Being a bartender?
Antisocial hours, bad working conditions, abusive customers and below average pay? What’s the draw, where’s the joy, why- just why?
I fell into bartending about 17 years ago, almost by accident. I was in a course at uni I really didn’t get or want to be in, I was living in an emotionally unhealthy place. I had few friends and less creative outlets. I’ve always had a degree of feeling like an outsider, of otherness, of not belonging in any group or situation (a certain degree of this still exists in me, being an extreme introvert has its challenges), and never more so than in large, noisy crowds, bars, clubs…
BUT.
Stepping behind that first bar, probably not immediately, but very quickly, I discovered I had a talent, a real skill that not everyone has. I could look at a crowd of thirty, fifty customers standing in front of me, all looking served right now and I was able to stand my ground, not panic, not baulk, not want to run screaming from the bar (it does happen). Rather, I could see a problem in front of me that needed to be solved, and if I judged it right, if I reacted quickly and kept my cool, I could clear that crowd in no time flat. Better, and very quickly this became apparent too, I could not only do this in a cool, calm collected (albeit sweaty, it was a dirty metal bar and I’ve always run hot) way, I could pick up energy from doing this. More than any night out I’ve ever been on with friends, almost more than any situation I’d had in my life before, I found something that could take me over, for want of a better term – What I’d now consider mindfulness, the state of being absolutely in the moment, with no distracting thoughts. Turns out I knew how to do this long before I found a focus in anything else, but we’ll get back to that. In that moment where you’re giving it all behind a busy bar, bouncing from customer to the next, especially if you’re working with good people, especially if the music is right (but not essentially either, as I have experienced this outside these situations, but these would definitely heighten and sharpen that moment), the whole process becomes a dance.
Working, bouncing around your team, flowing around them smoothly and thoughtlessly that shows you’ve far better instincts and reactions than you ever knew you had, you become more than just yourself. I found joy, elation in these moments, a sense of belonging –not to the room, not to the crowd, but my team and, being completely honest, to something greater.
You ever had one of those moments, perhaps simply just out for a walk on a beautiful day, maybe in the early morning staring at your partner sleeping beside you where everything just feels right – that you’re exactly where and when you’re supposed to be in your life, and you’re filled with this pure joy? That’s what a good night behind the bar is like. And the best thing is, people pick up on that joy, that Shine that emanates from you, and it spreads like wildfire – your team start laughing and enjoying the moment, your customers, despite having to wait and getting a bit soberer than they care, feed off it too (feed is the wrong word, I’ll maybe amend that, because it’s a reciprocal thing – Joy is not a finite thing, it feeds into itself. Spreading joy and happiness does not diminish yours, it builds it, it enhances it. Joy is, much like love, cumulative. Your heart, as Caitlin Moran beautifully put it, can not be diminished by others, it only grows from the love you give) and everyone’s mood, everyone’s night, is enhanced by you being in that moment.
I couldn’t put a number or even a ballpark on how many nights in this trade I’ve had like that, or even quantify how long those moments where, and for the sake of everyone’s mental health I definitely wouldn’t compare them to the amount of drawn out, tired and outright difficult nights I’ve had behind the stick in my career, but there have been a lot of those singular moments, almost akin to epiphanies, and somewhere along the way, I decided to make a career out of not only chasing those moments, but teaching other people, especially those I could find with the right talent, the right energy, to shine in the same way.
I’ve lived alone and been single most of my career. Maybe a bit sad, but for a full-on introvert that time alone is critical to recharge the batteries, especially in such a customer-forward job. But I have shared a love and energy with some of the most remarkable, intelligent, clever, gifted and funny people anyone could have the hope of working with. A friend once compared work friends in bars as someone you’ve served time or in the trenches with – there’s so much going on, you’re so reliant and trusting of each other you have this automatic process of thinking, moving around each other, assisting on each other’s orders (this is the absolute best thing in the world, bar none – when you and your second are nailing out a dozen cocktails between you, setting up glasses, pouring for each other, passing bottles without having said a single word).
Not to mention the absolutely horrible times where things can get too much (it happens to even the best of us), and all you can do is go scream into the ice machine and just get back to it because you’d be damned if you’re going to be the one to let your team die on the plate, for want of a better (and less mixed) metaphor. It’s not an entirely fair or accurate comparison, but you do bond with workmates in bars in a very different way than most of your friends elsewhere in life.
It’s been a long time since I’d considered myself religious, but there’s something about those moments that did make me reconsider things – these days, I’d like to think of myself as more of an agnostic than the dyed-in-the-blood atheist I thought I was at the time, but even then I could appreciate those moments of synchronicity, just didn’t know how to fit those into a belief or a system of the universe that would fit my understand. Now, I could happily say it’s subscribing more to Einstein’s idea of a God in the equations, the divine being shown through the building blocks of the universe, and those moments as not just determinism or the universe showing the way, but maybe a bit of myself I’m not fully cognizant of or beyond my understanding nudging me that –yes- this is the right thing to be doing, you’re in the right place, keep at it.
I try to listen to those hints, built up and sharpened by years of experience in the trade now and far too much introspection and can use them to guide me to some degree. I have to accept that part of me understands me better than I understand myself.
Giving an example, when my previous job, which I genuinely loved and was probably at the height of my skills and career in a lot of ways, unexpectedly closed down, I was approached and offered a job to start up and run a new cocktail bar under development, with a very respectable wage and good hours.
Sounds perfect, right? So I had a few doubts, it did seem too easy in a lot of ways. It was going to be a few weeks (later evidence would show it would take months and it definitely would not have been the right job for me) before it was ready, so I was offered work in a sister hotel of the company’s I’d had previous experience (bad experience) of, so I went there to start off. Two shifts in, two shifts I really didn’t enjoy and could see a lot of red flags about the place and the company itself, I got tonsillitis and had to take two weeks off to recover (in which I also got sunstroke, but that’s a tale for another day). I went back for one shift, hopeful to get back to work – being out of work is an absolute nightmare for me, workaholic is a somewhat soft term for me, but those red flags were still there. Little, niggly, annoying things that just didn’t feel right, so I went home that night, considered my options and decided to follow my gut and get out.
I asked an old friend (Hi Alice!) if she needed any help in her restaurant as I really wasn’t happy where I was, and she told me there was part-time work there almost immediately, so I went in for a trial shift – the only time I’ve ever done a trial shift in my life, but even on that day, in those maybe two hours of running about a slightly chaotic café not knowing exactly what to do, I still found more I could work with and enjoy in there, so I accepted a part-time job there as floor staff, for considerably less money, far more travel and far removed from all my friends and colleagues in the trade, excepting Alice (who is the most wonderful, kind and brilliant person in the world and in no way made me put this in here). I followed a hunch that day accepting the job, which led to me joining what I can only now call a wonderful little family of the kindest and decent people I've ever worked with, who have been so incredibly supportive and decent throughout my time here. There was still a mild doubt and worry about this job- my coffee skills were minimal compared with the rest of the team (I can now do a fairly passable flat white now, so I have picked it up), and being wholly floor based was massively outside my comfort zone (ie, behind the bar). I looked around a bit, and got offered something fairly interesting, but was still somewhat on the fence. About the same time, my nephew got appendicitis, so I had to pretty much bail on work for the weekend to help my family through it. How kind and absolutely wonderful the entire team were through this, right up to the owners, really touched me. This cemented my thoughts that I wanted to stay. So I followed my hunch again and stuck with where I was. In the same week, my current employer offered me a job as Assistant Manager with far more autonomy and far more sociable hours than I would have had otherwise had in a bar job. Those hunches kept me there.
What I’ve gained from these instincts is beyond any value I could put on them, which is worth more, to me, than the best-paid job in the world.
I feel there’s a lot more to explore and say on this subject, but this seems a fairly strong start. In my head, I’m hoping to build this into a resource, whether that be as a book or an online blog – either way, something that someone new to the trade, curious about getting into it, or just looking a little inspiration, can get something out of, maybe a little clarity or a different perspective on things.
Watch this space.
Neil
6/5/2019
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