YO DAWG HOOK A BROTHA UP MAN!!

I used to moonlight as a bouncer at a douchey club in Brighton, a college/illegal immigrant/20s alcoholic neighborhood on the outskirts of Boston. Only worked Saturday nights from 8-2, from January-August 2007 (I quit at the end of August because I worked Saturday nights and football season was about to start). Anyway, when the last of the dinner crowd was done and the place was starting to fill up (usually around 9:30-10) the manager would have us start charging $5 cover at the door. This particular place was absolutely horrible and no one in their right mind would pay to go there, but apparently there were plenty of people who weren't in their right mind.

Anyway, when I was at the door there were certain groups of people I wouldn't charge:

-Girls who a) I was fucking, b) were at the bar with a girl I was fucking, c) I was trying to fuck, or d) were there on their birthday
-Anyone with a military ID
-Certain regulars
-Off-duty employees (and their friends)

Obviously my friends wouldn't have gotten charged either but they never went to this place because I repeatedly told them how much it sucked. I don't blame them.

Focus: As an employee in a customer service position, when have you hooked someone up?? As a customer, when have you gotten hooked up??

 

I think I bought a few things for friends with a pitiful employee discount. Other than that, I did not have enough access and discretion to do anything really good.

 

My best friend worked a bar in the city that was kind of off the main drag, didn't get much business outside of some suits having a drink during lunch or after work and the odd rock gig. There was one non suit regular there that got pointed out on my friend's first shift by the manager, with the advice to treat this guy well. Turned out he owned a top end (not high-roller top end but very respectable) inner city Sydney strip club, and after a few months of shouting him drinks and sucking up, the regular hooked him up with a night out at the club, on the house, with friends. There were 6 of us 20 year olds; no $25 cover charge, free and plentiful drinks, preferential treatment from gorgeous strippers at the behest of the owner, who entertained us and sold us coke (which we had to pay for - what a stingey cunt). Magnificent.

Just lucky to have a friend who bestows the fruit of his labours on his friends I guess.

 

I'd be willing to offer up a half price prostate exam to any one of you fine idiots. You're welcome.

Seriously though, I have access to a closet full of Viagra, which friends think they are funny in asking for. I just laugh it off and haven't offered it up to anybody yet. So the real answer is just free drinks and stuff when I was working as a waitress. Not a lot of benefit in being my friend I guess.

 

Back when I was in NYC and hanging out with some of the PUA community guys, we knew one of the doormen who worked at a club that was a pain to get into after 10pm Friday and Saturday nights. No cover charge, but the line was really long, and if you were a dude by yourself, no girl, you weren't getting in. Girl with two guys? One of your guys isn't getting in.

Four dumbass PUA guys walk up to the front of the line, say the magic word and ...in.

It was a pretty nice hookup to have, until it got cut off. The problem with PUA guys is that too many of them don't drink either because they have shit jobs that don't let them afford to drink at the places they go out to, or because they're too afraid that their game will suffer if they drink.

A nest of 20 weirdly dressed guys in your bar, not spending any money, and hitting on anything with tits and a pulse ...yeah, not exactly a great business model. Eventually the doormen got orders not to let these guys in, even before the place was getting crowded. ...Except me, because when I went, I'd put down 3-5 very expensive Manhattans and tip really well.

And that's the key to keeping a hookup. Don't abuse it. If you get in somewhere you normally wouldn't, you act on your best behavior. If you get a free drink from the bar tender, you fucking tip twice.

 

I spent the past summer working night shift in a bar on a Greek island. I was working 10pm-7am everynight for three months for 2Euro an hour. It was pretty rough and towards the end of the season it was fucking dead. I might serve ten people all night on a good day. So I used to give people extra-strong/free drinks to keep them at the bar to stop me from getting lonely.

 

The best hook-up I ever received was when I bought my downhill mountain bike. I actually didn't even know the guy who sold it to me super well, but I had been to the shop several times and my friend had recently purchased his DH bike from there as well. The guy who ran the shop was an older guy who was just super nice. I was still in high school and mowing all the lawns I could find for skrilla so I wasn't expecting to be able to afford anything very nice (as far as DH bikes go; fuckers are expensive). Ended up getting a bike that should've cost somewhere around $3000 even after knocking the standard percentage off list, for somewhere around $1700. Score! I don't think the shop even made any money off the sale. Great guys though, and I ended up trying to buy parts and stuff from them to help make up for it whenever I could.

Other than that, my good friend/old roommate works at a kick-ass burrito shop downtown and always hooks me up when I come in. Can't beat that.

I haven't really worked in the customer service industry, so I can't speak to that side of it.

 

Waitressing: Gave my father, brother, boyfriend, and friends free non-alcoholic drinks every time they came in. Free appetizer salads. More than the standard number of rolls in your bread basket (we were only supposed to serve one roll per person at the table). Free soup.

Front-desk hospitality associate at a major hotel chain: Our chain was notoriously conservative, and at the time I lived in an even more conservative southern state. A wedding party came in, booked a few of our suites and party rooms, and started inquiring about our resources/local entertainment. It was two women who had just gotten married in Vermont the day prior, and they had their families and adopted child with them.

My cunt of a boss refused to print up door signs labeling their party a "wedding reception" because our company doesn't recognize their type of union as marriage.* This was AFTER they'd already dropped the money on the rooms and such. She printed up door signs labeling their party a "celebration." Shockingly, the newlyweds didn't make a fuss. They sighed and sort of resigned themselves to the discrimination. Needless to say, I was pissed.

They got a major room upgrade. And I entered in a few discount codes so they paid less, too. Free breakfast for their entire party in the hotel restaurant for the entire duration of their stay (I had to get creative...that was actually hard to pull off). Free wi-fi in their party room and in their suites. I cut them a keycard for the hotel pool that didn't stop working at 10:00 P.M. (standard). They got free champagne delivered nightly to their room. We had a small stash of free day passes to local entertainment venues to give to guests in case we needed to cover a fuck-up with some "perks"...and the brides got them. All of them. I unlocked the premium cable channels in their rooms. And, on a personal note, I slipped hand-written notes under their doors on check-out day, thanking them for choosing XYZ Hotel Chain for their wedding celebrations and, as a token of XYZ's appreciation, a massive discount certificate to be used during checkout (usually reserved for a fuck-up situation with a VIP).

I don't regret hooking them up in a spectacular fashion. Not a bit.

*They don't, but company policy is to oblige the guests by labeling their celebration as whatever they'd like it to be labeled. My boss was just being a close-minded bitch.

 

My company has a 50% discount for all employees on anything we have.

To bad I don't have any need for optics.

I have contemplating getting a job next door at Fox Racing for their discount.

 

There really isn't any way for me to hook up people at my job - or at least nothing that isn't a felony. However, I've received some pretty sweet hook-ups as a "thank you." Honestly, I always feel guilty taking discounts or free stuff for simply doing my job, but we really do appreciate it when it happens.

The best one we used to get was from the Starbucks across from the firehouse. They used to give us free drinks every morning when we stopped in on the way to work. It really didn't cost them anything, but it made waking up at 0500 bearable. Unfortunately, the district manager that started the policy was promoted out of the region and the new guy put a stop to the free drinks.

 

Waitstaff: In my younger days when I worked at Olive Garden I would always hook up my friends with all the salad and breadsticks they wanted. I would always just charge them water instead of a soft drink and sometimes if the MOD wasn't paying too close of attention I would get them some free dessert.

Doctor: As a courtesy to my friends I will write for low level prescriptions without much issue. "Cold sore" outbreak that you want taken care of quickly... sure I'll write for some Valtrex. I also have several friends that will call me up for free medical advice that most of the time I will diagnose over the phone if it's nothing huge. Obviously if they call me with symptoms of a temperature of 105 and blood draining from their tear ducts I will tell them to report to the nearest hospital immediately because fuck if I want the liability of that fallout. This is also a curse for me around Christmas time when I hang around the family and they proceed to pepper me with questions about their diabetes or their melon sized prostate that wakes them up to piss every 30 seconds at night. Sigh... Uncle Frank.

 

I worked for Stoneyfield Farms (yogurt company) one summer and hooked all of my friends up with some of the best yogurt and ice cream available. We were addicted to it like heroin, I probably went through 4-5 cups of yogurt a day that summer, the first couple of weeks of fall semester at college were like my detox period because I couldn't afford to continue my habit. Thankfully there weren't any rich homos where I was because I most assuredly would have sucked 8 miles of dick a week to continue my addiction.

The best though was my buddy who worked at a video store that wiped out all of our late fees and showered us in free rentals, which was great for us since we are all B movie fanatics. It was especially awesome for me since I lived right down the street.

 

I got it instilled in my head at a very young age that giving away <insert product> is like giving away the company's money. Even bartending, until I knew I was leaving, I wouldn't give away free drinks often. Now, that changed when I got my current job, and was still trying to work the bartending gig, and the owner actually pissed me off.... by grabbing me. And not by my shoulder or waist. Gave my two weeks, and the bar was filled with my friends who knew I didn't give a fuck the last week. I tried to quit on the spot, but the defacto bar manager guilted me into staying until they could find someone. My caveat for staying was the owner was *not* to be there when I was working, unless a good reason. I probably cost them quite a bit that last week, but I didn't care!

Working retail, you get a discount, and notice when stuff is being discontinued, or a customer return that is open box for 50% off, broken bags of soil/mulch, etc. (Lowe's was awesome for lawn stuff, filled the bed of a pickup for about $30 with high quality mulch, 50% off, plus my employee discount). I wouldn't *abuse* it per se, but if someone mentioned a random item, "Oh, I'll grab it for ya at work, save you X."

Now, end of deer season this year, we ended up with a lot of extra product (sticks & summer sausage). All clearly marked not for resale. People don't pick stuff up, etc. So my friends are *still* eating well...

 

I "worked" in the attendance office during first period in my senior year of high school (and I lived right next to the school). All my Dead Head buddies would ride the bus to school and skip first period, walk to my house and smoke weed with my boyfriend. They'd then drag their stoned asses in before first period was over and I would give them an excused tardy slip, even though it obviously should have been unexcused.


Before I started working at the video game store, back when I was one of the top customers, I had gotten an Xbox 360 on sale at Target and went to get some games and price accessories. I was looking at a used HD cable and it was 40 bucks! I mentioned this to the manager when I was checking out (I was buying a controller and a few games) and he told me that their tester 360 had an HD cable on it, even though they didn't have an HD TV. He let me have the cable as long as I promised to bring back the standard cable that came with my Xbox. That made me a loyal customer for life.

 

About 10 years ago, my older brother and about 6 of his friends worked for David Jones (giant moderately up-scale department store) all through Uni. A lot of these guys were... not shady exactly, but not mainstream. They were moving quite a lot of illegal merchandise at the time, so it's fair to say they weren't overly worried about what sort of discount they applied to things. I still have two Pioneer 5.1 surround systems which I picked up for about $50 instead of the $1.5k each they were retailing for, and my parents and brother each have one of the same model. My family has been sleeping on 10,000 thread count sheets since before we made it to the point of not living on canned spaghetti, and we've never lacked for woks, rice makers, etc. One of the guys that worked there fit out his entire house - I'm talking sofa's, movie room with projector, beds, etc. Loss Prevention picked that one up about 6 months after he stopped working there and I think they sued him for about $60k, but I lost track of him around that point and don't know what happened.

My best hook-up, though, was dating a girl who worked at Adventure World (really weak Aussie version of Disneyland) for a while. Free entry, entry after hours, and her manager flipped some very good smoke. Good times.

 

For a while in college I worked at a party supply store so all my friends got giant balloon bouquets for their birthday. Normally it was lots of "Happy 60th" and "It's a Boy" balloons.
It was also good for Valentine's day gifts but my girlfriend got tired of balloons and shitty stuffed animals all the time pretty quickly. She called me cheap, but I preferred to think of myself as frugal.

 

In my current job, I really can't hook people up per se, but I have in the past:

McDonald's: It was a running gag to see how many patties we could stuff into a Big Mac and not get caught. I think my record was 10.

Pawn shop: I used to sell my friends tools and electronics dirt cheap. I always made sure that the store made a little bit of money, but my friends usually got better deals that I could get from the owner.

Tech support: I worked for a small mom and pop shop for a short while that had a tendency to rip people off. Like, go pull a DVD drive from one of the computers in back and sell it as brand new rip off. I would always hook customers up because the owners were a bunch of con artists. I "forgot" to give back my company laptop when I quit.

 

When I worked on the Heineken account, I was allotted 8 cases of Heineken or Amstel light each month for $6/case, and I bought my max each month and shared with my friends. Both beers were very drinkable at $.25 each. When I tended bar, I was generous with the pour and light on the tab for my friends.

A close friend of mine is in the title insurance business and he entertains clients a lot, so whenever he needed a 4th for golf, it would be me and entirely on his T&E--greens fee, booze, lunch/dinner and more booze. He put together a trip to Vegas with clients to play Cascata, Ceasar's private course ($100k line of credit at the casino just to get a tee time, $500/pp for 18 holes, plus caddy). All I had to pay for was my airfare. Ceasar's fucked up (they had a charity tourney scheduled for the weekend we were going), comped us a round at Rio Seeco, one of their other courses, including limo to and from, 2nd row seats for Jimmy Buffett, plus rescheduled our round at Cascata for a future date and included our rooms, which we did the following fall, so we got 2 awesome golf weekends in Vegas. He also has season tickets to the Mavs and the Rangers (first row--you're putting your beers on the dugout roof), and he sends me and my family to a few games each year. I feel like I should be mowing his lawn, but as he puts it, "You're the only one in the group that never asks for anything." Still, we take him and his wife to dinner 3-4 times a year.