Last week we had a party on the yacht that I work for for a pretty big finance company. It was a large party, around 250 people. The event went well; people were cool for the most part. At 10PM the party ended and we closed the bars. I went around to make sure each bar had cut off, and then went to grab beer to restock.

At 10:15 I came back up to the main bar with a bunch of beer, and I saw there was a middle aged guy at the bar with a younger woman, and he was trying to get a glass of wine. At that point I was mostly annoyed that he was in my way of getting behind the bar with the 6 or so cases of beer I had. He seemed a little drunk, and the woman he was with definitely seemed to be signaling not to serve him. The other bartenders kept politely telling him we were closed, but he was very persistent, and then he started pulling money out of his pocket and putting it on the bar. They still said no and offered to give the money back but the guy wouldn’t take it. Finally, just to get rid of him one of the bartenders gave him like a half glass of red wine and he walked away. We knew they wouldn’t let him off the boat with it anyway, and they were ushering everyone down.

I got behind the bar and started filling the lowboy fridges with beer. Not even 2 minutes later I hear a voice from beside the bar “hey can I get a bottle of Heineken?” I look up. Sure enough, the guy who had just gotten the glass of wine was back. I look up at him and say “Sir, I’m very sorry, but the bars are closed.”

“Come on, just one Heineken!”

“Sir, it’s currently 10:15. The bars closed at 10.”

“I just gave you guys $30!”

“I’m very sorry, sir. There are rules that we have to follow.”

The next few exchanges were just variations of me explaining that the bars were closed, and it being non-negotiable, and him bitching and moaning about getting this beer. Then he finally played this card:

“Listen, I’m a senior executive at [name of finance firm] and we just spent thousands of dollars on your boat, and you’re not going to give me one fucking Heineken?”

And boy, if there’s one thing I hate more than anything in the restaurant business, it’s someone trying to pull rank or use privilege to get special treatment. At that point I just told him he could take it up with the owner of the boat.

Finally, he just goes “Ok, alright. Goodnight everyone. You did a wonderful job tonight.”

Then he looks right at me and points and says “and you’re a douchebag!” and stumbles down the stairs.

Minutes later someone came upstairs and told me he was on the first deck absolutely tearing our owner a new asshole. She had no idea what had happened, and was so taken aback at how aggressive this guy was being, but is also the type of person that never wants clients to be upset, so told someone to get him a Heineken to shut him up.

When he went to leave, the Captain told him he couldn’t get off the vessel with a bottle of beer in his hand. So he put it in his pocket and just pushed right past our crew and left.

My blood was boiling for the rest of the night.