Bitch Kitty Racing

Over the years, I have been asked repeatedly how I stand tending bar. It’s hard, it really is. Alcoholics, twenty-first birthdays, surrounded by drugs and booze, people with no morals, folks with no standards, a subcommunity of drunks with no hope for the future.

Actually, it’s kind of fun!

Once you get over the inital shock of the tawdriness, there is a never-ending supply of stories to watch, or stories to collect and tell. My bar is not glitz or glam, it’s just the neighborhood joint. I mostly see the same faces day in and day out, but that’s not without its perks. Regulars always tip well, at least the ones I love.

But how to survive it, if only for the final year of college? If you work in this industry you will be sucked in at some point—there’s no avoiding it. You are surrounded by people who work your same bizarre hours, have your same interests, are doing the same things as you, and also like to party at four a.m. The price is loss of reality and self. You’ll lose yourself if you don’t move up or get out. So how to survive?

Here:

Leave work.

Never drink in your own bar. If you do so you’ll develop intimate relationships with the staff and guests. They’ll know your business, and you’ll know theirs. When you show up for work the next day they’ll be asking after your cat, or worse, your girlfriend. You do not want this. It violates the fourth wall rule: never look at the camera. In this case, don’t let the customers see into your soul. Everyone views you as what they drunkenly want. Don’t give them reality and blow all their hopes and dreams. Keep yourself separate. It’s a job, not your social life.

Do not fuck the customers.

These people pay all your bills every month. As a bartender (or cocktailer), it is your sworn duty to shill them for as much cash as possible. If you fuck one, it’s going to be at your bar the next day, inventing a reality in which you are not just a slutty bartender and they are not just a drunken make. This person will expect some loyalty which you do not feel. They will make a scene, guaranteed, be it big or small. You will pay for your crime. Remember, you flirt for a living. Crossing the line means you’ve cheated on the rest of your guests, and they will all find out and tip you less. All your coworkers will also find out. Everyone will know all your intimate details, down to the last mole, and they will share.

Do not fuck your coworkers.

This one’s next to impossible, but it is HIGHLY important for a healthy work environment. If you fuck a coworker, you have to face your fuck day in and day out for as long as you both choose to work there. If you liked your fuck you have to watch that person flirt with everything that moves, you have to not feel intimacy, nor show any affection, nor visibly twitch when they blow you off for someone else. If you didn’t like your fuck you now have a serious problem, because you just used someone for sex. Congrats! You now work with someone who knows you’re a whore, and the entire staff is going to find out, and then the guests. Again, everyone will know your personal details.

No one at that bar is your friend.

Keep your personal life out of your workplace, just like any other profession on the planet. If you do that you’ll have to maintain an outside support network, you’ll have to have a life outside of work. This is called “healthy.” If your coworkers or guests are also your friends you will develop a dependency on your job for emotional support. NO! Bad you! Your life, your hopes and dreams, your wants and needs all exist outside of your bar. Keep it that way, and then your job is just a job, nothing more.

In short: if you worked in an engineering or law office instead of a bar, you would never expect it to be okay that your friends or lovers to sit on your desk for half of your shift. It is never, ever okay that your friends or lovers sit at your bar for half your shift. This is where you earn your living, nothing more. It is a party, but you are paid to chaperone. In this sue-happy climate, you need your full attention on your job.

Besides, you flirt for a living. Who wants to flirt with someone else in front of your treasured lover?

KEEP YOUR PERSONAL LIFE OUT OF YOUR JOB.

Today’s article is brought to you by Bitch Kitty Racing’s choice for independent music.