Secret Life of an Ibiza Worker

The Funeral

This next ‘chapter’ for me to write comes with mixed feelings. In the build up to my old boss’s funeral I was constantly feeling down whenever I thought about it. As the days got closer I started to wonder if I would actually be able to attend. Alex was a real strength during these days. He was always happy to talk to me about it and pop round for a drink on my nights off and was a welcome distraction. I still struggled to believe he was gone; he was to me, like he was to a lot of people, a massive part of Ibiza. The West End didn't seem the same without him and I had even taken to avoiding the Ok Corral and its new red colour scheme.

On the day itself I woke up with a start. I had been on a bit of a bender with some friends the night before and had some of the worst hallucinations of my life, with Rick himself featuring and giving me a good telling to about my recent indulgences! I was relieved when I looked at the clock and realised I had in fact still woken up in good time for the funeral. Next task was to decide what to wear the funeral. Luckily a friend who lived on the island had given me some pointers a few days earlier that in Ibiza funerals aren’t like in England and pretty much anything goes. I decided to go with a summer dress as Rick had always questioned my motives if I wore a dress when I worked for him. He seemed to think it was some evil plot to lure men in!

The day of the funeral unfortunately coincided with another birthday party at my block, the whole pool area had been decorated and everyone was having a great time when we me and Ellie got downstairs. It seemed fitting that all these workers were having a good time on this day, Rick had always had a soft spot for the workers and many had made The Ok Corral their home and Rick their dad over the years, so we said a quick hello before heading to the church in San An.

The service itself was absolutely beautiful. There were funny speeches and anecdotes from friends and both of Rick’s sons made a speech, one in Spanish and one in English. The church was full of many familiar faces and it was nice to see so many people had made the effort to take time off work in their busy period. Lots of those who live in Ibiza all year round work every single day of the summer so it was nice to see them making the effort for Rick and his family.

After the funeral we headed down to a restaurant on the Marina for the wake. The walls were covered in some of the legendary Rick pictures that had adorned the walls of the OK Corral for years and it really nice seeing his smiling face all around us. A generous buffet was put on and Rick’s eldest son told us to take as much food as we wanted as Rick wouldn't want the poor workers starving :) We stayed for a little while and shared stories of Rick before heading for a walk along the beach front before going to one of our daytime haunts for a drink and raising a glass to Rick. It had been an emotional day and I was glad I had gotten the evening off work. Alex sent me a text to see how I was and we arranged to meet that night. All my housemates were out so he came round to the flat with supplies: beer, vodka, supplements and cigarettes. We spent the rest of the evening chilling until the boys arrived back and then they joined us in a nice relaxed evening. It felt good knowing I had someone to talk to and even better that Alex got on really well with Andris, Juris and Tony and I went to bed that night feeling quite happy and settled back in my life in Ibiza.
 
The Sacking & New Job
So the next few weeks of life in Ibiza progressed pretty nicely. I continued to spend time with Alex and was getting at least 3-4 shifts a week at the bar so was just about scraping by with money. The season was starting to get busier and so I hoped I soon would get 6 days a week at work, which was really a necessity if I was going to be able to pay my rent on time. Money is often a constant worry in Ibiza, the only comforting thing is that all workers are in the same boat, so having no money just makes you the same as everyone else. I was luckier than some of my first season friends as I had actually managed to secure a job, which none of them bar one had (I think more down to the fact that they had come away prepared with lots of money and so lacked the motivation to force themselves on potential employers!) so as long as I stayed employed and Ellie gave me the money back she owed me, then money wouldn’t be an issue for much longer! Well that’s what I thought until Diego, happened.
After working at the bar a while now I had pretty much gathered that nobody liked Diego, he threw his weight around, called himself the Bar Manager and was generally a sexist pig. Nobody wanted to work with him, but he had been there a few years and spoke a couple of different languages including Spanish, so the Spanish owner was more than happy to have him around. After every shift in the bar all the staff were expected to help with clean up. Basically stacking the terrace away, restocking fridges and putting all the glasses away.
This particular night he demanded that I get on my hands and knees and stack all the glasses and if they weren't all 100% straight he said I had to get down and do it again. Initially I bit my tongue and stacked them, but when he complained I finally learnt the proper meaning of the term ‘seeing red’. I told him to do one, and walked out of the bar. The owner came over and told me to wait five minutes and then speak to him. In the five minutes I waited and smoked a cigarette to calm down one of the other members of staff wife came up to me and asked me what was wrong. I simply said the words ‘Diego is a c***’ and then out of nowhere the manager started screaming for me to get inside. He started getting in my face and screaming at me, saying I don’t dare speak to anyone about his bar. Other members of staff started to try and intervene but all I could do was stand there rooted to the spot and burst into tears. I was genuinely terrified of this massive Spanish man towering over me and just didn’t know what to do. After being ordered to stay away for ever from his two bars in the West End I fled the bar with a few of the other staff.
The next day I went straight to another bar in the West End to talk to owner. I had met him quite a few times as he was a good friend of Rick’s so he was more than delighted when I walked through the door to tell him I had been sacked and was looking for a new job. He offered me a job on the spot and I felt really happy that I would be working for a boss who seemed to actually care about his staff! After running through all the details of the drinks offers he gave me the rest of the evening off to let my hair down before coming back at 8pm to start the next day :)
 
What was the name of your landlord at Azul in 2012? I had friends live there in 2013 and the property manager was a Spanish guy called "Fred". He was a bit of a jumped-up ego maniac. I felt embarrassed for him on an encounter I had in his presence when he was scolding some tenants (in front of me, not cool!) for some pretty innocuous transgression like they were school kids. Proper power trip. I guess in that game, you have to play that card or you get walked all over
 
Snap you found him!

He was actually ok. But weird with some people. He had his ‘favourites’ all in all he wasn’t too bad though. One guy that year went missing and the guys parents contacted Fred to try get hold of him and he did everything he could to help them. He was found after about three days in the forest coming down from a bad trip.
 
The Date
So after starting yet another new job I was starting to really feel the pinch of being skint. Ellie still owed me a lot of money from the rent and deposit but she promised that she would soon be paying me back as she was planning on doing a lot of work over the next few days (something that up until now she hadn’t actually done any of!). I’d been feeling really down because I really wanted to do the opening parties this season but unfortunately due to money the only one I had managed to attend was at Es Paradis. Actually I’d only managed to actually go to Eden and Es Paradis full stop and the lack of proper clubbing was starting to really annoy me! I loved hanging around with my friends in the pub and the impromptu flat and beach parties but I came to Ibiza to see the DJs, listen to the music and feel the love so I knew I really had to get to the clubs before I went crazy. With this in mind I decided to book a Monday off work to go to Amnesia and in my head started getting more and more excited. I told Ellie my plans and even had to switch shifts with someone at work to get the day off but it was all booked and I really couldn’t wait to get out of San Antonio!
The day before my night off I was so excited during work. When you do the same PR job day in day out (especially at the beginning of the season when it can be quiet and quite boring) a day off every week or two is a massive luxury. When I got home that night Ellie was asleep, and I went to bed myself hoping she was tired after an evening of busy work! Next morning when I awoke I realised today was not going to be the day I had be dreaming of, in fact it was going to be a very bad day indeed! Ellie informed me that actually instead of working for the last few days she had been on a bender and bought lots of Ket. This had made it impossible for her to work, so ‘it wasn’t her fault she didn't have the money. It just couldn’t be helped’. To say I was livid....
In my anger I text Alex asking what his plans were for the evening. With literally 10 euros to my name I couldn’t really afford to do anything but a 1.20euro bottle of wine and the sunset would have to do. This is when Alex text me back and made me realise just what a great guy he was!
He told me not to worry and that although he was hardly flush himself he did have quite a bit of money left and so he would take me out to David’s in San An for dinner. (3 course set menu before 9pm of course!). Dinner was absolutely amazing that night, for one I had barely been able to afford to eat more than a sandwich a day for the last week, so any food would have been great, and two he was such great company he made me feel relaxed and laugh throughout dinner. After the meal we went to the new bar I was working at for a few drinks. My boss shouted me a few after I explained what Ellie had done, and discounted Alex’s so was a cheap enough night.
My boss was furious with Ellie, he had known her for a few years now and was disgusted she could do this when all I had done was be overly generous to her. After my bar we noticed Juris, Andris & Tony drinking in the bar I had been sacked from. I decided to bite the bullet and go over and approach the Spanish owner. He hadn’t been drinking tonight and as soon as I saw him he threw his arms around me and apologised. What’s more when I cheekily asked for the 120 euros he owed me in wages he said he would give it me in full the next night! BONUS!
As we sat and had a drink with the boys in my old bar we noticed it had looked like it was going to start raining. We all ran back to our apartment and got on the balcony just in time for the start of the thunderstorm. For those who haven’t been in Ibiza for storm season it is absolutely majestic. The sound of the rumbling thunder builds up to the most amazing colourful flashes in the sky, lighting up the hills and coastline in such a beautiful way. Add to that some intense, deep music and it’s one of the most relaxing and beautiful moments ever. After the thunderstorm I had the bonus of a worker friend returning to Ibiza after a failed decision to go home. So all the girls went out to Play2 for some drinking and dancing while the boys sat on the balcony and smoked weed.
Curling up in my tiny single bed with Alex that night I couldn’t help but think that although this hadn’t been the night off that I had planned, it certainly had been an absolutely amazing evening.
 
Let me Introduce The Best Friend
Since we landed in Ibiza me and Ellie had started drinking in two main bars. One was a workers bar off the West End where quite a close group of people drank and the other was the bar that I was now working at in the West End. Ellie had known the daytime bar man Chris for a number of years and so we often popped in for a half in the afternoon. Ellie would sit outside reading her book but I often sat up at the bar joking with Chirs. He loved the fact that I always put my foot in it and say things that could be interpreted quite differently and we struck up quite a close friendship.
With me and Ellie now barely speaking (due to the money – or lack thereof issue) I would often still visit Chris (and by often I mean I literaly spent 2-3 hours a day for the entire 5 months drinking beer all afternoon with him) and used him to offload about Ellie and her wicked ways. He confided in me that in fact most of the friends she had introduced me to didn’t really like or trust her but in the Ibiza way still were friendly when she was around.
There’s no particular story to Chris in this chapter, more I felt like he deserved the proper introduction for being such a massive part of my life in Ibiza that summer. To be honest he kept me sane, and having a friend like that in Ibiza is such a necessity. He had lived there permanently for 5 years and he had seen a lot of people come and go so was really good for advice. If you had asked me at that time, I would have told you I couldn’t imagine life without him. Unfortunately life is full of the unexpected.
 
Wicked Witch Reveals her True Colours
So you may remember that at the beginning of this story I told you that one of the reasons I had moved to Ibiza originally was being diagnosed with a fairly serious heart problem. I always knew that this would be my final season in Ibiza but after a month or so in I was already starting to get sick and this was worrying me. Ellie knew all about this yet she still seemed to go out her way and act out on days when I wasn’t well. Andris, Juris and Tony were amazing with it. Juris would often cook me dinner, Andris would let me curl up on his rather large knee on the balcony and Tony would curl up in bed with me in the afternoons to help me sleep. Now this may seem strange to some of you that I had literally known these guys a few weeks yet we were so close but that’s just kind of the Ibiza way. You fall in love within a week and make lifelong friends in a matter of days. You share the same passions, idealisms of a carefree existence and mutual knowledge that we are the only people in the world who have got things so very right in life.
My illness had started to become apparent on a few recent occasions. One Sunday the workers from my block had all decided to go to Bora Bora beach for the afternoon in Playa D’en Bossa. Bora Bora Sundays are a bit of a ritual for San An workers and you literally can spot 10 people you know in every direction. It’s like a day trip for us, out of the deepest darkest corners of San An to a more beautiful place and even the two busses each way can be fun with the sneaking drinks whilst the bus driver isn’t looking and generally just being a rowdy mob! This particular Sunday I had decided to take it easy as I was on the early shift at work that evening and had to be in by 8pm. I’d stuck to just a few drinks and lay off the supplements and headed back with a few others that had work at around 6pm. Now the next memory for me was waking up in a strange apartment and not knowing how I got there. It was 1am and I truly didn’t have a clue as to whether I had been to work or in fact what I had been doing for the last 7 hours. After getting out I walked down to work quite distraught to ask my boss if I had been to work that evening. He explained that I hadn’t and initially he had been really angry until at midnight Ellie had turned up to see me. She had explained that I went home hours ago and they both began to panic as to where I had gone. After ringing Chris who also hadn’t heard back from me that evening they had then started to REALLY panic. He sent me straight home and told me to go meet friends in the bar they were in and try to relax. After meeting friends I bumped into Ryan my Magician friend from my first season who explained he had seen me collapse in the street and have a seizure so he had put me in his bed to sleep before leaving me and going work himself. Panic over I relaxed a little but explained to Ellie what had happened and that I was getting really concerned about my heart.

A few days after this I was at work and Ellie again came to visit me. I was feeling really unwell and faint so again my boss sent me home sick for the evening. I begged Ellie that for this one evening could she please not bring anyone back as I just needed to eat and sleep and get some rest! On arriving home I was presented to a flat full of people. Juris, Andris and Tony explained they would go to bed after I had eaten but Ellie had brought two middle aged (40+ at least) men home and was currently having sex on the balcony in full few of everybody. I gritted my teeth and walked to the fridge to warm my food (that Andris has made) up only to realise that Ellie had come home and fed it to one of the fat men who was hungry!!! I was literally livid. She then tried to make Tony sleep in her bed in our room, which again was a no go for me as he snored like a warthog (hardly relaxing!) and complained I was being unreasonable to not let her use the living room where Tony would normally sleep to have sex. At this point I had just had enough so got straight on the phone to Chris and asked if I could come round to his house. On my way out the door Ellie pushed me and refused to let me past. So I whipped the CS Gas out of my pocket that Chris had given me for safety for when walking home alone in the dark (not quite legal but it made me feel more comfortable!) and told her that if she didn’t move I would spray it! Quickly she moved and I walked the long and quite scary walk from near Mambos to the far end of San An close to Linekars. It was a Saturday night and the Spanish men were out in force so really not the kind of place you want to walk around alone. When I got to Chris’s at around 3AM I was fuming! Even worse my phone died so I had to buzz his flat waking his housemate up! (OOPS) I fell asleep on Chris’s chest that night and all I could think about again was why I ever trusted the evil Wicked Witch, why I had ever lent her money (which I STILL didn’t have back!) and how lucky I was to have a friend like Chris.
 
Great stuff - keep it coming! And don‘t spare with the details on the debaucheries :lol:

Ask and you shall receive!

Ellie had brought two middle aged (40+ at least) men home and was currently having sex on the balcony in full few of everybody. I gritted my teeth and walked to the fridge to warm my food (that Andris has made) up only to realise that Ellie had come home and fed it to one of the fat men who was hungry!!!
 
Not sure what prompted it but I was genuinely wondering whether you were still working out there recently
Weird weird question... you’re not the Clare I know who married an American are you?! As I lost contact with someone called Clare and was thinking about them last week...
Edit: just realised your probably Claret Clubber not Clare T Clubber. Doh! It’s been a long day!
 
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