Work Friends

We all have them: work friends. They are a funny category of people because we don’t ever meet their parents, or go to their houses, and sometimes we don’t even hang out with them outside of work or the working context; but some of our work colleagues know us better than almost anyone else. They tend to know us in ways that our families, teachers or long-term flatmates know us – they know our strengths and our weaknesses, and they can either love us or hate us for them.

Another characteristic of work friends is that they can be from anywhere in the world – from any background. We do not choose them or select them as we do with our other friendship groups, a selection that is carefully filtered past hobbies, prejudice and mutual contacts. So in the working scenario, especially within a bar, as a group of human beings, one is faced with an almost unique proposition: to work as a team and act as a community with a group of total strangers with many disparate interests.

Of course it doesn’t always work. Then the work is bad and a link is missing somewhere along the line. Equally, it is in the interests of managers to have a work force with strong interpersonal bonds – a fact that the corporate quickly cottoned onto and invest in heavily. When the social element is strong, the work is strong and productivity is high. Gosh, I am beginning to sound like a communist. But actually it is interesting, I can think of no other context where such a material benefit arises from friendship.

This splashing about of thoughts is a prelude to what I really want to do: introduce you to my friends at work – at MacDougalls – because, actually, I rather like them & spend quite a high proportion of my time in Ghent in their company:

Danny

It makes sense that Danny is the first item on this list, because in many ways, Danny ‘runs’ the bar. He is younger than me – 22 – I think. But that doesn’t really matter; in fact, age doesn’t really mean anything in a bar, the only thing that matters is how good you are. Now Danny is very good (and not a shadow of innuendo is intended here), he can spin waiting platters like a circus performer, throw glasses and bottles over his shoulders as artfully as a ballerina and change a barrel faster than any bar-back in town. Danny is very good. Danny is also Irish, and speaks in a soft, yet hard grainy Southern Irish accent which seems to partake in the geometry of his face: in the rigid, aquiline nose and high, hard forehead. Forever cursing and blinding about the Belgians, and party to every secret in town, Danny is fundamentally also a very kind person who is often able to show more grace with customers than I am. He told me one night, when he and I went for a drink in the last tavern still open in town – Spekkel – that he once ran a bar on his own in the centre. It was Danny’s bar – it was called the Dungeon. No cameras then, he said to me and winked. Danny is the only barman who has closed all three bars belonging  to Carney and his circle of Irish friends across Belgium; he often closes MacDougalls and as a result, is the last one out. The ‘grave yard shift’ starts at 7pm and can finish as late as 3 or 4 in the morning. If there are customers at the bar, the bar is open.  When Danny is around, there are always customers at the bar.

Costas

Costas is from Colombia, though you would not guess that if you looked at him. In fact, now that I think about it, Costas must be an absolute giant in Colombia. As far as I could tell from travelling there, in the east of the country in the mountains around Bogota most  Colombians are of medium height and dark-skinned. In the west, generally people are taller and fairer. The people of Medellin are famous for their light, European complexions and stature. So when I first met Costas, I guessed that he was from there. But he was not. Costas is from a small white-stoned city in the tropical mountains; and does not at all resemble either his father or his mother when he showed me pictures of them – his mother’s face shaded by a sunhat. I don’t know what my passion is, Costas confided in me one night – I did not know what to say. A heart beat in the void. The thing about passion is that if it is there, there is no way you can mistake it.

Costas told me that he worked in a very successful company in Colombia – and made plenty of money there. I believed him. So why is he here? Love. Many people have moved to Ghent as a result of a relationship – the reverse of my trajectory – and then stayed. What does Costas like doing? He likes rewarding people; he likes making people happy by rewarding them for good work. When he told me this I could imagine Costas’s sleek graceful figure instantly in a city-suit, pacing about in his measured powerful walk. With his skills for negotiation and his knack for exploiting an advantage when he sees one,  Costas would make a fine businessman. But he is not a corporate – he is too attracted to freedom and bad behaviour. Yes, Costas is a natural leader, meaning that people naturally follow him (is this the same thing?) I can tell that he has a master at attracting women: his tall, muscular body, handsome flawless face and ochre-brown eyes have their own, necessary following. There is no other waiter or barman at MacDougalls whom customers ask for as frequently.  I would be prepared to wager that there are also few barmen who have broken so many hearts in Ghent than my tall friend – and it is a kind of talent being that beautiful and universally likeable.  Which makes me wonder:  do you need a passion? How important is passion in life? Isn’t being so beautiful and universally liked talent enough?

Jonathan

Jonathan is a new addition to the MacDougall family and a black sheep for a number of different reasons. To begin with Jonathan is Belgian, actually very helpful in a bar where – to local’s frustration – hardly anyone speaks Flemmish. (I have since found out that this is not true, and that almost all of the employees there can speak or are studying Dutch at the university). Jonathan is quite a short, thin young man. He looks much younger than his 27 years would lead you to expect; his pale, shaved head and cherry-red lips hardly age him. From the first I noticed that Jonathan walks around rather robotically and completes all task with alacrity and a high rate of success that is both admirable and a little alarming. It did not at all surprise me then – to learn that Jonathan worked as a soldier for some years. What did surprise me, was what I discovered later, when a few other stray bits of information floated my way. For example: Jonathan could speak seven different languages. Though he later admitted this to me, he made no attempt to flaunt the fact, it was something I partially deduced, when I discovered to my surprise that he spoke Lithuanian to Jensha –  our current manager – and when he himself told me that he language he communicated to his girlfriend was Polish. Needless to say his English is impeccable. Another astonishing feather to Jonathan’s bow is that he is a concert-level pianist and is studying under a famous jazz pianist at the conservatorium here in Ghent once a week, a pursuit which he balances with his Belgian officer training and work in MacDougalls. Just not lest ye be judged – Jonathan is a very complicated and interesting person.

Kim

Kim is mad, bad and beautiful. She is without a doubt the most asked-for waitress in McDougalls and provokes funny little bleats of admiration from any of the large boyish student groups that come to drink Guinness and cider on the terrace. Kim has made it clear to me in her laissez-faire sort of way, that she doesn’t really need to work at MacDougalls, she has her other jobs – her modelling, and more friends than hot dinners. In fact, Kim also told me that it is a principal of hers never to walk anywhere in Ghent on her own at night (this is the city, that more than one local once assured me was actually one of the safest cities in the world). ‘It always ends badly’, Kim explained, and then began narrating a story in which she encountered some drunk, heinous man who subsequently received a fine, cracking punch between the eyeballs for propositioning her. Kim studies kick-boxing to defend herself against would-be predators, and one of her friends, a taxi-man called Vim, acts as her chauffeur. Kim is definitely a diva, but she is also very charismatic and clever – and like Jonathan, can speak several languages. Her fiery Portuguese blood combines with a natural penchant for telling stories; a book could already be filled with the colourful, tragic stories I have heard of her life. I’m not sure how many of them I believe to be true, but that doesn’t matter – as a fabulist myself, I can still appreciate their narrative qualities.

The ‘Extras’

The extras are not really the extras, meaning that many of them are far better waitresses than me. The extra-ness derives from the fact that they are not full-timers, and so, infallibly I see them less than the others. Indeed, as with all bars and restaurants in the ‘Horeca’ industry (as they call it here), the glass doors are always swinging, and people are coming and going. I begin to suspect that most of the part-timers at MacDougalls are former full-timers who realised that full-time work there was unsustainable. Of the extras that brush past me on the busy work roster, I have particularly noticed Asha – another eastern European waitress. Asha normally works during the morning rotation – which means I don’t often see her, but she is a good, kind, strong young woman who lives in Ghent with her boyfriend. She has dark eyebrows and wheat-field blonde hair that swings in a thick plat behind her back. I remember once seeking relationship advice from her; and explaining some sort of romantic dilemma I was in. She replied: “To be honest, I have never run for the boys,” and I totally believed her. Then there is Buzz; a tall, skinny pale Irishman who I have great difficulty reading, and the super-waitresses on the weekends – Lena and Imo – Imo is like a punk chick with biceps, tattoos and red lipstick and Lena, strong and serene, is probably strong and competent enough to lift the weight of the entire premises on her shoulders like a modern, feminist Atlas.

Right, that’s enough for now.

Exuent Dramatis Personae