Sometimes the truth hurts

As newly instructed I am going to give you my opinion on Richard’s blog ‘How Could you?’ – i.e. camaraderie between bar staff.

Firstly, the pub is not cheating on you Rich. You’re lucky enough to be in a middle ground where you can empathise with our sufferings on nights such as you mentioned, but do not have to actually endure the pain of the event. Mental busy nights like you mentioned nowadays are quite rare……and we are all thankful for that……as we are usually more than adequately staffed. However, when they do happen (and this is usually on a Saturday night because I am usually the one working) it does indeed feel like your fighting a battle.

Now there are different stages to the battle.

Stage 1 – the calm before the storm, a degree of happiness because the pub has eventually got a bit busier and you actually have something to make you busy rather than trying to make yourself look busy, or, as I do, chatting away carelessly to the members of the Steve Perryman suite.

Stage 2 – dismay, the realisation that it is now becoming too busy and the yearning for a return to the norm, that would be quiet so that you can continue your conversation with the members of the Steve Perryman suite.

Stage 3 – panic, you see the supplies are becoming limited (by this I mean glasses) and you realise that at some point soon someone is going to have to face the opposition (by opposition I do unfortunately mean the general public who are consuming alcohol at that time) head on in a battle to retrieve the said glasses.

Stage 4 – complete chaos, you begin to lose the will to live, you realise you haven’t had a break in well over an hour (that’s a serious issue) and you cannot even find a spare minute to complain to one of your comrades about the ridiculous nature of the opposition.

Stage 5 – victory, then almost as suddenly as it all began the battle appears to have been won. You stare down the bar to find no-one wanting a drink, shelves full of clean glasses and its at this point that you realise without your comrades you would have most definitely lost that battle.

Now, I think the reason why we feel this camaraderie is because when it becomes frantically busy you know that the only people that can help you are other bar-staff. Regardless of how much we love our regulars, you cannot help us at all during this crucial time of the night. You’re input is generally at the beginning of the night, for general social purposes, and at the end of the night and this is generally for entertainment purposes as we are sober and you’re well and truly not.

Quite simply I think if you have to endure a difficult, or sometimes horrific, period in your life (or shift as is the case here), I think it’s nice to share it with someone. You then have someone to enjoy the victory with, and to tell about your trials and tribulations during the epic event.

I also think that what draws the staff together when it is so busy is that, although we love our regulars very much (well some more than others), you do become the enemy. You are by no means the ‘drooling semi human feral scum’, but you are part of the opposition. I know this will make you sad Richard, but its true (Sorry).

However, this is why regulars have all the privileges that they do because although you do become the enemy at some points in the evening, you’re a nice enemy…….the one that will patiently wait for a drink, and say the precious words “When you’re ready” rather than “OI”…....