In a bar, the workday is not a straight line. The morning shift arrives, leaves before lunch, the split-shift worker returns at 7 PM, on the weekend people who weren't on the schedule join in, and on Monday someone didn't show up. Keeping track of that in a notebook or in the manager's head is a recipe for conflict: overtime that no one noted, days off that are owed and no one knows how many, and a payslip that the employee looks at with suspicion. Here I explain how time control works in restaurants, bars, and hotels in Argentina, what the regulations require, and why time tracking stops being a whim when the activity is regulated by the gastronomic agreement.