Each year, around this time when I was born, my mother retells the story of my coming in to this world. It was dawn and the sun was low on the horizon. A tiny ornamental disco ball was hanging from the rear view mirror of our station wagon; and for the first time since it was placed there, the sunlight hit it directly. The reflecting points of light filled the car with “dancing fairies” (as my swollen mother magically explained to my 5-year old sister who sat enraptured on our way to the delivery room.)
I am disheartened and disturbed by the email you sent me at 6am this Monday. I would have hoped that after 5 years of working together, that I would not be fired with a 4-sentence email. But I suppose this is a follow up to the email you shot me a few weeks ago telling me that I am worthless (in the literal sense: that you could find somebody to do my job for less; and in the figurative sense: that you could find somebody to do my job for free, implying that the service I provide to the community is worth zero to you.)
You continued to derail in your next paragraph, instructing me not to allow my friends to attend my DJ nights. What does that even look like? Functionally, the DJ is not in control of who walks through the door at a Public House; that’s the job of the bouncer or the bartender. That commandment was not only misdirected, it was also counterintuitive to what bar owners typically hope for with their DJs: that they will create an environment that makes folks want to return with intention, stick around longer, and spend more money. Was I doing too good of a job? Of course, it’s also confusing to hear in one breath that you resent having to pay me, and in the very next breath hear that you want ME to remove from the bar those patrons that, through their planned attendance when I’m there, more than cover the costs of my nightly fee. Uncareful of what you wished for, you can be sure that yet another substantial subset of our community has been forever turned away from your properties. It’s a trend that seems to grow year over year since you started playing Monopoly: Ditmas Park Solitaire Edition. Your mismanagement of people in our community has made the idiom “she sold the farm” into a reality — you literally sold The Farm! And you did it the way you are best known for doing things: by bringing pain to others and making enemies for yourself.
Countless ties to the community have been obliterated under your governance. Your prior employment roster reads as a list of people who –perhaps unanimously– were ejected with disrespect and carry with them resentment towards you. Your reputation precedes you as toxic tales trickle through the community grapevine, ensuring that decent candidates steer clear of your employment. Large swaths of would-be patrons are also, to varying degrees, aware of the way you operate and have thus chosen to spend their money elsewhere. So many people who work in the industry and patronize local bars have been blacklisted by you or avoid your properties through their own sense of decency. Now, you’ve turned your double-edged blade towards me? I was one of the last of your withering paucity of allies! With an endless trail of burnt bridges behind you, you made a choice to destroy an allyship in me that was still both beneficial to your business, and graciously coveted by the community, whom I was there to serve.
Most employers strive for retention in both their employees and their customers, yet you seem maligned to deteriorate both. Most local bar owners spend their entire career never experiencing getting sued, yet you relish in having several in your brief tenure. Most local bar owners in our community are part of group texts, looking out for one another. You have not been invited into these forums. Why is that?
There is a tiny disco ball that hangs from the ceiling at the bar you bought on a whim. You assume that the rotating motor should be turned on at night when there are DJs playing. But there is no light pointed at it, so there is nothing to reflect. There are no dancing fairies skating across the wall with fun, kinetic, inviting energy. What even is a disco ball without light bouncing about? Dusty it hangs, unlit, year after year, as a physical monument to the fact that you have no idea what you are doing. You don’t know how disco balls work. You don’t how DJs work. You don’t know how to run bars. You don’t know how to build community. You don’t know how to treat people. You are doomed to fail. Farewell~
