the problem with a outside event

Eagle eyed I stand watching across the mass of students at the summer ball, analysing the body language, the facial expressions, the eyes of everybody that I can see, but with such a large space, it becomes a lot more difficult to police.

''boss to anotherdoorman"
"go for anotherdoorman"
"Can you head over to the main tent, need you to keep an eye on stage 1''
''on my way''

I walk through all the students, large strides, looking around me as people are drinking, enjoying themselves dancing, chatting and socialising, for a brief moment I wish I had come with friends/girlfriend rather than in a professional capacity; the moment passes.

As I get to the stage the performer is on stage and keep the crowd occupied, but out of the corner of my eye I see a young looking student with hair like a mop try and sneak past the steward on the side of the stage, I walk over to him, and put on my polite face.

"Sir, this area is restricted to artists and staff"
" I love him, I just want to say hi"
"You cant be behind here mate, you need to move back, please" (note I changed from sir to mate, since his tone and attitude wasn't very friendly, I didnt feel the need to be overly polite)

At this point, the young guy tried to push past me: mistake 1.
As I grabbed his arm, lightly, not a nasty grip, and started walking him towards the rear exit he shouted ''fuck you paki cunt'' at me: mistake 2. At this point my polite, student loving door attitude got thrown out the window and the chap was thrown directly into a gooseneck, and taken out to the rear exit.

Now, the problem with a outside event is that you cannot clearly just bin the clients out of the front door like a usual venue, as its an open site, you have to remove the wrist band. I got him to one of the boundaries and talking to him politely I told him that I would let go if he didnt lash out, I used a threat that if he did lash out he would regret it; an empty threat? (note: I was fully aware of the CCTV cameras that were not operating in my area),

by this time the headdoorman of the night had come to my position by coincidence and was standing with me and the chap, as I released him, what he did next was stupid, but also potentially quite clever... he ran.

I chased.

I'm quite fit, young and very very fast, so I caught up with him way before he knew what was happening, forgot, for the second time, that this was a student venue and not a dark central city nightclub as i'm so used to working, I grabbed him into a loose legal choke (no excessive force used.) and pulled him to the ground, while the headdoorman came over and tried to remove his wristband...

... He didn't have one! After all that, he had sneaked into the event! So we escorted him away from the event and gave a description to the rest of the staff, hopefully never to be seen again..

P.S I've been away, I have been off the doors for a bit, so I didn't have anything to write about, i'll be back updating much more frequently very soon!

I'm still finding it extremely difficult to motivate myself

Its a difficult time of year, the stage between Winter and Summer, its actually rather depressing. It seems by reading some of my colleagues blogs that they're not having the best time either. I'm not entirely sure what the entire situation is right now, but its evident that the credit crunch, and this ineffective government who seem to try and dig themselves out of the hole that they created entirely themselves (well, the hole in which he did.).

I'm still finding it extremely difficult to motivate myself, not just to write a blog entry; because everything seems so particularly mundane right now, but to do anything. Currently the only incentive I have to do anything right now is financial. There are ways to make money, and ways to make real money. I don't mind doing either; and I think its a highly negative point towards my personality that my significant motivation is money, but shit happens, I never said I was a nice person.

Working in this new town on the door, with up to 30 hours of shifts a week (3x as much as I used to get) is fantastic. I've been overly told that the doors are rougher, harder, sharper, nastier and yet compared to what I'm used to; so far these doors are a walk in the park, as doors go, they have their wannabe gangsters, their unable to handle their drink sluts and all of which are easy to handle, I love this town!

new doors

Not that long ago I was under the impression that I would need to leave the doors and work a normal student job at a supermarket. However due to a friend who I know from home, and also uni town - i've managed to secure a job with a security company in my uni town. My first week for them was extremely good, and so much better than the team I have at home; I trust some of my new colleagues more than I trust many of my old colleagues.

I'm still trying to get a good reputation in a new town, new doors, new faces, new trouble makers, i'm bottom of the food chain, need to make my way up.

Being able to drive 5mins (one could argue that I should walk to reduce my carbon footprint) to work rather than a 2 hour long haul is a fantastic feeling and should leave me feeling a hell of a lot less stressed!

everything in life is intangible

I hate how nothing in life is guaranteed, nothing in life is definately predictable up to the last minute. There are things in life that you can assure yourself has stability, like your family, your friends, your savings account, but in reality none of these things are secure, everything in life seems to be intangible.

I'm at a stage when i'm so low it feels that whatever I do nothing will pick me up from this depression. I'm losing friends like no tommorow, i'm running low on money like there is a recession (yeah okay, i'm not alone with this one) and my job security is severely lacking.

Its almost at the stage when i'm going to have to forget the doors, of which I am so passionate about, and to pull me through my degree, of which i've definately got an extra year (repeating this one) - to work stacking shelves.

Time seems to be the only thing I have too much of, and nothing to fill it.

bruv ??

I hate how pocket pinchingly quiet January is, the lack of money in peoples pockets mean that venues make cut backs and try to avoid wasting money, and so my usual venue was closed on Friday night, meaning that I didn't earn, and so making my pocket that much emptier. This credit crunch sucks.

On Saturday night I ejected a gentleman from the club for starting a fight..

'but bruv, listen bruv, i aint takin the piss out of you bruv, i just come out of pen bruv, you're safe bruv, but bruv listen, let me back in yeh?'

'Sorry sir, not tonight, you're talking to me perfectly politely but club policy is that if you are involved in an incident you are excluded from the club that night, you're welcome to come back next week'

For a further 5 or so mins, longer than my patience can hold, this dialogue continues... until it gets to this;

'nah bruv, i don't give a fuck bruv, my cousin is in there innit bruv, i just want to get him bruv and take him home bruv'

'I'm not your 'brother' please walk away from my door'

'I didn't say you were my brother bruv, its just how i talk bruv'

I wasn't quite sure what was wrong with him, but he seemed to have some sort of verbal diarrhea that caused his brain to malfunction into having an extremely limited vocabulary as to have to use a particularly annoying title over and over again...

bruv is equally as annoying as mate,

tell me, what do you hate being called on the door?

The 'I'm really not too drunk' but clearly unable to stand up scenario

Thinking back to the boxing day shift I did reminds me of an extremely funny incident, of which us doormen come across very often:

The 'I'm really not too drunk' but clearly unable to stand up scenario

When I work at my usual nightclub, I spend most of the night standing on the front door of the venue watching everybody as they come in and out. On occasion when its particularly cold I go for a walk inside the venue to make sure that the guys inside aren't too busy texing/chatting up girls. As I walked around I came across a gentleman, of whom i'd approximate was around 35 years old, fairly short, fairly skinny, and so drunk, he was having a full blown conversation with the wall, or possibly, using the wall to avoid a more painful connection with the floor.

'Sir, Could I have a quick word at the front door please'

'No'

'I'm sorry sir, i'm going to have to insist that we talk at the front door'

'I had a really nice dinner, but its okay, i'm fine now'

'You've had too much to drink, I'm going to have to ask you to leave tonight'

'I'm not drenk, drunk. I've only had a pint'

'Sir, please come with me'

I walked the gentleman to the front door, and explained to him that he was far too drunk for our establishment and that he would be cutting his night short. He accepted this, whether or not he understood is a different matter; after attempting to walk back into the club, albeit not forcefully, he eventually realised he was leaving and walked out of the club, using me as a walking stick.

When the guy was at the front of the club, he stood on his own, so I took a step back and said a cheery 'good night' and went back to my usual position. As I did so, the gentleman took a few steps and fell flat on his face, creating a huge gash on the front of his face. I made CCTV and Police aware of the gentleman just incase he needed assitance. He proceeded to take a lighter out of his pocket, stare at it, then hold it to his ear and start talking; I don't think he would get a taxi that way...

.. A few hours later I noticed he was sitting on some steps near our venue. He stood up, but in doing so managed to drop his phone, in extreme slow motion he bent down to pick it up; but ended up doing a roll at the same time, ended up doing a complete 360 roll! Once I could breathe again after laughing so much, I did ask if he was okay, his response:

'Excuse me, I'm not too club to drunk your club!'

Brilliant.

very little money...

I ended up driving an approximate 198 miles for a 4 hour shift, resulting in very little money vs petrol and car maintenance. To make things worth, the shift was so diabolically bad, it wasn't even worth me being there. Annoyingly, I attempted to take the evening off work at 7pm, but only because the weather was extremely foggy and icy, and the visability was only a couple of metres.

January is such a rubbish time of year to work the doors, or infact any entertainment or non-necessity job as nobody has any money to spend at all, except for us students who got our loan in and so have loads of money. Saying that, a £460 fine from the DVLA is quite painful on a students wallet.

Excuse the dull post please.

How I became

I'm feeling quite neglectful of my blog at the moment, not because I keep forgetting it exists but because I don't have anything anywhere near interesting enough to write about, or at least, that i'm ready to write about. So i've decided to write about how I became this doorman.

I used to be behind the DJ booth at nightclubs, mixing the tunes, watching the dancefloor, making sure that everybody in the venue is raving away, dancing happily, drinking shit loads and ensuring that the dance floor is rammed so my wallet is rammed. When I was at Uni the first time I worked at pretty much every venue in town, and was a fairly known DJ in the right circles. I always used to find myself scanning the dancefloor for that thrilling moment when I can jump on the mic and shout 'security to dancefloor!'. I used to find the 'bouncers' fascinating, the fact that they weren't in your face, were only really part of your night if you wanted them to be.

When I left that Uni and moved back to my hometown for a year, I did my SIA, as I had just turned 18, didnt particularly want to continue DJ'ing in clubs for various reasons, and I fancied the thrill of being a doorman.

When I did the course, there were so many other people similar to myself, some experienced doormen who have worked for years and needed to get the badge (I believe when I did my badge, it had just come in) others who were fresh faced and wet behind the ears (like myself.). The course itself, when I did it, was a complete pisstake, basic law, then a test on the second day, of which the lecturer read out the answers with the questions, not too hard to pass!

My first shift on the door was at a fairly busy luminar venue, and for any of you who know what sort of venues luminar like to keep, you'll know this isn't going to be a terribly rough door, but equally not exactly all-bar-one. I used to find it so difficult to walk around the nightclub, trying to read body language, trying to read faces, trying to consider if he's going to punch him, or if he's actually friends with him. Now, years and years later, I can walk around a nightclub without even having to consciously consider, I can tell fairly accurately (not perfectly of course, people flip very quickly when intoxicated) whether or not somebody will be making a swift assisted exit, its amazing how we develop as doorstaff; some doorstaff do not, they take their first beating, and then decide its game over. One day, when I have a particularly quiet time - i'll write about my first loss...

I Intend to...

This weekend just gone, the regular nightclub I work at wasn't open. Initially I thought that the managers are ridiculous, the first weekend of 2009; they don't open! But considering the credit crunch, considering the fact that January is the most depressing month; and most people don't have much money, it kind of makes sense why the club wasn't open.

I'm looking forward to going back to Uni, I intend to this term actually goto every single lecture; just like my intentions last term, but I hope i'll actually go!

Oh, and Student loan time tommorow!

my biggest worry

On Sunday I get to go back to Uni. Sort out some door shifts, and find a regular door at my Uni city. This is due to my current agency liquidating, and the venue going inhouse. I'm all for working for the company inhouse, but I feel the diversity necessary will not be given and i'll not be happy with the team that they select. They'll probably select the easiest to get hold of, and the most keen to work for the littlest amount of money, ie the young useless inexperienced guys that are in it for the fanny and glory. 

It seems that in my mind right now, the work changes are irrelivant as I have bigger fish to fry. You would think that the issue of coursework and exams for University would be my main concern, and i'd expect them to be so; but it seems my biggest worry at the moment is, her. She seems well and healthy and okay right now, but if you read my previous post you may well understand that some situations are difficult to judge aswell. Its difficult for me to be told by everyone that she will be fine, including herself and her parents, but when you care so much, you cant help but worry, it begins to make you sick, and certainly puts things in perspective. Right now, i'm in her bed, and she's in the shower - and all I can think about is when she gets back here and I can warm her up and ensure she's okay and not upset. It scares me so much considering her in pain, whether it be physical or emotional. I hope that I am able to help conquer some of the emotional pain, and help out in some way, but as a fairly limited depth guy (or at least, my perception of myself is fairly limited) I find it difficult to open up.

I may well be far too stressed, and far too worried about everything. But my biggest worry is her; I cannot stop imploring that she shall be okay.

the emotional connection

This post is actually proving fairly difficult for me to write; i've intended to write it for a bit, i've even drafted it in my head during one of the many long car journeys i've undertaken recently. As a doorman I generally have control of situations, I'm able to take a situation and adapt it to my way; or adjust it to solve a problem, or disarm an escalating situation.

Everybody around me that I truly care about, everybody that really matters seems to have some sort of health issue of late. There are certain people in my life currently, people that, okay, someone, that I care about so much, that pain to them is pain to me. The person in question is one of these people that is genuinly extremely selfless. The sort of person that gets out of bed in the middle of the night to get you a drink; the sort of person that is always thinking about you, even down to little things, like when she passes you a can of drink in the car, she ensures its spun around so that you don't have to make that consideration. I know that example is probably getting you thinking that's a lame example, but its just one of many examples of the selflessness of this person.

Its difficult to imagine this particular person in pain. Don't get me wrong, its difficult to imagine anyone in pain, but certain people; for example my good male mates, if they are in pain, I feel for them, but there isn't the emotional connection between me and them, to make me feel their pain. But with this someone, when she is feeling excrutiating pain, and as she's said 'that wasn't anything, last time was worse' it hurt me; watching her in pain, and having absolutely no ability to help her, no ability to stop the pain, or even take the pain, which if I could do so I would in a heartbeat. I've felt pain myself, i've had my nose smashed open, i've had ribs kicked in, i've been bitten, i've been stabbed with stiletto's, i've had a terrible manflu so I couldn't get out of bed for a day or two; but never, never have I ever felt the agonizing pain of seeing someone you love in deep pain.

My father, my mother, my innocent younger sister are all ill, they all have fairly serious conditions; all of which will result in them being on a pharmaceutical product for the rest of their lives; everybody around me that means something, and does not deserve to be ill, seems to be. I don't understand why I, as probably the nastiest asshole of them all, out of everyone around me, seems to be in perfectly good health. Its hurting me considering that all these people that mean so much to everyone, and mean so much to me, go through pain, when I, most likely not meaning too much to anyone, am absolutely fine.

This post is going to have to end prematurely as its becoming distressful.