Alcohol turns people into morons. Fact. If
you never thought about it, bar work is technically easy enough, but the different
people who come in every night make the job testing to say the least. Bar staff
seem to be invisible, I would almost bet money on the fact that you don’t remember
what the floor staff looked like from your last Saturday night out, or that you
don’t remember seeing the heavy sigh from the barman as he leans over the
straws to hear you slur “sex ont beach” into his ear.
The toilets are always a big thing for the
girls. There are more cubicles, more mirrors, more sore ankles, and more
bitching coming from behind those doors. Before I even get in I have to push
past the stream of girls leading into the toilets. I know there's a fucking
queue, love; but I'm staff and I'm quite clearly carrying a set of keys and
five toilet rolls aren’t I? At the end of the night, when we have to assess the
damage, there is nothing we want to see less than toilet paper strewn all over
the fucking place – can you please
just put it in the toilet. And after that, could you maybe flush the toilet? I don’t
think there is any other place where you go for a wee and don’t flush the
toilet. And throwing your can of Red Bull on top of the massive log you’ve left
in the toilet basin doesn’t count. Flush that shit away, no one wants to deal
with that. Actually, could you maybe just not take a shit in the bar or put
your cans down the toilet altogether?
Sometimes I think that people who are
standing bitterly in the corner ought to just go home and go to bed. You're not
having any fun and I certainly don’t appreciate you being rude and telling me
off for taking someone else’s half full glasses at 02:00am after they’ve been
sitting there untouched for twenty minutes. I work here and I've been walking
round this room for six hours now - I know when the person who this drink
belonged to has left. Also, there's no need to piss yourself and launch
straight for your glass when you see me come to collect the empty glasses on
the table – I can clearly see that there's a full Jack and Coke there, why
would I take it away? At the end of the shift, when the pounding music is
eventually turned off and the bouncers are having a laugh on the floor, please don’t
come back inside. A) its illegal and B) we want to sweep and get out as soon as
fucking possible and we don’t need your dumb ass in the way – we already have
so much to do.
But my biggest problem when dealing with
people on the floor is when they see me carrying twenty five glasses that are
covered in alcohol, dripping down my arms, slipping out of my hands, and they
just look up and and carry on like they never saw me trying to get through. To
be honest I hope, when I push past you, this Sambuca gets in your hair and spills
down the back of your dress. These are the worst kind of people who come into
bars. There is honestly no need to behave like that. Even when I have to relentlessly
keep pushing past the same group of people near the staff entrance, they see me
coming and let me through; when you're on the other side of the room there's no
excuse for letting me through once or twice.
The dancefloor is the setting for a whole
new world of crimes. Songs are murdered, dance moves ruined, and fights break
out after some guy gets too friendly or a drink is spilled. I don’t mean to be
problematic, but it isn’t really my problem if someone knocked half your drink
out of your hand. What do you want me to do, mop it up off the floor using some
blue roll and wring it into your glass? The whole thing would never have
happened if the DJ didn’t play Drake or Craig David. Work by Rihanna is without doubt the worst record – whenever it
comes on (and that’s normally several times a night) everyone thinks they're Barbadian
all of sudden and starts grinding. Why do you need to slut drop? Honestly?
It appears that many people forget that we’re
there to work – we’re not wearing this waistcoat because we think it’s a good
look. Of course we’ll stop and talk to you if you need us because we’re normal
people, but there's no need to stop me every two seconds to ask ‘if I'm okay’
or to ask ‘how much I must hate this job’ because you want to have a flirt. I'm
not going to give you my number and, chances are, I've given you a false name
too. Asides from that, there are the people on the dancefloor who just get off
on being a prick. There's always some girl wearing a shitty pencil skirt and
has contoured her face to within an inch of its life who mouths along to the
record holding her cocktail without a smile – she enjoys standing in the way.
And there's the guys who have a few too many who don’t listen when I tell them
to move because there are four smashed glasses exactly where they're standing, I'm
not carrying the sweep-sweep for bants. They're the ones who then grab your
hips slurring “aah sorreh daarlin” once you eventually get them to stumble to
the side.
Behind the scenes is another question. Don’t
grab me on my way out the back carrying four full pint glasses in my hands to
see if you can ‘charge your phone’. In what world would you be allowed to do
that? Also we often get people stumbling into the back area looking for something,
or women trying to push past you into the men’s toilets after repeatedly being
told that they can’t go in there. Please read the signs. Many times people don’t
even read the menus and just stumble and shove to the front of the bar and then
spend as much time as they want choosing a drink – for god’s sake, decide what
you want to fucking drink before you get to that stage. Round the back, we are (of
course) bitching about everyone on the floor – from your poor dance moves or
stupid outfits, we laugh at you all. And when I’m sitting in the cloakroom at
the end of the shift waiting for people to get their coats, I am watching all
the boys desperately trying to pull fifteen minutes before closing and it never
really gets old.
Although it can be tiring and annoying at
times, and I've cut my fingers more times in the last month than I have in the
rest of my entire life, bar work honestly gives you a real kick. The
interaction with people makes the job worthwhile. Helping someone find their
phone, or find their boyfriend and then being thanked sincerely is oddly
satisfying. And chatting with the girl next to the staff door who can see how exhausted
you are is rewarding, even without the tip that follows. The humility in normal
people is right infront of you whether you're replacing toilet rolls or handing
people their coats at 3am. I have a new found respect for people working in
bars and clubs now and I regret all the times I've been that dickhead sitting
on the table. So go to bars because you’re the exact person the staff like to
see, but please remember that we actually have work to do so move to the side if
you see us carrying our body weight in glasses and alcohol sodden clothes and
please don’t be a bitch – you’ll make the shift so much easier for everyone.
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