Students are back. Whoopie!! Here’s a “tip” for you all. The bar staff can be your best friends or your worst enemies. We don’t work for minimum wage. If you don’t tip, you better be prepped to wait until we’re finished with people who do, AND be excessively fucking polite when you order. “Hey!”, “Me!”, and throwing little tantrums will NOT be tollerated. Also, when you’re sitting there weaving and wobbling in front of me and I tell you you’re done, don’t look at me like I’m your Dad and just said you couldn’t have the BMW for the night. It’s my experience that most 19 year old kids don’t have a lot of experience drinking, and doing 10 jager-bombs in a row and then puking doesn’t count. Drinking in our places is a PRIVELEDGE not a right. So for once in your lives, grow the fuck up, show a little courtesy and respect, learn how to tip, and we’ll all get along.
—Fed up bartending
This article appears in Sep 3-9, 2009.
I work in a restaurant with a demographic not geared towards students, so I don’t see this happening. However, I can imagine bar tending would really suck in a place that does.
One of my best friends works at the the south centrally located campus bar. She literally has had frat boys yelling “yagger bomb” in her face, ordering like 20 of them, and walking away without tipping. Mind you she also has the power to cut them off and get them thrown out – *sigh*, that would be marvelous.
If you don’t work for minimum wage then I do not see the point in bitching about the tip. Bartending is the McJob of all McJobs, pal.
I was thinking that part was a typo, Fat.
Anyways, this bitch isn’t (at its heart) about tipping, so let’s not turn it into one of those threads. It’s about courtesy – and drunk college kids simply don’t have any.
OP: cut them the fuck off and kick them out. Or you could actually try not serving them to the point where they need to be removed in the first place.
And by the way, serving someone 10 jager bombs at once is not only irresponsible and counter-productive to your profits, it’s also illegal.
Bar tending is one of the BEST paying “McJobs” on the whole PLANET, Fat. (Calculate 10-15% of ALL the booze served in a restaurant or club, mostly if not all tax free. They’re also tipped out by wait staff. You do the math.) Tending bar also requires a modicum of education and/or experience so, no, it shouldn’t be a minimum wage job and YES it should be a tip earning job… and it is! I’m with the OP on this one but offer a little advice. Don’t let them run a tab. Make them pay each and every time to see what level of “speedy” service they’re willing to purchase. As for 20 “jager bombs,” nevermind here has the right idea.
Don’t worry, most of them will be broke in a few weeks anyway.
NGF is right on this one. It is a McJob.
OP: you’re serving alcohol to students, not martinis to lawyers. What the fuck do you expect? An orderly single file line up with everyone politely requesting their drinks? Fuck off. You sling booze to 19 year olds and get paid pretty damned well to do it. I know quite a few bartenders and they all make great money for the amount of work they do. As for your last line: ” learn how to tip, and we’ll all get along” that just goes to show that you’re a self-entitled prick who thinks that you’re better than the people you’re serving. I hope no one tips you for the whole rest of frosh week. Asshole.
Tending bar?
Modicum?
…Seriously?
just one problem NW, “paid pretty damned well for the amount of work they do” ??? i don’t know where FUB bartends but on friday and saturday evenings i deal with the following… spitty talkers, perverts, mumblers, rude and verbally abusive mini thugs, having drinks spilled on me, dirty hands in my lemons, limes, and cherries (you don’t have to steal them, they’re free), dirty hands in my tip bowl everytime i turn around, guys/girls who smell like vomit, who smell like shit, who smell like B.O and thats just they’re breath, (i can hear you fine from here don’t touch me), freshmen who want to pay for one beer with visa, the violent and petty abuse from people i have to cut off because of their obnoxious state all behind a little bar trying to stay pretty and remembering to smile so before you start to THINK that im fairly compensated for my job, reconsider. Without the tipping im just another $8.60 casualty with a $38K student loan. The return of the students… is not something we look forward to, forgive me.
Um…it’s PRIVILEGE…
Fuck, Eastcoastkidd, I dealt with all that shit every day when I worked as a cashier….you only gotta deal with it for two nights? Consider yourself lucky.
OP: you work in the service industry. You probably choose to do bartending because it pays well for a relatively low skilled job (because let’s face it, you’re not performing brain surgery and you didn’t have to spend years in school learning how to be a bartender). If you have THAT many issues with your line of work, here’s an idea: get a new job. I’m sure there’s a plethora of opportunities that allow you to sleep in all fucking day and make tons of cash putting little cocktails together and opening bottles. Or, get a job at a more upscale venue that students don’t typically frequent.
Kay, bartending is a McJob and subject to minimum wage just like anyone else. You don’t need to take courses or have a university education for it.
For the most part, the work being done is twisting a beer cap off a bottle or pouring rum and cola over ice. Maybe an occasional screw driver at the most, but its not like a campus bar (or bars with 19 year old dumbasses) gets a lot of requests for Golden Caddilacs or Manhattens.
Its the king of McJobs and I’m sure some people think they’re special b/c they “tend to a bar”. I know what its like to bartend – I’ve done it. The fact is anybody can do it; a 19-year-old or a 99-year-old.
You’re talking as if they’re on par with doctors and EMTs.
Most bartenders have to take a course in bartending….but that’s like a few days at the most.
Bartending isn’t rocket science — NGF’s right, kay is talking like it’s a skilled trade. It’s not.
This is priceless…Let me get this straight – you think that bartenders have to put up with rude, spitting, scamming, touching, smelly etc etc patrons…or else they should “quit their job…”
…and yet look how quick you were to protect the poor little receptionist that gets “hit on” by a clean sober courier driver?!
Just curious… Why is it illegal to serve 10 jaggerbombs?
I’d assume it has something to do with alcohol poisoning.
Technically, bars are not allowed to serve more than 2 ounces of spirits, 2 bottles of beer, 2 glasses of wine, etc to a patron at one time. It’s to control the intake levels so that customers don’t drink more than they can handle and, like Bastard Fish said, get alcohol poisoning.
That’s why (most) bars won’t give you a pitcher of beer to yourself, or serve you a triple rum and coke, etc.
Unfortunately, most clubs ignore these rules – that’s when people end up getting tossed by the bouncers. Most of the time the bartenders are partially to blame for overserving them.
A good bartender knows how to pace their customers, so that this doesn’t happen. It keeps the bar (and the bartender) out of trouble with the liquor inspectors, and also makes the bartender more tips in the long run – if your customers are getting ejected after 1 or 2 rounds, they can’t tip you anything from outside the building.
I didn’t say bar-tending is a skilled trade. If it were there would be no expectation of tip and we’d all live in some other country. But a good bartender doesn’t go looking up drink recipes in books. Bar tending WELL takes practice even though it ain’t rocket science. I don’t think the OP is ‘a self-entitled asshat’ for choosing to work in a position where tipping is expected. If the OP wanted to work for minimum wage and that’s all he’d be working kitty’s old job.
I’m still with the OP. If you can’t afford to tip, drink at home. And if you don’t know when you’re supposed to tip or how much go all the way back to mommy’s home and stay there until you’re ready for society.
Oh, and Fat, leave it to the “brand new drinking crowd” to order “exotic” cocktails and shooters your average adult has no interest in. Now go work on that math some more. Here, I’ll help you… $1000 worth of booze equates to about $150 in tips. How many $5 drinks does one have to pour to earn a $150 (tax free, cash in pocket) shift? Getting any clearer? Most McDonald’s workers can’t even do the math and that’s why they work McJobs for McWages. And if you think the average tab of a bartender is less than $1000 over the course an evening shift… well, there was hardly anybody there to tip anyway. A friend of mine does about $3k worth of business each and every shift (but there’s food involved too). That’s $400-$500 in tips each and every shift and I’ll guess that sort of income no longer qualifies the bar tender as a “McWorker”.
I’m not sure of the rules here but in Ontario, if you drive drunk, the bar is responsibile for “over-serving” so booze slingers have to have passed the “Smart Serve” course to responsibly serve liquor.
Eastcoastkidd: It’s really a shame that bartending is the ONLY possible job you can do. I feel sorry for you that you have absolutely no other applicable skills in order to obtain a job. Good luck slinging booze 2 nights a week for the rest of your life. Oh, wait… You CHOOSE to work as a bartender 2 nights a week. You CHOSE to go to school and put yourself $38k in debt. That’s not the fault of your patrons. Putting up with drunken idiots is all part and parcel of the bartending gig. The job sucks, I understand that, but it’s your choice to do the job. Obviously it’s worth it, because you’re still there. You’ve chosen to take the easiest route possible to paying off you student loan. Maximum pay for minimal work.
Maximum pay for minimal work… GREAT motto to live by! With it human beings actually create technology! Without it, you’re neverwrong. *eye roll*
Jesus, I’m sick of you fucking SERVERS demanding tips for doing your brainless, stupid, shitty job. Shut the fuck up, SERVER, and just SERVE me. You’ll get a tip when you can mix a drink and massage my balls simultaneously.
Hmmm, I would say that most people who talk about “McJobs” have never fucking mchad one.
Nevermind is right (after I’ve read it a second time) this is not about “mcJobs”, tips (although it ensures prompt service) or minimum wage. It’s about courtesy. I ask you all to look at your arguments and determine whether or not you are implying that students (or anyone for that matter) have the right to behave in a discourteous (and that’s using a charitable term) fashion when they are out drinking? I would hesitate to compare bartending to Doctoring (I mean, c’mon…), but I do believe there is skill to it, as there is to many jobs that don’t require post secondary educations. Relegating it, and others like it, as inferior is rather bourgois. Everyone has a job to do, even the people that clean toilets. They’re supporting themelves and perhaps other and they pay taxes. The least they, and all people for that matter, deserve is the common courtesy most were brought up to show.
Here’s the most important aspect of this post. We bartenders do make tips. They are a privilege. And in return for that privilege the patron gets the privilege of prompt service. What does this mean? It’s simple. If you’re couteous and you tip you get served first. If you don’t do these things, you’re at the back of the line. No one’s ignoring you so don’t demand our attention. We know you’re there.
So, whatever your attitude towards tipping and courtesy, your service will be better with them. You don’t want to tip fine, but you had better develop some patience. If someone offers you money to do something fast, and someone else doesn’t, there isn’t a single one of you who will respond to the latter.
And while I’m on the topic, if you truly don’t believe in tipping, point it out to your next date. Stiff the bartender and tell her why. Then watch him take her home.
Gotta love how bartenders seemingly go into business for themselves. Their tips > the business’ revenue all the way.
Strontius – you said:
” If someone offers you money to do something fast, and someone else doesn’t, there isn’t a single one of you who will respond to the latter.”
Someone much higher than the customer has already offered you money to serve customers in a first-come, first-serve basis… your employer! So no matter whether someone tips or not you are still expected to give prompt attention to each and every customer. Your attitude towards customers is exactly why I hardly tip bartenders in this city anymore. And if I don’t get served within a reasonable amount of time when its obvious the bartender is using the tip total as his reason then its off to management to lodge a complaint.
So really, in the end it’s the customer and management who hold the final say in things like this, not the self-centered one twisting off beer caps.
Right on, VOR. I recall being at a show at the former Rain in 2006 and a bartender snapped at a customer, “You’re supposed to leave a tip,” while tapping the counter with his index finger. He wasn’t impressed when I quipped, “Wow, when did tipping become mandatory?” Really wasn’t impressed when I bought my beer, received all my change then strutted off.
The poor embaressed customer before me pulled a twoonie out to tip for one fucking beer!
When did tipping become mandatory??? this person is just angry(and with good reason if you have to put up with all the drunk college kids) but when did people start believing it was their right?!? tipping should and was about getting a little something “extra” when service was really good. if the asshole at the bar believes it’s his right to get tipped every time you pour a drink then every asshole at tim’s and every coffee shop and every fast food place on earth should get tipped for pouring a drink or twisting off a cap. stop your friggin whining and get a new job….one for minimum wage where you don’t get tipped and see how much you like it.
Once again VOR, this isn’t the case. If a bar is busy, management knows it’s making money. The people pouring your drinks decide who gets served and when. We also have the power to deny anyone service we see fir and management trusts us to make that call as well. I tell you this as someone who’s bartended a long time. We decide who gets served, and it’s only determined on a first come first serve basis when all other things are equal. If tipping had nothing to do with it, why wouldn’t bars form orderly line – ups? I’m not saying it’s a right, I know it’s a privilege, but it’s a privilege to be able to go to a bar, and it’s a privilege to get served quickly. And again, really ask yourself, if someone says “here’s fifty bucks for a beer, take care of me” (this has happened to me) and someone else says, “here’s nothing for a beer, take cre of me” (which has also happened to me) who would you serve first? Don’t be stupid, you’d do exactly what I do.
Strontius – what bar do you work at? I ask because I’m always up for letting people know about good business service, and even more eager to let people know where and when they can get shitty customer service. Let me know and I’ll happily wait for you to hand over my change after buying my drinks and then see the reaction as I put it all back into my pockets.
And yes, I’d complain to your management if, as a customer, I was being brushed aside because you didn’t get a tip… boohoo – you get a base wage from your employer just like the rest of us but the most of us don’t get tips as incentives to actually do the job. Just pour my drink already.
you just got shitted on
For someone who claims to be the “voice of reason”, you’re not listening to a very reasonable argument. You don’t want to tip fine…but I’ve already explained myself. Bartending is a good gig at a young age for a lot of reasons. I’m fortunate. I’m aware of that. But you have no understanding of it. Trust me when I tell you I’m right. And your complaints to management will fall on deaf ears. Don’t believe that? I’m the bar manager at work. We’re busy as hell and we have the best clientele around. Why? Because we take care of the people who take care of us. Sorry I won’t tell you where I work. I don’t need you and your cheap friends coming through. I may not deserve a dime, but I’d rather serve the people who don’t mind leaving something. Sorry you don’t make tips VOR, but I do…so long as you and your broke friends don’t know wear to find me.