I had the 6am to 9am shift at a bar in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh late 70s. The customers were basically janitors coming off night shift and cops coming off night duty. A fair number were “a pitcher and no glasses” - and would just sit there drinking on the pitcher for an hour or so. Most everyone was armed so no one got seriously drunk or impolite. They were a good crew and I made as much from that 3 hour shift as most of the guys and gals from 6-8 hour shifts. I was going for my Masters in Psych so even the strange or morose ones were at least of some interest.
Only one event of note. One AM this younger dude walked past the door a couple times. Come pass 4 or so he swung in the door, started to pull a gun and announced “This is a stick SHIT!!!” About 3 dozen guns were pointed in his general direction. Nobody really paid much attention but he was well covered and outclassed. He was also in cuffs in about a minute.
I only tended bar for a few years in college. College drunks aren’t too bad, except that they don’t tip, because the bouncer dealt with them and even if there was no bouncer college students usually accepted that it was time to stop. Older, working guys were different. They wanted their bartender to be a therapist.
The worst for me were the guys who came in during the day shift to get shit faced. Wive would call, because they knew where their husband got drunk, and the guys would do anything, except tip, to get me to tell their wives they weren’t there. Half the time the wife could hear the idiot saying “tell her I’m not here” and she would be screaming at me to “put that fucker on the phone” like I was their personal secretary or something. It did liven up those long dull days but not in a good way.
Hard on Mustangs indeed!
This Saturday, against Queens, for the Yates Cup!
(Between drunken friends often thinking,“Hey, I could just lift you up! You’re so small!”, and too many friends who are the, “I just love you!” whilst bear hugging you types, when they’ve had a few, a girl has to develop a strategy. I’m kinda skinny. Perhaps my razor sharp elbow delivered sharply into your rib, will incline you to unhand me, you drunken clod! A girl could get a reputation for that kind of behaviour, in my experience.)
I’m wondering how bartenders deal with the extreme loudness (that is, if they work in loud bars.) I’m not just talking about rowdy drunks, but it seems that in some of my former favourite bars, the background music has gotten louder and louder.
I once happened to sit in a bar during a Karaoke contest and I must say that people tend to overrate their singing capabilities. Anyway, I asked the bartender how she managed to stand it day in and day out (it was on board a ferry with the same entertainment schedule every day). Her answer was: “I just don’t listen”.
I was a day shift bartender in a restaurant so it wasn’t that bad as far as belligerent drunks go, I did have to kick out a few people though. Some of them didn’t take “you’re cutt off” very well coming from a kid in their eyes. I’ve been threatened with pint glasses, had creepy dudes hit on me offer me money for sex, been tipped with hash.
I’ve seen numerous affairs before my eyes, one of my regulars was a government inspector ex cop who had a liquid lunch every day about 6 pints of beer and part of his job was being out on the road. Part of being a good bartender is knowing when to keep your mouth shut, but being able to pull out that that big stick under the bar when needed. The big stick in my case was the day manager 300’lbs at 6’5". One call to him and he would “escort” the problems out.
Yeah, sports bars are the worst for noise, TVs and music blaring, loud fans and plenty of shouting. Once was enough for me, I never applied at another.
In a busy bar with great tunes, it’s not uncommon for the volume to get turned up, as the crowd swells to capacity. Soon the music is really loud, and the place is packed with people screaming at each other over the music. There comes a point where the best thing is to begin turning the music down, so the crowd will quiet down.
If you’re in a busy place and it’s running at or near capacity, it’s going to get loud, it’s true, but you’ll probably make some good money. And it can be managed, a little at least.
Or you shift to fine dining, tiny snooty joints with soft quiet mood music.
I know a few bartenders who are in recovery from alcoholism. Seems like a bad idea to me.
And I’ve had a couple of bartending friends over the years. So it’s not that I despise them or the job. Drinking is legal and it’s a job.
But for me the question is moral.
I wonder how any bartender can separate his values from his job life. Say you know the guy who’s coming in and getting drunk every night goes home and beats his wife. Or that his kids are going hungry. Or that he ends up in jail frequently after too much to drink.
Or, worse yet, that a few more drinks is soon going to push him over the edge for the big heart attack/stroke.
I just don’t get how someone would care to participate in serving someone knowing that for some of the customers you are also serving up a big glass of grief and pain. High end clients may not show it but you never know what kind of hell people may be living in.
We used to say it’s the best job in the world at 10pm – music, fun, women throwing themselves at you in a way to make you believe you really are that hot – but the worst job at 1am and beyond. My hardest parts were: a.) older, angry drunks who you knew would start shit when you cut them off; b.) icky bar dreams almost every night after a shift. Oh, and a group of Samoans that would come in and cause real trouble.
For the most part, it was a pretty fun experience (restaurant/dance club for three years during and after college, then catering for 10).
I’ve been thinking about my post. It’s a stunning thread-killer and sounds judgmental, I’m afraid. I’ve asked myself if I should have posted it at all.
Still it’s the viewpoint I’ve grown to have through the directions my life took and the choices I made. I find myself sometimes wishing that I could have a lighter attitude about drinking because the one I do have has changed the ways and the places I am able to enjoy myself. Or watch the ways other people do as well.
I go to a wedding and at the reception the bride and her family appear to have drunk a little too much. I think many people could say, “Why not? This is the culmination of a lot of hard work. Now they get to celebrate.”
And I can’t help but wonder if this is familial alcoholism and a harbinger of serious and harmful illness down the road for the newlyweds.
I go on vacation and downtown in a little tourist town is a young Native American passed out on the street. Some people are chuckling. I move him out of the street and onto a bench on the sidewalk and trot down to the police station to tell them to get him help. And the police laugh at me. I say, “He may have overdosed.” They shrug and say, “It happens all the time around here.”
It’s not my grand mission to single-handedly fight the disease of alcoholism. By the time I retired I was pretty tired of doing it for pay. It would be an abysmal hobby. But my viewpoint is forever changed about what can and should be a cup of good cheer. And sometimes I regret that.
I can’t apologize for that but just wanted to acknowledge what a downer my post was.
So do I, a couple of which are very close to me. To be clear, I wasn’t saying that being in such an environment, for a heavy drinker, was a good thing, rather just that for such a drinker, working a job that had ready and constant access to alcohol would be ideal as a way of facilitating their drinking.
This seems to fit Mencken’s definition of Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere is having a good time.
Now, I’m somewhat down with the mindset. In my experience, most of life’s wounds are cauterized with the branding irons of “I was just having some fun” or “I just want to be happy” then irrigated with tears and bandaged with shame. The pursuit of happiness is the Running Of The Bulls, which is trouble if you’re not part of the herd.
Even so, I’m not fond of trying to extrapolate a curve from one point and worrying that everyone I see with a glass is taking the first step towards alcoholism. Hell, is it even that common? Then there’s the whole MYOB thing…
I was waiting for that. Some rascal always has to say it. Gotta love Mencken.
If your idea of minding my own business is ignoring an unresponsive human lying in the street I will never be able to meet your expectations.
You sound erudite and yet you seem to have made quite a leap of assumption about my public behavior. What a person may think isn’t necessarily what he will do, you know.
And I have no clue where you got the idea that I “worry that everyone I see with a glass is taking the first step toward alcoholism.” Quite an extrapolation.
Is it common for an accountant to automatically check every receipt? An orthopedist to notice a twisted gait? A musician to hear an out-of-tune-piano? Yes, I would say its common and even normal.
So kids working at McD’s should refuse to get food for fat people? Junk food for children?
Is the car dealer an enabler of drunk driving? Most people drinking in bars do so responsibly, just as most people driving cars don’t kill someone while driving drunk.
