I told this story to a few people at NamesCon but I thought I would share it here. When I got my first job as a phone clerk at the Chicago Options Exchange I was ecstatic I had a job on the floor. The problem, it paid $1400 a month. Which even back then was not very much. My rent was $800 and after taxes that barely covered food and the L pass. So I did two things. I got a roommate and I got a second job.
The roommate was the easy part because there were several people just like me on the floor. Poor. I had a fellow clerk roommate at first and then a clerk/model which was definitely the better of the two but that’s yet another story. Finding the job was a bit more difficult. Finding a night job when you didn’t know how to mix drinks or want to be a waiter was difficult. But I had an in. I knew someone that worked at the most popular bar in Chicago and he said that he could get me an interview but make sure I watch Caddy Shack 2 or 3 times before the interview. I did
When I got the coveted interview the interview was a sheet of paper with 10 questions about Caddy Shack. They used the questions to prove that you were recommended by someone that they knew. Otherwise you wouldn’t have had a chance at the questions. So I got the job. Bouncer. It was $8 an hour and my job really wasn’t to break up fights, it was to prevent them or make sure that the big men knew to come over. I was really just a floating marketing guy. I got 3 rounds of shots to give away each night (I generally gave them to women) and I kept a steady eye on the pool table because 95% off all fights started there. I have a million fight stories and was even sued for being part of throwing a guy out of the door and he landed on his head. We each had a limb and threw him like we were throwing him into the lake but the lake was made of concrete.
My hours were from 7 pm to 5 am which made for a long Friday since I had to be at the trading floor at 6 am so I pretty much worked 6 am to 5 am on Fridays. But I made twice as much at the bar as being a clerk. How? So this bar was so popular that on Friday and Saturday nights the line would go around the block. And that line led past the back door of the bar. The back door was right at the pool table I watched. Chicago was very cold during the winter and people hated waiting in the cold. To the extent that they were willing to pay good money to come in the back door. I realized this and would negotiate prices with people waiting in the cold. I generally charged $20 to $50 but could get $100 per person depending if it was really crowded or the person started with “I’ll pay you $100 to come in”.
I also would walk out and pick out groups of great looking women and let them in. Letting them in and giving them a round led to other bonuses that I’m too old to talk about now and my Mom reads this blog. My biggest night was a New Years Eve. A guy rented out the entire bar and had open bar but nobody showed up. So he asked me to go outside and see if I could get some girls to come in for New Years. It was like shooting fish in a barrel on New Years. Girls were free and I charge $100 for guys telling them it was free drinks all night. I ended up taking home over $5K in cash. So how did my boss not find out? He did
I would tip out the waitresses and bar backs with my cash because I felt it was the right thing to do and it kept them quiet. But someone said Shane was tipping people out which made no sense for a guy that didn’t bartend and made $8 an hour. He sat me down and I was honest with him. He was the manager and part owner and couldn’t believe this was actually working. I told him some times me and the off duty Chicago policeman would also charge $2 cover when we didn’t even have a band. Everyone paid because they were so happy to get in. So we made a deal.
I would give him half the money and I could do more of the back door and no band cover. I also didn’t have to tip anyone out anymore. So I actually made a lot more money and most nights I would bring home $300 or $400 cash. As much as the best bartenders who averaged $300 on Friday and Saturday. I would come home about 6 am (we would drink a little at the end of the night) and my wife, then girlfriend, would take all the cash off the table and have it all separated and in rows when I woke up. But as good as it was it had to end.
I told you about how nice the women were to me after I let them in. My girlfriend, now wife, didn’t think much of it. The final straw was she came in to say hello and there a girl hugging on me with her hands in my back pockets. Not unusual for the bar. I had a lot of drunk girls hanging on me. She knows a man is as faithful as his options and I just had too many options working there. So she pretty much said it was her or the bar and I was in love, so I gave it up. To save money we ended up moving in together and she paid for a lot of stuff. I also looked for a better job and found one.
Those were some special days. Two years of stories that would fill a this blog every day for years. And it was the stuff that filled my old site WallStreetFighter. I pretty much just wrote stories based on those days of working on the floor and at the bar. So it paid back then and for many years to come.
Domain of the Day: Kick.com I might trade my portfolio for this one
Quote of the Day: “If a man has any greatness in him, it comes to light, not in one flamboyant hour, but in the ledger of his daily work.” -Beryl Markham
Park.io Names at Auction or Dropping
ICQ.io ICQ is a term that stands for I Seek You aka messaging and chat
Chapel.io Good place to get married so maybe weddings
ARS.io LLL.io seem to always get bids. This one is pronounceable
AshTray.io Exudes dirty but its a memorable word so it can be branded
Funny.gg GG also stands for Giggity Giggity
Namejet, Sedo, Snap, and other Names Up for Auction
DeepFryer.com Could be a brand. Also can make a hell of a chimichanga
Cup.co Last call for the cup
Vipem.com A 5L with no bidders and a few companies that could use it as an upgrade
Bupple.com I like the brand. Memorable. No bids
LongWave.com Good tech name. Can’t wait for these to move to Namejet to make it easier to bid and see bids
Shuzi.com Regged in 62 other tlds
Surfa.com Nothing is as cool as surfing the waves
NILC.com LLLL.com buyers like them to end in C. Love them
JohnBlunt.com This would be my canna fashion line name. 22 year old name
NailsAndHair.com HUGE industry and one lucky company or salon will get to own this
BetPredictor.com With gambling taking off this only grows in value
Godaddy Domains With Bids
GMRI.com 1993 birthday. One of the older LLLL.coms that’s come up for auction
XX9.com You may not think this is special but its one of the highest prices on the GD board
NameTalk.com Good brand for someone in our industry
Accomplishing.com I now know its a gerund and I still don’t love it
EAPay.com Everyone needs a few pay names in their portfolio
GirlsDoPorn.net Don’t pretend you don’t know what the dot com is
Maximum.net Big enough word that the dot net is getting a lot of bids. Dot net has to make a comeback right?
77761.com Triple repeater on a 5L is still money
AutoAttorney.com A bit specialized but if this is what you do I think they should want to own it. And the price is only 2 hours of billing
UrbanClassic.com Sounds like a fashion line
CelebrityFakes.com You’re going to see more and more in the future
HouseOfShock.com I would drink here . 1998 birthday
CannaInvestment.com Good name, and ‘S’ would add a zero to the price
ClubMac.com I think pretty much everyone will think Macintosh
DealFusion.com “We put deals together”
Scento.com Candle shop. Keyword plus O has done well over the years for me
Godaddy Names With One or No Bids
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That is so weird that your girlfriend (now wife) was bothered by another girl at a bar hugging you and putting her hands in your back pockets.
Travis. Yeah imagine that. 25 years later she still has the same rules
Michael. Newspaper is the perfect under 16 job. This was definitely a 21 and over job
Mike. Thanks. Fun to tell them again
That’s a great story, Shane!
Cool story. I only ever had a second job selling newspaper subscriptions. No hot chicks, and even worse no free cocktails…
Great story, worked in Chicago in the seventies. What was the bar, if I could ask?
Art,
GameKeepers was the bar
Shane,
Great stories, I was a bartender at Club Med in Cancun for 3 years after I graduated college (did not want to grow up lol), had sex with many women, until I fell in love and the party ended, but it was a nice run. Married with 4 kids now, but those memories were great for sure.