The New Bartender

I love this.

I have great respect for this blogger, Camper. I admire his courage for writing in a raw form about such a potentially awkward experience. If you’re a seasoned bartender (“seasoned” meaning more than 5 years) I’m sure it’s difficult to even put yourself in the newbie mindset again. But this blog entry is a nice little window into the mind of someone who has never bartended before. Moreover, this gentleman demonstrates how having extensive knowledge of alcohol is not necessarily the key to performing as a bartender when you first start out. Anyway, here’s a list of my favorite revelations:

1) “I'm not used to standing up for more than half an hour in a row. The entire next day my legs were sore.” If you’ve never worked in a restaurant before and today is your first day – you should expect this.

2) “You can feel all of their thirsty, beady, greedy little eyes on you.” This really hits the nail on the head. It should take less than a shift for a new bartender to notice this. If you’ve been bartending for more than a few weeks and don’t get this feeling you should probably quit because you aren’t cut-out for bar work. Everyone else probably hates you as a bartender.

3) “Some people watch every pour to make sure they're getting their full amount of alcohol… But it would still be easy to fool those people and put in less if you wanted to.” Beautiful observation. Whether its greediness or stupidity, these types of customers are encouraged by fast food places like Subway and somehow thinks this same behavior is not insulting to the bartender.

4) “Paying attention to whether or not there are customers at the bar waiting for drinks seems to be the most important part of the job.” This guy gets it. I’ll repeat what I said in #2 – if you’ve been bartending for more than a few weeks and don’t get this you should probably quit because you aren’t cut-out for bar work. Everyone definitely hates you as a bartender.

5) “I need to learn to do the nod that says, ‘I see you and will get to you just as soon as I finish this drink.’” Non-verbal communication: a cornerstone of effective bar work. Its all in the eyes, folks. It’s all in the eyes. When you make eye contact with the bartender you are either a) telling him/her that you need something or b) you want to make sex with them.

On a related note, if you read the comments to this post you’ll notice person named Erik who writes “Don't forget that you are 50% better looking when you are behind a bar or on stage.” So true. But that's for another blog post on another day.