Bar Presence

I walked into a local bar, one I’ve been to several times before. I made that eager face - you know, the face that says I’m next so serve me now before I pass out with thirst - at one of the girl’s behind the bar.

She approached me and said, “Sorry, I can’t serve you.”

My brain did a ‘what the feck’ blush type thing as it tried to recall what the hell I had done last time I was in that bar. I’m normally well behaved... well, for a Capricorn who has an alternative side. The bouncers weren’t moving so it had to be something else. My age! So, yeah, I get mistaken for younger... I’m used to it... but the only reason they don’t serve people on the underage ticket is if they are less than eighteen and I know that, even with the assistance of a top Hollywood specialist effects make up artist, they’d struggle to get me within ten years of that. I was momentarily lost for words, an odd occurrence, like being short of oxygen for a second, but the young lady then declared that she was simply a glass collector and at seventeen years of age, was not allowed to serve alcohol. I swallowed my paranoia, styled it out with a shrug and waited patiently for an adult to take my order.

Patience was required, for sure. The bar was busy. It always is. So, in a busy bar I expect professional staff *, you know, ones that are on top of the situation and in control. There were three bar staff trying to deal with a baying mob of eager drinkers... or non-drinkers since we were all waiting to be served. To test my patience further one of the staff finished with one customer, then addressing the slavering body of parched customers in front of her said, "Who's next?" What sort of frigging question is that? Everybody thinks they are next!! This is 'wild animal at a watering hole after three days on the search for sustenance' territory. So the mob leans forward, en masse, arms outstretched, the aforementioned 'eager-face' look now fine tuned to Oscar winning level. And then, randomly, the bar staff member just picks some guy she's nearest to. You could feel the deflation, like a pricked balloon, as the crowd sank back on its heels again, clinging to the hope that the lucky punter wasn't going to go through the cocktail menu for fifteen friends on a stag do! So much for bar presence!

*Professional staff - someone who sizes up the customers at the bar, clocks the order that they have approached in and indicates quite precisely to three or four of the people waiting, "You're next, then you, then you. Be right with you guys." So, even if there are ten at the bar, that alone gives the customer confidence that somebody's 'got this.' A reasonable expectation?