Questions

Every night I am asked loads of questions, and a lot of the time they are the same ones, and I don’t mind them at all… sometimes people are using these questions as a way of opening a conversation, which is fine by me – “how long have you been here”, “how did you end up here”, etc.  It’s like opening a conversation at home by talking about the weather, but when it comes to the weather here we don’t usually have a lot to talk about!

Then there are the other type of questions from the *other* type of people. “How much do the band get paid a night?”, “how much do the staff get as a salary?”, and the first answer I come up with will always be something smart like “you really didn’t mean to ask that, sure you didn’t”, or “relax man, you’re on holidays”, or “the band are trading in their porches for Lamborghinis”.  Then some persist and say “ah but seriously, how much do they get a night?” 

That’s it, time up, finish your drink and f*ck off.  They look at me thinking I’m joking, and when there is no smile they realise that I’m serious, and if they are clever (which is unusual!) they will realise what a prick they have been.  Some will apologise and I say “fine, enjoy your night”, and others simply leave.

I often ask myself “am I right in this approach?”, but think to myself, Jesus, suppose I was going around asking customers, or anyone for that matter, how much their salary was at home, or how much their mortgage is.  First of all, I have no interest, but I would expect a smack in the gob if I was so stupid.  I meet loads and loads of lovely people coming and going from Charlies all of the time, and sometimes I wonder if I am expected to have so much tolerance to put up with these a*seholes whose god is money, and can’t talk or think about anything else.  If I am expected to, someone is going to have to find me tolerance tablets fast, and until that happens, please be careful and I will let you know when I have received delivery of same in due course!

This same type of people are the type to walk into the Charlie´s and announce within 30 seconds that there are 80 of them over for a wedding, looking directly into your eyes, implying that we should give them special attention. HELLO!  We give *every one* of our customers as much respect and attention as possible, regardless of whether they are a wedding group or not, and we give a little extra attention to those who are very genuine and don’t expect anything.  There are nice wedding groups that come and go all of the time which we are delighted to welcome, and there are some that we don’t want: the ones who kind of make a statement between the lines, saying we are 80 people and we will be here for the week and we are going to take over the bar for the week.  There are bars on this island that will take any group of 80 and do what ever they have to to get them in, and then let them do what they like when they have them in, regardless of what type of people they are – and we are delighted with these bars because if we didn’t have somewhere else for these people to go to, it would be more of a problem for us!  I accept that in any group of 80 there are bound to be one or two who are a sandwich short of a picnic, and usually I will find someone sound in the group and ask them to look after their acquaintance, which they usually do without any problems.

One benefit that I notice with the recession is that a lot of the “DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!” brigade are gone, thank God – because in Charlie´s we clear out this type of human being – the genuine decent folk have a much better time with us where everyone is enjoying the atmosphere, the drink, the music and the craic, and nobody cares how much money you have or not unless you are going to leave it to all of us in your Will. Then we care and you will get very special treatment!!!!

Cheers,
Barry Murphy