2019-05-21 - Gainful Employment

It's a typical early evening at the club, meaning that it's actually still a bit before the place hits its main rush of business. In the lull, it's mostly the staff that's here, and they're busy setting up for the looming nightly crunch: a bartender is wiping down the surface of the bar, and out front the bouncer is setting up the typical rope barrier to manage the inevitable line out front. Katie's at the bar herself, but looks noticably bored by the lack of anything going on just yet. She perches on a stool, and spins. "You know when the boss is planning on showing up?" she wonders, idly, of the bartender. "I'm supposed to have a delivery, but, like, I figured I'd be able to get it done a little earlier."

Right this exact second, Graham is not the bartender. He's the guy coming out of the back room, looking... well, like a lot of people who come out of the back room: like they've just had a harrowing experience. But! He puts on a face about the time the door swings closed behind him, plucking a smile out of somewhere and pasting it on. Sure, he's not the bartender, but he works here, so he can help himself to a drink now and then, passing a quick chin-tip to the bartender when their paths cross. Thus, he's on the scene in time to hear Katie's question, and his brow hikes up. "He's here." The boss, he means. "But you might wanna give it a minute anyway. Let him call you, yanno?" It's a pro-tip that he couples to a shrug: Take it or leave it.

"Hey," Katie greets Graham when he shows up and helps himself to a drink, though the information that comes with his arrival causes her a small, but visibly degree of consternation. "Oh. Yeah, well, no shit." Barging in on crimelords tends to be a bad idea for nobody-level underlings. But she still looks annoyed. "Probably isn't anything important anyway," she mutters with upward-rolled eyes, kicking out a foot to push against the bar, stopping her rotation so she's facing the man behind it... at least for a moment, before she pushes off to go back spinning around the other way. When she makes it around another rotation, she wonders: "Whats up with you?"

"Grown-up stuff." Graham says this with an irritating deepening of the aforementioned, pasted-on smile, putting the dimples on full display, shining them smarmily in Katie's direction. It's purposefully and obnoxiously adorable, that smile that he shines sunnily upon his young colleague. The beer that he liberates from the beer-fridge helps, and he pops the lid off of it, taking a drink that does him so much good, drowns the smile so it goes away and quits being such a pain in the ass. "What's up with you?" he has the presence of mind to ask once he's gotten through a long swig, leaning his weight on the heel of his hand, resting against the edge of the bar, the other one curled at the base of his bottle.

Katie's eyes roll again - or maybe roll higher?

Katie's eyes roll again - or maybe roll higher? "Mhm." In any case she shows her disdain for whatever bit of implied immaturity on her part. Not that he's wrong! As adulting goes, she qualifies only by virtue of having a number on her ID that allows her to be in here. By any other measure, it's a fail! "Nothing's up, because I'm sitting my ass here waiting. I was hoping, maybe I'd be able to do the run, make it back here, and actually have some fun tonight - not be out delivering god-knows-fucking-what to weirdos all night, but you know."

Squinting thoughtfully, Graham has to ask (HAS TO! Can't not!), "You ever think maybe you're in the wrong line of business? I mean, if delivering god-knows-what to weirdos all night isn't your thing..." But then he flicks a look up to the one-way windows that overlook the bar, lowers the look back at Katie, and raises a brow - mostly at himself. "Guess it doesn't really do any good to think about changing careers though, does it." It's not really a question, just a drily chuckled observation. Sucks to be them!

They go back further! She's actually physically leaning her head back now, eyes turned to the ceiling. "Oh, really? You think I should maybe quit? Yeah, I mean, I am /totally/ doing this because it's my career ambition." Finally, when she's leaning back so far that she has to grab the front of the stool between her legs to keep from falling backwards, she gives another tug and rocks back forward. "And if I'm dissatisfied, I should just walk back there - to Mr. Monaghan - and just tell him I quit. Right? Because that's a sane, smart, adult thing that I can totally do without anything bad coming of it." Finally, she lays off on the at this point comically overbearing sarcasm, and follows his gaze up to the window. "Right. So, yeah, it's what it is. Mostly I just hope none of them are crazies or perverts."

"Oh, totally." Graham thinks she should quit. The bartender gives them both the side-eye... and shuffles on down here, where he can clean stuff and not be a part of this conversation, totally minding his own business and talking with, dunno, the janitor or somebody who's not stupid enough to talk about quitting.

Anyway. Graham follows up his enthusiastic initial agreement with some nods at all the plans Katie lays out for handing in her notice, drinking through about half the bottle in the process. He's got some bad dry-mouth ATM. "You should probably give him two weeks, though. To be professional about it." He smiles that irritating smile again. "You get a lotta crazies and perverts in the delivery business?" he asks, like this'd be news to him.

While the suggestion for a proper two weeks notice could potentially provoke another round of extremely sarcastic rambling, it seems like Katie's tank is on empty and she just shakes her head, then considers the question that follows. "You meet all kinds of people. I mean, half of the time it's just people who want shit you can't order on Amazon and it's no big deal. The rest, well, there's a few sorts? Like you get the ones who are super-paranoid about the whole thing, treat it like its some spy movie shit when all you're bringing them is a little weed or blow or whatever." She shrugs. "But yeah, sometimes you get someone unhappy about the service or taking out their price disagreements on you. Or perverts." Here she flashes a sort of 'oh honey if only you knew' smile. "I mean, women get hit on working just about anywhere they work, McDonalds included probably? Thing is the main other job that involves showing up at random dudes doors at weird hours tends to give them the wrong idea."

"Wait a minute." Graham holds up one finger, leaving his beer bottle on the bar by itself briefly, trusting it not to get up to any shenanigans for the duration of this gesture. "There's shit you can't order on Amazon?" He's shocked, Katie. Shocked! She goes on to describe some of these things - weed or blow or whatever - and his shock fades with an enlightened, "Ohhh." His hand can go back to the bottle now, it's done a good job. In fact, it's done such a good job that it can lift the bottle for a drink. Which he proceeds to sputter, choking into the back of his hand (with the bottle still in it) while she's telling him about how women get hit on just about anywhere. He wipes his face as best he can, and there's a false gravity in his tone: "Yeah, that must be a real pain in the ass." Says the good looking bartender at a dance club.

Why must he bait her when Katie had given up on her eye-rolling and sarcasm? It's so tempting! "Honestly the normal stuff isn't usually a problem, like yeah some people are -way- too serious about it, but. But then sometimes I get sent with stuff that's a little more, uh, hush-hush or whateverthefuck? The 'no questions asked' kinda stuff. Those are always a little freaky." Finally, though, with the buff bartender taunting her with his manly woes, she - or rather her eyes - just can't help it. UP THEY GO ONCE MORE! "Oh yeah I'm sure the struggle is real. And like, don't get me wrong - working it for tips, that's cool? I've thought about it." And she probably means more than tending bar. "But c'mon man. I'm sure you're never worried about the secretaries blowing off their weeks kidnapping and murdering you. JUST SAYING."

"I see you have 'hush-hush' down pat." Graham, with smarmy smile number... like... six? In the ten minutes it's taken him to drink one beer, no less. Because he finishes it, having wiped his mouth with his wrist, and he pitches the bottle over to where bottles go. (Surely, the recycle up in this joint!) It actually lands in the bin, and he pauses to appreciate this feat; "Huh." Not how he thought that was gonna wind up, obviously. There's an abbreviated laugh after that, and he's rummaging around in his pocket for his keys, tacking on, "You'd be surprised," at what he worries about when it comes to the secretaries. And what they intend to blow off. <.<

Anyway! "Good luck with the boss, kid. I gotta bounce." Yes, he's about to drink-and-drive. It's hardly the biggest crime he's committed in the past 72 hours, trust me.

"Hey, we're all friends here, right?" Katie wonders, looking around the still mostly-empty club. She scrunches up her nose. "And it's not like I know either. When I say hush hush, I mean like I get some anonymous box wrapped in brown paper and I take it to a guy at a place and hope he doesn't shoot me afterward. The fuck do I know about what's actually going down." The girl's hands are lifted helplessly, and then used for leverage again as she hops down off the stool. If she's concerned for Mr. Ladykiller DWI'ing himself into a pulp, she doesn't show it. What she does seem to catch is something from the ever-looming window above, and she starts hauling for the back door. "Looks like I'm up. Try not to mash yourself into paste." Maybe she does care!