Closing time

I closed up shop for the last time at my PT job yesterday.

After weeks of cutting hours and giving me only waitressing shifts, I decided it was time to hang up the towel and put in my notice. For my one last hurrah, I got to bartend -- which I enjoy doing just a little bit more than serving food. (I'm a terrible waitress.), and hadn't done since about mid-October.

While working there, I worked with and met some awesome people, made mad tips and got to know the town I live in a little better. That's all well and good, but bars and taverns have one of the highest turnover rates out of any service/retail job out there. I'll tell you why:

#1.) It's stressful. You deal with belligerent assholes on a nightly basis. You meet all kinds of drunks. Happy, sad, angry, oblivious... any emotion on the spectrum. When it's busy, you run around like a chicken with your head cut off. Stocking, shuffling, mixing drinks, spilling, yelling, breaking bottles. When you screw up an order, inebriated people are less forgiving, especially after they've waited 10 minutes for a drink.

#2.) Health risks. Steering completely clear of tobacco since August, I now find any type of smoke repulsive. My body shouldn't be subjected to 8.5 hours of secondhand smoke from not just cigarettes, but cigars. After that long of a shift, not only do your clothes smell like bar, YOU smell like bar. It seeps out of my skin 24 hours later for fuck's sake.

Live bands and loud music for hours on end make your cochlea want to explode. Tough shit if you have a headache, you won't be able to hear for the next three days anyway.

#3.) Getting hit on. OHH, you might be thinking, "How flattering!" NO. Well Rico Suave, after that shot of Jack, you suddenly question why I'm working at this shabby old bar. What do I do? Where else do I work? What's my social security number? ... I've received phone numbers on napkins, receipts, matchbooks, and leftover Styrofoam containers. I tell you I'm taken and not interested, but you continue to harass me -- even after I offer conversation segways about sports, weather or movies. This is my job buddy, not match.com.

#4.) Clientele change all the time. Now, you'll have your regulars -- Big Tom who never sits, only stands, at the bar drinking Bud Light. The Jehovah's Witness couple where the husband always orders the drinks and food for the wife. Peter, who works at the newspaper, always enters through the front door, orders only one glass of Pinot Grigio, leaves $0.60 in change and leaves out the back door...

But there are also a bunch of random people who try and get to know you -- after they've had a few. I'm awful at small talk and find it difficult to hold conversations with 40-somethings from small towns, whom I have NOTHING in common with.

#5.) Stingy assholes. This is by far worse on the waitressing end of working at a bar; some people just don't know how to tip. If you've been pleasant, served me in an efficient manner and I'm satisfied with my meal and drinks, I'll let you know. That generally means leaving at least 15, if not 20, percent of the bill for meals, and 50 cents to $1.00 for each order of drinks. Not $2.00 for a fish fry and an entire night of drinking. With you and five of your friends. Asshole.

What will I miss most? The money. Which sounds arrogant, haughty and greedy; but bartending is a tough job.

I've seen my share of bar fights, flying bats, cops, stumblers, flashers, snoozers at the bar, and some of F.A.'s finest, hammered.

All in a night's work.