Where ever you work, there’s always going to be politics, whether its in the office, in the gym, or at the bar.

When you work in an environment with heaps of young people, you begin to feel old when you start saying “well when I first started…”, or “back in my day…” and recently I’ve had many of those such conversations.

Just the other day a topic came up that made me smile…
One of the managers was saying… “well back in my day…” and it occurred to me that her day WAS my day, and that yes, now I guess I do go way back. Ugh!

So “back in My day…” when I was a budding adolescent/wanna be adult we would work our butts off, then with equal amounts of effort party our faces off! I remember 5 things from my first serving job, my manager pulled me aside and said, ok listen:

1. – In the bar industry 1/2 the time the customers are right, the other half are just drunk a$$holes, talk to them like they’re in primary school and you’ll be just fine.
2. – Skin to win baby, flirt with everyone appear available but never be available, you’ll increase your tips.
3. – No matter how much you drink the night before, DO NOT call in sick. You don’t have to be 100% functional, just be 100% there. AND NEVER EVER ask to get off work with a whinge about ya, then sit in the bar or in the bar next door and drink your face off.
4. – Sweep an isle means to multi-task, drop off dishes, grab empties, take orders…
5. – Be the life of the party but never be the last to leave, if you can’t hold your head up, prop it up with a stubby…

So that’s what we were discussing how “Back in the day…” you were expected to never have empty hands in a restaurant/bar, if you had time to “lean” you have time to “clean” – attitude. Servers were expected to take their orders, run their drinks, run their food, clean their tables, then at the end of the day you sat around with a ciggie and a knock off and polished silverware and reset the restaurant.

Now it seems when you go to a restaurant you see staff ushering people out by 11p so they in turn can go get on the piss themselves. If you come for breakie some places are shorted staff cos a few too many servers were spewin up Berocca and couldn’t harden the “F” up as Chopper’d say. C’mon mate use your head.

I started in the hospitality industry as a dishy in a banquet hall when I was 14, one side was for weddings and one side was for bogans, is was our local watering hole so for a town of 1200 you really got to know the in’s and out’s of the town.

I remember being forced to gut out some of the most disgusting jobs, and was told – you’ll appreciate it when your older. Or fell victim to various pranks like getting the cooks the “pickle peeler” or the “ice mix”. or to close the windows upstairs during a downpour when there was no upstairs… etc.

Do I wanna rant about the “youngsters these days” bloody right I do! I sometimes feel that they get a sense of entitlement from the way they were raised and protected from all sorts of things. But then I just feel bad for them, cos at the end of the day it’s that sorta grunt work that taught me strength, respect and feeling good about a hard days work. Plus, I have HEAPS more wicked stories to tell when we do slap the goon!