Workplace 19 - Raceday Boozin'

Ahh the races at Eagle Farm.

Most weekends in Springtime, you may witness the mid-afternoon walk of shame by the well dressed and inebriated hordes down Racecourse Rd in Ascot. Resplendent as peacocks in every colour of suit and dress, they stumble from the races to the ferry, losing shoes and lunches along the way, a badly balanced shadow of their morning selves. And, on a few occasions, I helped them get there. Drunk, I mean, not to the ferry.

That sounds bad but, honestly, these days were SO MUCH FUN! If you've read my Stadium Love blog then this was a very similar experience.

If you've ever been to Eagle Farm Racecourse you may be aware that it is a beautiful old location, full of historic venues and exclusive areas, as well as half a dozen bars. If you've ever been on one of the 'big days' (ie. Melbourne Cup, Brisbane International etc) then you might have noticed that every spare corner, arch and available inch of space has sprung a new bar.

 

Generally just some shade tents, a few tables and eskies, with a cold room out the back but to the masses it means beer! Or wine, or premixes or bubbly but whatever it is, it all comes in little plastic cups.

So to staff all these organic little mushrooms of bars, the Brisbane Racing Club requires a whole heap more sober people on the premises than usual. Hooray!

My first gig was as a cashier. At the start of the day each cashier is designated an area of the racecourse to be responsible for. A terrifyingly efficient matron directed us with gibberish such as "From the Hall of Fame to the Moreton, don't forget there's a few under Past the Post"

This obviously didn't help but she seemed to have a lot on her mind. Fortunately someone else took us around and pointed out the actual boundaries and areas that we had to look after for the day.

And… begin!

'Raceday' is the perfect term for what took place over the next  8 hours. Starting at my first bar I would get there, take all the money out of the til then sit in the cold room, generally on boxes of Gold, and count up the wet, filthy notes, before tallying it all in my book, leaving the top copy with the bar manager then quickly move to the next bar to do it all again. Fortunately the security company is charged with moving the money around as I'm not terribly intimidating at the best of times! Counting the

notes provided the most challenge as wet notes stick together and double counting generally just meant you had two totals. So you'd count until you were totally certain that you had the right amount, all the while area that you were late for two more bars not to mention FREEZING in this bloody cold room!

I had maybe 6-7 bars to look after and I didn't stop all day, just an endless circuit of overflowing tills and shivering in cold rooms. Lunch was provided but there was no time. Fortunately the all-pervading festival atmosphere was energy enough to get me, exhausted by ecstatic, through the day.

Take 2. This time cashiers were organised differently - one for each bar. I was assigned to a little push up tent on a lovely garden area where for most of the day I reclined, swapping anecdotes and passing judgement on the masses with the bar manager. This manager was a fantastic old rogue who'd done this for a long time and had a million stories of happenings around the racecourses. A very entertaining day. Occasionally I would count some notes and call security to take it away but the rest was watching well dressed drunks and laughing. A very enjoyable pastime with the security of a barrier between them and you. I seem to recall taking home a bottle of champagne and a whole heap of sushi with me but I can't remember how this came about.

And the final adventure (so far) at Eagle Farm was when I held the glorified position of Bar Manager. Yes, I had a push up tent and a cold room and a team to call my own. The cashiers job had reverted back to floating positions - maybe it depends what race day it is? so unfortunately I didn't have the immediate back up of a constant 2IC but we managed.

The day was INSANE! Just constant lines of people at the bar wanting their plastic cup of fermented whatever. My trusty servers for the day were 3 Indian boys in Brisbane for uni, one of whom had no English at all so relied on the other 2 to translate for him and not a lot of idle chatting happened. Actually, that's not true. A lot of chatting went on, just not in English. The hardest thing about the day was trying to close up as people begged and bribed us for 'just another beer!' They came up with some very creative excuses. And the rest of the day was so entertaining. Everyone loves you when you hold the beer!

Three very different experiences of Eagle Farm race days, but all quite entertaining and enjoyable. Extroverts, party animals and people good with numbers should apply for these positions, you may even get time to see a race and will leave much better off and healthier than any of the people you served.

I'm not sure of anyone that shouldn't have this sort of day, or who might not enjoy it so go at it!