It’s true. In so many ways, these two roles are basically interchangeable. If you can sling cocktails for pushy crowds, you can handle yourself in a booger-filled classroom. If you can plot out a unit on fractions and share it with 4th graders, you can probably get through a busy karaoke night. I know this because I am one of those lucky souls to have experienced both. I’ve done sports bars, tourist bars, dive bars and hometown bars. I’ve done 1st grade, 4th grade, Special Ed, and the Vietnam War of teaching, Junior High Math. The skills that you utilize in each are really not all that dissimilar, and neither is the clientele. The customers you interact with just want to be part of something special and they want to be loved. The two environments of bars and schools actually share more commonalities than differences, especially now that most bars and schools have banned smoking.
For each of these demanding but prestigious jobs, you must plan, entertain, and be responsible for sharing information. You hold a multitude of roles and must jump from one to the next: tour guide, counselor, buddy, because it is also your job to determine what these customers need most, and to find it for them. You listen, you offer a shoulder to cry upon, and you are sometimes forced to dig in and offer a bit of tough love. You wipe up bodily fluids, you sing songs, you tell jokes, and occasionally, you throw your customers out on their butts when you can’t handle another minute of their inane crap. You are their leader, the composed, mature individual in a world in which normalcy and structure is not always there. You are the one that has to follow the rules. You are their voice of reason, and the more time they spend with you, the more equipped they are for the challenges ahead when they are finally ready to step out the door. You watch them grow and change before your very eyes, and then you give them a quick hug and hope they don’t get into trouble as you send them on their way.
In terms of relationships built, there is no greater reward. There are always the ones that tear at your heartstrings. There are others that you learn from in ways you could never imagine. Inevitably, there are those that continually make you cringe, yet they surprise you every once in a while with a surprisingly kind gesture. Your toughest customers that always have perfect attendance, because they need you, daily, in ways you can’t imagine. So you invest the time and the patience and the effort to pull them out of their dark place. Invariably, with time and your support, they step away to their real lives and spread their wings. But the best part of it all is the fact that when they do, they will never forget the incredible impact that you’ve made upon them. Well, except for the ones that do forget, of course. They forget you immediately and forever, because their short term memory is a joke.
Interestingly enough, I used my job as a bartender to put myself through school in order to get certified as a teacher to make a fraction of the money I did when I worked in a bar. But fortunately, the high expectations I demanded as a bartender made me stronger in the classroom. Granted, the tips I made in the classroom were considerably less than the bar, but at least I got punched less. Not a lot less, but definitely less.
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