Summers Year in Preview 2017 - #2: Something George is New Again

I want Summers to start 2017 off on the right foot, but having George work most nights is a terrible start.

I won't say George is the worst bartender I have ever seen but I won't say a lot of things like I secretly love "Gilmore Girls", the Spice Girls and brussel sprouts.

Well, sprouts are tolerable if you put enough sugar on them and once they're grilled they don't rat on their co-workers.

I really want to find the best in everyone and want to give George another chance but the fact he continues getting drink orders wrong, handing back tabs that over charge customers and then arguing with them about it doesn't bode well as we strive to make Summers great again.

Summers Year in Preview 2017 - #1

Breaking News: Summers Runs Out of Vodka!

Granted it was only rail Vodka and it was only like for thirty minutes, but still how was does a bar in Arlington run out of Vodka, on a Friday, Inauguration Day Friday, nonetheless?

The answer is that real bars, well-run establishments do not.

This incident might just be a hiccup, but every single sign, statistic and study simply suggests it will be more of the same for Summers in 2017.

Summers Year in Review 2016 - #4

We here at Slumlog Enterprises Inc. had a staff meeting earlier this week. The word from the publishers was that our editorial policy of taking the piss out of Summers was too harsh and we needed something nice to say or we shouldn't say anything at all.

(Editor's note - Thanks for the lift to slumlog board the meeting Mom. Yes, I cleaned my room and I only say nice things about people because people who live in houses with glass windows shouldn't throw stones. I know that, I don't need another lecture. Can you pick me up at 9?)

So we had another meeting about finding nice things to say about Summers just the other day.

The results of our brainstorming session were as follows:

1) Summers is  generally open
2) George doesn't work all of the time
3) There is usually beer available
4) Sports is often on some kind of television
5) Summers does have bathrooms

2017 Musical Interlude #2 - Ol' George Stopped Drinking Today

Me and the bottle have always been friends.

But me and George ain't ever been friends. So I wish George would stop. If you can't be a good bartender, you can't be a good friend. As the song says, "They'll say he (George) had a problem, dealing with his mind, he just couldn't seem to make it, serving customers on time."

So it is not so much that George stopped drinking today but it is more that I stopped drinking because George is working today.

Summers Year in Review 2016 - #3

Slumlog is not a scandal sheet but we wanted to tackle one of the biggest Summers scandals of 2016 right here on these pages.

The Great Tito's Fiasco of 2016 rocked Summers to its foundation and traumatized patrons and patronizers in the Summer of 2016.

Let me set the scene.

The sun is shining. The air is warm. The seats outside Summers have no cushions because Joe knows that rather than having a comfortable place to recline, people like to use seat cushions to start fires even though it is hot outside in the bright sun.

In the atmosphere of no pain, no gain, nothing helps an uncomfortable customer forget all their worries, forget all their fears, forget their sore rears like a clean, crisp and refreshing Tito's & Soda.

Except Tito's Vodka disappeared off the menu overnight.

Vanished without a trace. Didn't even say goodbye.

When reached for comment about the sudden disappearance of his most popular commodity, Joe was reported to have said, "Hey, customers were buying too much Tito's."

For shame Joe, for shame, If there's one thing you should have learned from the business school you clearly never attended, it should be selling stuff customers will buy.

2017 Musical Interlude #1 - Madame George

When we did our year-end survey at Slumlong Inc., the primary reason given for declining readership was that we never posted anything ever.

The secondary reason given for declining readership was that we were always too serious.

Mea culpa readers. We hear you. In trying to keep Summers and Summers management on the straight and narrow we lost sight of what our readers really wanted. Our readers want to keep their fingers on the pulse of the Summers heartbeat but they want to have fun too. To that end, we're going to make some format changes in 2017.

We will continue to keep Summers, Summers management and Summers wait staff in the cross-hairs of our withering and acerbic assault, but we will also try and amuse ourselves and our readers too. In that vein, please enjoy what we hope to be the first of many musical interludes this year:

(Please disregard references to going for cigarettes and matches in the shops, the eyes of Madame George, playing dominoes in drag or the smell of sweet perfume, this post is about music and is not intended as social commentary.):

Summers Year in Review 2016 - #2

There was a lot of turnover in the Summers staff in 2016. We lost Tonia, Yulia, and some lady that showed up dead drunk on her first day at Summers and hadn't even started her first shift before she began accosting customers and yelling at passersby. We also lost Lesley on some trumped up charge of stealing booze during her shift despite being popular and the booze she was allegedly stealing was a customer favorite so rather than determining she was selling something that everyone was ordering, Summers management assumed she was stealing but that sordid story is for another post. Perhaps the most mind-boggling staff change in 2016 was one that didn't happen. Perhaps even more surprising than Donald Trump's victory in the November election is that George is still employed at Summers. I mean how does that happen? Asking why George still tends bar at Summers is kind of like asking why is "Two Broke Girls" still on television since both are terrible and appeal to the lowest common denominator. George doesn't listen to customers, consistently gets orders wrong and consistently gets bills wrong. He's also slow and inattentive. Summers has consistently set an extremely low bar for customer service, but this is bordering on inexcusable. 2017 is the time to make Summers great again, so let's make a fresh start and get rid of George.

Summers Year in Review 2016 - #1

One of my New Year's resolutions in 2017 is to be a better person (like it has been every other year I can remember). To that end I don't want to start off 2017 with a rant about Summers, and I want to be understanding even though a rant would make me feel better, but to be honest 2016 was another year of abysmal customer service for (at) Summers. I don't have an MBA and I've never worked in the service industry (those are caveats), but I've always heard that the first law of customer service is that the customer is always right. Unfortunately, the customer is not always right at Summers. More despairingly, I'm not sure that the customer ever is right at Summers. I can't count, let alone keep track of the number of times that the customer was wrong at Summers. Whether it was disagreement on how to make the drink the customer ordered, or whether the customer even ordered the drink, the Summers management doesn't seem to care. Granted, the disagreements and back talk seem to be limited to one or two bartenders, but the dwindling customer service trend is disturbing. The lack of attention to detail is appalling and because the issues with the terrible customer service have been reported multiple times, the fault has to lie with upper management. So in terms the kids can understand, customer service at Summers was an epic fail in 2016.