How You Can Make Bartending the Most Fun Job You've Ever Had

If you find yourself going out to bars and letting the bartender on duty have fun mixing random drinks for you, why not mix them yourself? Even if you don't drink, do you tend to enjoy a loose and laid back atmosphere? Whether you have thought about it or not, bartending may just be the next best job for you - and the most fun!

Do you enjoy sports and keep up with the games and the stats? I know a few bartenders who actually make money off of what they know and can predict. Some are ladies and they make bets with the gentlemen (or other ladies) at the bar as to what is going to happen in what quarter or period of the game. Some of them actually make a lot of money on these bets and the guests of the bar get a kick out of it! For this reason alone they keep coming back to that particular bar on a Friday night drinking binge.

Worried that you won't be able to learn all of the traditional drinks? Don't be! The ones that are ordered frequently are learned fast, believe me, it is a matter of repetition. As for the ones that are ordered that you haven't learned yet or just can't remember for the life of you, there is always a book behind the bar - a cheat book, if you will - that will help you with all of the different ingredients and amounts.

What's nice about bartending as opposed to serving in a restaurant is that you have everything right there that you need. There's no running around from table to table and back to the kitchen if you forgot something. If you bartend in a restaurant, you make the drinks for the servers throughout the restaurant. Therefore, if you need something, or if you order food for your guests, the servers will bring it to you. The bar is your personal territory. Doesn't this sound nice?

The only thing that can get a little nerve racking is judging who you should serve and who you shouldn't. Of course you cannot serve minors. However, you also can't serve already intoxicated patrons who sit themselves down at your bar. Now, this is pretty difficult to judge, and so you need to be able to distinguish certain characteristics that don't seem normal. Any of these personality characteristics could be:

-glossy and/or red eyes, inability to focus
-loss of balance, stumbling, falling over while trying to stand up to use the bathroom or trying to walk
-slurred speech, difficult to understand
-loss of regular coordination, such as hand-eye coordination (knocking stuff over, fumbling with menus)
-inability to perform basic functions
-either very loud and disruptive or withdrawn and unusually quiet behavior (if alone, usually)

Many have run into the problem where a guest at their bar has had a stroke in their lifetime and may act as though they are drunk but they are entirely sober. These people sometimes become offended and storm out. This is a hard situation, because you should only serve someone if you feel entirely comfortable serving him or her. The good thing about being the bartender and not someone of a higher position is that if you don't feel comfortable serving someone for one reason or another, you can always go to a manager for a second decision.

Another difficult situation is determining whether or not to serve someone according to how old he or she appears. When I took a bartending class, the liquor commissioner came in and showed us slides of pictures of people on identification cards. We were to all guess how old these people were that we saw, and finally he would reveal to us their real ages. It was extremely surprising how young or old these people actually were, when they looked the complete opposite! Some people are like this. Some men start graying prematurely, and some women do whatever they can to look as young as they can as long as they can!

To solve this problem, I usually like to card everyone who comes in and sits at my bar. You can also use this technique at your bar when you become a bartender, by all means. This way you know exactly who you are serving and that they have their ID on them while they are drinking and when they leave the restaurant or bar. If one or two obviously elderly people come in, sometimes I won't card them. However, if an older man is with a younger looking woman (for example), I will ask them both for their IDs just to play it safe and not offend the older man (when really, I just would like to know if the woman is the legal age to drink). Yet, there are always those people who give you a little scruff when you ask for their ID and they are clearly over 30. Oh well. Take the scruff. It's better than being arrested, paying fines, and losing your job when you accidentally serve an underage person who looks unusually older.

Other than the troublesome parts of learning to be a good judge and having to work nights and weekends (usually that's when the most money will walk in your doors), bartending, in my opinion, is one of the funnest jobs out there today! Even if you don't drink, I'm sure you know people who do so invite them to your bar to have a good time and to make your night fly by! Sometimes I don't even feel like I'm working. I just feel like I have invited friends over to my place for drinks, and I am their host. So get out there and make a good "Sex on the Beach!"