to have gone missing. The other girls served her, so I had nothing to do with it. They looked everywhere but couldn't find it.
When I checked on the wardrobe 30 minutes later, I found the white glove on the ground in the back. If one of those lazy bitches would have moved her ass to the back area she could have easily spotted the glove. They were just too lazy to search.
That made me so angry. After all it is OUR fault if a glove goes missing, so the least we can do is search properly.


Sixth "stupid girl" moment

Around 1AM one of the girls started to get pretty tired. However, can't she at least try to smile at the guests? And making a suffering face and letting out a "pheeeewwwww" is not exactly good manners. Holy shit, have a glass of coke or a caffeine pill. I had a stock of both. We also had some red bull. So she was free to choose, but how on earth can you show the guests that you are tired and totally out of working spirit?
Well, I tried to smile for both of us.




I think there were some more moments like that, but these are the ones that I can remember.


Bad luck for us that evening: The wardrobe service was for free. So most people did not have their wallets out when they took or gave their coats. So we did not get as much tip as you might expect.
It was 30 € in the end.
However, there were only 2 of us left when we finally had the time to count the money.
We had been 4 girls, but only 3 of us were exclusively for the wardrobe, the 4th one was half wardrobe, half whatever-helper in the party area. We figured that it would be fairest to divide the tip by 3 and make the 3rd fulltime wardrobess receive the third part by giving her money to the bosses who had hired us (they knew her pretty well and would have a chance to give it to her).

So the other girl left and I was finally alone with the 20 left Euros.
Guess who turns up 20 minutes later? The fourth girl. Asking for the tip. Great. Actually I should have thought of one thing earlier: Though she was not with us all the time she had, theoretically, been hired as a wardrobe girl and it had not been her choice that she would help at the party area as well. So I thought it would be fairest to divide the remaining 20 Euros by three. So I took my 6.50 bucks and handed her the rest, for she is also friends with the last girl and will give her her money.
Still, I smiled a little. That little blonde bitch, cigarette breaks and sandwich eating and stuff, was so "kind" as to remember the tip and come back for it and make sure she'd get it, even though she was not there to help when we needed her.

I think I can honestly say: I would have received most of the tip. I definitely worked hardest.



Still, to me, the hardest part was what came from the time when I was all alone at the wardrobe.
There were not many guests left, there were loads of hangers that needed sorting, I had to clean up a lot of stuff, buuuuuuut.....
The security guys had other plans with me. Of course, there was nothing to secure anymore, as the guests had all left and nobody was coming in anymore. So they decided to chat with me.

I HATE talking to strange people I don't know. And I especially hate talking to men when I'm dolled up. I hate their cheesy smile, their *hint*hint* give me your number *hint*hint*, that stupid "are you single?", their unbelievably smart conclusions "She does not want to give me her number. Are you a lesbian?"

FUCK YOU ALL!!!!

I do not wish to give out any private information to others. And I do not wish to be asked for my cell phone number. And it's none of their business whether I am single, lesbian, sodomic, pregnant, arachnophobian, doomed to death, buddhist or whatever. It is none of their business, it's as simple as that.
And I just wanted to continue working, for the work had to be done and I much preferred to sort hangers than talk to those idiots. Fuck them. But I had to be nice. And I tried. Buuuuut it was sooooo going on my nerves. After one long hour that they spent talking to me about stupid and boring stuff their shift was finally over and they went upstairs, so I could continue the cleaning.


I stopped working at 6:40 and they kindly counted that as 7:00 (looking at the fact that I arrived 20 minutes early for work they didn't even do me a favour), so my total income (tip included) is 164€.
Not bad.

And definitely the most un-boring new year's eve I've ever had. I guess I might do this again.

インゴレベル　３４
忍者レベル　　１６

今日の楽しみ　　友達と出会った