Part of working in hospitality is always being aware of your surroundings, guessing when someone will need something, and generally being helpful and alert. I learned very quickly that being alert to not only what's going on immediately where you are, but knowing what's going on in all areas of the restaurant is vital. In any venue where alcohol is served things can change in the blink of an eye and it's our job to see this and try and de-escalate situations if possible before they turn ugly.
During my first summer in hospitality, there was a huge disturbance in the garden of the restaurant where I worked. A man who we knew to be a regular visitor was attacked by approximately twelve men seemingly out of the blue. They pummeled him to the ground and proceed to hit him with glass beer bottles. Although I was nineteen and not much over five feet tall, me and another waitress (who I will call "Goldie Locks" for her beautiful and immaculate golden blonde locks) when running over without a second thought to try and break up the fight. we were yelling and screaming as we fought our way into the centre of the circle and each stood on either side over the man on the floor, our apparent distress much to our relief seemed to make each of the men begin to back away and disperse in different directions. The man who I'll call "Spanner" due to his job was curled in a fetal position on the ground covered in blood. One of our colleagues had called the police and they arrived extremely briskly but all the offending men had fled the scene. "Spanner" knew each of them and apparently they were actually his colleagues who had - we were informed later planned to attack "Spanner" knowing that he would be at the restaurant having a drink on that summer evening after work. It was the result of some kind of work vendetta orchestrated by a particularly disgruntled colleague who wanted to get back at "Spanner" for allegedly getting him into trouble at work for a mistake he had made.
When making a statement to the police and reviewing the CCTV footage with them they told us that there is a behavior theory that a woman or women in distress trigger a response in men's brains that usually make them stop whatever is causing the woman/women to be distressed, and that us running over to "Spanner" and screaming for them to stop is what actually helped them to suddenly disperse. When men are angry I was informed by the officer, that they respond better to a woman attempting to de-escalate the situation than another male. It is seen as less threatening and they are (surprisingly because I was under the impression men NEVER listen} much more likely to listen and walk away if a woman handles a conflict between men. Interestingly the officer stated the same for women, if men intervene in a conflict between women they are more likely to stop and walk away before things turn violent.
You Always Get One
Sometimes, however, there is no intervening when things go wrong because the other person just can't or won't be helped. While I do find my next story to be amusing it's also a lesson in how an idle drunken threat can escalate very quickly, and potentially even end in tragedy all because someone drunkenly shoots their mouth off.
On this particular day, we'd had a coach full of revelers in for breakfast in the morning, they had booked with "Boss Man" and pre-arranged to have breakfast and a packed lunch, made up for them to take on the coach in the traditional brown paper bags as they were attending the local races. Several hours later they had been told their coach could drop them off back at our venue, but due to them being at the races and being a little "Merry" let's say, they were told although they may arrange transport from the grounds, they were not to come inside and be served. Everybody joyfully exited the coaches many of whom already had partners etc waiting to collect them. A few people had propped themselves up on our outside benches while waiting to be collected, but one particular man who was particularly drunk decided that he would be the one to run the gauntlet and try and get a drink inside. I watched him stagger and stumble his way inside and politely stopped him before the bar, "I'm sorry sir" I stated, "I'm afraid we can't serve people coming off the coach, as per the agreement made between your organisation and ours". Needless to say, the intoxicated man did not take this well. after bombarding the nineteen-year-old five-foot-something me, with a barrage of verbal abuse and getting nowhere, he burst out through the door in which he had come and I thought he had finally admitted defeat. Other people from his company as it turned out he was on a work day trip, tried to explain to the man that they had all been told they couldn't drink when they got back to the restaurant and that they were to make their way home instead. Despite the gallant efforts of several of his colleagues the man U-turned and came back in, forcing his way past those trying to reason with him once more. "You're a f***ing B***h" he shouted at me, his next sentence however was when the problems really began. "I've got a knife, and I'm going to wait for you, follow you home and f***ing stab you tonight, you f***ing B***h" he hissed. Now there was one particular thing that "Mr Ned" as I'll call him since he'd been at the horse racing all day didn't know. This particular restaurant was on land owned by the international UK airport next door, and when my duty manager called the police to inform them that a member of the public had just told everybody he had a knife and was going to stab a waitress, he triggered an immediate anti-terrorism response. Within less than three minutes of him uttering those words a van sped out of nowhere, three armed police officers jumped out and hurtled "Mr Ned" to the ground in the carpark, one of the officers barked orders while the other two, hands on their automatic rifles stood ready in case "Mr Ned" made any moves towards his pockets. The very drunk "Mr Ned" was by this point, face down, hands out wide, sobbing like a baby into the gravel of the car park, whereby he confessed that he did not in fact have a knife (which was verified moments later with a forceful search by the officers) but was simply angry at being refused beer. My Ned was informed at length by the displeased officers, that his actions had triggered an immediate terrorism alert, and he was handcuffed, hauled onto his unsteady, drunken feet, and bundled into the back of the police van. The officer who had done all of the "Commanding" of "Mr Ned" told me that perhaps "Mr Ned" would think twice before ever making threats to be A: armed especially on a site owned by a major airport and B: threatening to stab nineteen-year-old women. He even smirked at me and said "Did you see the way he cried? He wasn't so big and brave when we showed up was he love?". We thanked the police for their extremely swift response and although I look back on the instance now as being funny, it's a reminder that alcohol has an ugly side, and that you never know what people's intentions are when they suddenly turn.
Things I learned from these experiences:
Work colleagues of "Mr Spanner's" are more vicious than the mafia
women breaking up disagreements between men is more effective, while men breaking up disagreements between women work better
Pretending to have a knife and threatening to stab teenage waitresses, will get you eating a face full of gravel and crying like a baby within 180 seconds; especially if you do it near an airport.
While it's great to hope for the best, in hospitality; sometimes you need to be alert for the worst.
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