Day 14 -17 - Is there something wrong?

Day 14 (May 4th)

Sometimes I get some of the weirdest looks from people sitting in the stands. It's a look of disgust sometimes...and sometimes it's a look as if I just landed in STL from another planet and have told them that I will destroy them and everyone around them.

Monday night, I was getting more looks than any other game I've worked. I started to wonder if I had something on my face, if my shirt was on inside-out, or was there snot hanging from my nose?...

I just looked back and heckle out my beer call while the monologue is going through my head (yes, just like J.D. does on Scrubs, I narrate most of my life in my head). I think to myself, "what are you looking at? who are you to be eye-balln' me and my tub of beer? NO BEER FOR YOU! (said in my best soup-nazi monologue voice)".

There are some people that stare at me as if I'm causing a problem...there have been a few times that I get someone staring at me and then back to my tub of beer and they look like their mouths are watering and they just gaze at the beer as if it's a tub of millions of dollars...I sometimes wonder if they are recovering alcoholics and if they are tempted to relapse and buy a cold one from me...this has been one of the few times that I wrestle with my job.

I've caught girls checking me out before...which makes it awkward for them and hilarious for me.

I get all kinds of looks...

Usually the moms that is at the stadium with her husband and kids are the ones to look at me with a death stare...it sounds like they are yelling at me..."how dare you bring that alcohol around my babies"...

I often times get some funny looks from kids.

Kids also say the darnedest things...

Monday night I was walking down some steps into a section and a little guy about 4 years old looked up at me and said something...I have trouble understanding kids sometimes and it sounded like he was asking for ice cream...I told him I didn't have ice cream. He mumbled it back to me and pointed to my tub. I then realized he was asking for an ice cold beer...he had mimicked my beer call and was saying 'ice cold beer'. I chuckled and told him that he needed to come back in about 18 years and he can buy one then...

While I was in another section, 2 little guys that were probably 6 or 7 would wave at me every time I would yell my beer call. It kept confusing me cause I've got that trained eye to watch for that and every time it was throwing me off...I waved back and then people around those kids were confused...oh sometimes it's a confusing job all around...


Day 15 (May 5th) Cinco de Mayo

I honestly thought that I would sell more beer on Cinco de Mayo...wrong.

Everyone was having trouble selling...which makes me feel good knowing its not something I'm doing wrong.

I don't have a single clever story to tell from Tuesday night other than that I carded a woman who really shouldn't have been carded...

She definitely looked in her early 20's from sitting as far away as she was. When she asked for a beer, I couldn't tell if it was for her or for the girls sitting next to her, and after asking if it was for her, she said yes, so I went ahead and asked for an ID...her jaw dropped, she was so happy, i was so scared...she got up and as she walked towards me, you could tell that she was every bit of in her late 40's... Sure enough, she was 46 and she was so happy to be carded...i was scared to death of this lady and sold her a beer and got out of there...she was creepy up close...I was happy to see her go back to her seat when she looked like an early 20-year old.


Day 16 & 17 Sitting the bench.

I took Wednesday and today off. I just started to work as a temp again back at the Federal Reserve Bank and was wanting a break from it all..going from 8-5 and then 5-10 is exhausting...not to mention, Monday and Tuesday were very slow nights for beer men and they already had projected the attendance numbers to be lower on Wednesday and today...and today was also a day game. I decided that this guy needed to ride the bench for a few games because the rest of this month is going to be crazy busy with another full week of home games (cards/cubs series in there!), wedding on a weekend, few days off and then a stretch of 8-home games in a row.


Total sales thus far:
4 Bags of Cracker Jacks
33 Bottles of Water
70 Bags of Peanuts
892 Bottles of Beer

*I forgot to add sales into my count when I blogged about the Cards/Cubs, so that's why my sales jumped up.

The Men of Commissary 240: A Quitter & Making the Cut.

Majority of the jobs I've held, the co-wrorkers work together as a team...some of the teams have been very strong, well knit groups and worked well together...some of them have been the worst team to work with and couldn't communicate worth crap.

As a beer man, both commissaries I've worked in, the beer men work together as an amazing team. We are supportive of each other when making large sales during a game. We communicate to each other about where people are buying or where people aren't buying. We help each other make sales. For example: if one beer man ran out of Bud Select, he'll ask a passing beer man if he has any and if so, he'd tell him where to make a sale where someone asked specifically for Bud Select. Sometimes it feels like it is cut-throat too since it is every-man for himself as for commission and making money, but overall everyone works together as a team.

Sometimes a team has to make some cuts and sometimes people quit the team...

Last Wednesday night's game that took place during the last home-stand, a beer man quit and walked out during the middle of the game.

Come to find out he was an ex-Marine. He walked into out commissary and yelled, "I never worked this hard in the Marines and I am not going to work this hard as a beer man."

This ex-Marine had just started the day before and I didn't even get to know his name. Most of the guys around when the ex-Marine quit laughed and was glad to see him go because fewer beer men means more money for the rest of the beer men working.

I still don't know what to think about the ex-Marine quitting...I mean, yes, being a beer man is very manual-labor intensive, but I never thought someone would compare it to being harder work than anything the US Marines do. I've known several people who have gone into the military and I have every reason to believe that this ex-Marine beer man who quit was simply a wimp (to lightly put it).

This last weekend during the Card/Cubs series, it was final-cut-weekend...if someone was unable to make at least an average of $25/day in sales...they were going to be cut from working at Busch. I've had a few tough nights working, but it'd be tough to not sell at least 4 beers a game...needless to say, I've mad the cut and looking forward to the rest of the season making sales...even if the work is "harder than anything the Marines do"...ha...I know that my work is tough, but it's nothing in comparison to what Marines do...