A customer rant, a long rant
For some peculiar reason this morning I feel like writing. It's the forth day of my vacation. I always go through a general malaise when I start a long vacation. Work can be very intense. With some people there are no small problems, generally when I go into work there's a voice mail or e-mail about some sort emergency. If we don't fix it now the moon will fly out of orbit. One of sales manager literally sends every message with the "urgent" flag set. It's reached the point that I'll actually read the e-mails that aren't flag first, just because I'm curious as to what issue is so mundane that it doesn't rate an urgent flag. Without this constant assault on my sanity I tend to lethargic. It takes a couple days for my system to acclimate and become me to become motivated again.
I've given up on the Dolphin(s) finally. A lot of the people who work there I consider friends, but I can't take that place any more. As far as a place to hang out it just simply sucks. I expect the drinks to be expensive, but they've reached the point of being ridiculous. I like Maker's Mark whiskey. A fifth is about $30 dollars. A fifth equals roughly 23 ounces. One ounce equals a typical amount in one drink. One drink is $7.50. I doubt the club pays shelf price for a fifth, but I'll assume worse case. In material costs a single drink of makers mark cost ($30/23 drinks) $1.30. Granted there are a lot of costs above and beyond the cost of the whiskey. There's the operating cost of the building, payroll, insurance, inventory, etc, but a markup of 570%? That makes the oil companies look like charity organizations.
I think this is more symptomatic of the overall business model is beginning to break down. The overall amount of drink sales have declined dramatically. I know this because I talk to the waitresses. They don't sell near as much as they used to. From time to time they have big days, but some days they sell less than $100 for a six hour shift. The drink prices all by themselves aren't problem, you don't go to strip club for cheap drinks. But this is absolute indicator of a much larger problem, they are driving away customers. As sales volume decline, prices go up to compensate.
The employee compensation structure of the club is starting fail. It's a tip based system. With less customers, less tips. Not only that the more expensive drinks takes away the amount of money the customer has to tip. If you raise prices the customers aren't going to magically come in with more money. There is less money for tipping, on top of that with a smaller number of drinks being served the opportunity for getting tip also declines. The staff doesn't make the same money as they used to.
Money makes a big difference when it comes to employee moral. I walked in to the club recently as sat a table with no table cloth. It was simply a big particle board circle of exposed wood. It's lovely décor for Home Depot, pathetic for club. The staff doesn't care. Why should they? Strip clubs typically have high turn over. It can be a tough place to work. Lots of drunk groping ass holes you have to serve, psycho dancers, late hours, etc. If you make enough money, its worth dealing with. If you don't make enough it starts to take a toll, a big toll. The staff at the club is an unmotivated group. I've nick named a couple sections of the club the alcohol free zones. They are a little bit out of the path waitresses normally walk. If you sit at these tables you won't get served on a regular basis. When I finished a drink I'll start counting the number sets that go by until I get served. Last time I sat there four sets went by before I got waited on. Each set is two songs. Each song is about three and half minutes, seven minutes per set. It took twenty eight minutes to get served, worse yet the club was empty. There I am sitting in the middle of a sea of empty tables, starting at an empty glass, not tipping the dancers because I don't have any change. The staff doesn't care. Why should they? The waitress is sitting around because there is no money to be made. There's almost nobody there, and the ones that are aren't tipping.
The dancers are complaining that there aren't enough bouncers. They're getting mauled on the couches. The bouncers are tied up at closing so the have to wait to get escorted to there cars. When the idea was floated about hiring another bouncer, the current ones blew up at the thought of their tips being cut. The dancers aren't making as much, consequently they are tipping out as much.
When there is no money everything starts to break down. That's about as simple as it gets. Why is the money not coming in? The easy answer is the economy is down, but if that was the case why were the Dolphins doing so much better when it first opened? After 9/11 the high tech economy in the Portland area absolutely tanked far worse than it is now. The economy doesn't help, but it's not reason. I've seen this happen before with other businesses, the Dolphin now operates in spite of its customers, not because of its customers.
A glaring example of this. One night the music volume was up to absolutely ear splitting levels (more of this issue later) and a customer at the main stage was covering his ear and grimacing. It was loud enough there that it physically hurt to sit at the stage. The DJ noticed the customer cover his ears. His reaction, he yells on the PA "If it's too fucking loud for you then go some fucking place else". Guess what? The customers went some where else. The volume is up that high because that's what the DJ wants. The customers are an annoyance. If you ask the DJ he'll probably tell you is that loud because "they" want it that loud. The question is who are they?
Who wants to listen to rap or heavy metal are ear splitting levels? Mostly 21 to 25 year olds. There isn't a lot of money there, these are guys just starting there careers. They aren't likely to spend hundreds of dollars at a club. One of the at former Dolphin One bartenders coined a phrase for this crowd: Little boy, no money night.
The ridiculous part of this is that there is no reason for the music to be this loud. People walk in the door, not to hear the DJ, not to buy really expensive drinks, not for the menu. The come there to look at naked women. Everything else is secondary to that. If you don't believe it's too loud, just walk in around 7pm one night and look at where everybody is sitting. The customers are all sitting away from the main stage around the perimeter of the floor space. Why? All the speakers are pointed directly at the main stage. It's really uncomfortable to sit near the main stage for any length of time. After a while you move to where the volume is more tolerable.
I work for a sales and marketing group of a very large electronic corporation. Our home office is in Portland. When the field sales people come in for the regional offices they always want to go for some corporate sponsored debauchery. We almost always end up at Stars. Two times I've talked them into going to Dolphin Two. Both times we stayed less than 45 minutes. It was so uncomfortable loud they wanted to leave instantly. They won't even consider going to the Dolphin any more. It's a pretty safe assumption that a lot of people walking through the door for the first time have the same reaction. They aren't coming back.
I don't think the volume will ever change. The club has a PA system better suited for building about four times it size. Even if they do turn it down, they won't stick with it. They've been driving away customers for years. If they turn it down, they customer won't all magically come back in week, month, or a year. After a while the "in business in spite of the customers" attitude will kick in and things will creep back.
If you took out the stages out and just had a DJ booth and table. That bar would be a ghost town. I think this is why this irritates me so much. The Dolphin used to a club I like to hang out at. It was pretty laid back. Now it's just turned into a miserable place to be.
Time to move on I guess. It's sad, I have a lot of people there I consider real friends. Unfortunately I doubt I'll keep up with them now. There life style is much different than mine. It's frustrating, it like having your favorite TV show canceled. I wonder what Star's is like now?
