Sunday, December 18, 2016

The Trainee - Part 2

During my last post, I mentioned training a new hire named Craig. He did well considering it was his first bachelorette party. I had him tag along to a second party. He needed more experience before I sent him out to do this alone.

This time, I delegated Craig to be the star of the show, meaning he would start and finish while I watched in the background. I would only act if he was faltering and needed backup.

The party took place in a beach condo. Craig and I pretended to be part of the property management, warning the girls about their noise level. Craig did great opening up, and I stood by the kitchen counter with the girl who booked me, occasionally talking to her while he stripped and danced.

The party turned out to be quite brutal for him. The bride, a beautiful and slender blonde, seemed appalled at the idea of having a male stripper. As Craig stripped for her, she leaned as far back in her chair to distance herself from him as far as possible. After he took off his pants and shirt, he thrust his foot onto his lap, motioning her to remove his sock. She did so with great reluctance and a sour look on her face. I made a mental note to talk to him later about having girls remove his socks.

Craig did the best he could, but the bride eventually threw out her hands as though to ward him away and said, "I've had enough."

He circled the room trying his luck with the other dozen girls. They tipped him and he danced with a few, but soon he was drenched in sweat. He soon looked to me for help. The tense awkwardness radiated from the crowd, and I knew this would end poorly.

The girl who booked me even sensed this. "I think you need to go out there," she said.

I approached the bride and began dancing. She shook her head. "I don't want this," she said. "It'd be best if you two would leave."

I leaned down and spoke softly to her, "We're here because your friend hired us to show you a good time... not make you feel uncomfortable. If there's someone else you want me to dance with, let me know and I'll start with her."

The bride paused in thought, then pointed to another girl. I sauntered over towards her, and she accepted my approach with gusto. Craig removed himself from the living room to watch. I felt bad for him, because he got a tougher audience than before. I wanted him to have a wild and easy crowd to ease into, instead of one that made him feel like shit.

I worked my among the girls, adding more and more physical activities such as taking body shots from various girls and vice versa. Eventually, the bride had a change of mind. She pushed her way towards me and said, "I want a turn now."

Several of her friends gasped at her in awe. The bride wanted to outdo everyone and took body shot after body shot from me. We ate cake icing from off of each other and took several lewd pictures together.

During this time, she confided that she did not like Craig and felt "weirded out" by him. Craig made matters worse by attempting to sing a romantic country song to a group of girls on the sitting on the couch. He had a good voice, but his song didn't go over well. The other girls listened patiently, and politely applauded him when he had finished. He took this as a cue to continue singing. I groaned inwardly.

The bride wanted him to shut up. I caught Craig's attention and motioned for him to stop, which he did.

"What the hell is his problem?" the bride asked me.

"He's learning," I told her. "It's really difficult to throw yourself out there when a room full of hot girls are sizing you up. Most guys either freeze up or overdo it."

"Yeah, he came on too strong and the singing act has got to go," she said. "But now that you mention it, I can see how most guys would get nervous."

I didn't want Craig to hear her criticism of him, so I changed the subject by redirecting her attention back to some lewd games.

By now, everyone relaxed and felt at ease. Several of the girls invited me and Craig out to the club afterwards, and even prepared for us some homemade Cajun jambalaya.

The bride introduced me to one of her single friends who really liked me. I had since forgotten her name, but we took a picture together (which I will post on Instagram in the near future). Looking back, I should've gotten her number.

The other girls invited us out to the club once more, but I politely declined. I had to set an example of professionalism. I later explained to Craig that most of the drama occurs by going out with the girls, so it's best to avoid going out in general.

After the party, I took Craig home. On the way, he said, "Man, sorry about screwing that up. I couldn't work that crowd at all."

"Don't worry about it. It's all about experience. I had it tough when I first started, too."

"Really?"

"Oh yeah. It's like any job. The more you do it, the better you get. Experience goes a long way. You'll get there if you keep at it."

"Thanks for the encouragement, Dion."

"No problem, just one more thing: Don't sing. We're there to dance and give the girls some fun activities to do. We're not musicians."

"Yeah, I did that because I was nervous and didn't want to stand around doing nothing. This job may seem easy, but it can be tough."

I nodded. "You hit the nail right on the head. This job is an easy job, but at the same time, it's not. It's easy pay for the amount of work you do, but very few guys can pull it off. Otherwise, there'd be loads of guys doing this everywhere."

As I spoke those words, I realized that I was going to have a difficult time training rookies into this profession. I felt as though Craig took a step backwards with this party, and I wasn't looking forward to walking him through another. And I definitely wasn't looking forward to training another complete stranger all over again.

Unfortunately, Craig is one of the better candidates as I soon discovered over the next few weeks. After Craig, I had two prospective new-hires chicken out at the last minute. They simply did not answer my call or text messages.