I am Bar Bar Black Sheep. I’m one of the thousand or so people behind the hundreds of bars across Binge-Drink City. I’ve been working in pubs since I was old enough to drink in them, and have paid my dues in top award-winning bars, old-man’s pubs, student bars, and outright dives. I’ve served cocktails and dreams to some of the most important minor celebrities that have set foot in our dear city, and, if you’re a regular in town, I’ve probably also served you. I’ve listened to the outpourings of your soul as you hunch over your glass. I’ve taken the kind of abuse that perverted businessmen pay thousands of pounds for. I’ve met some of the most amazing, genuine and outright bizarre people in Nottingham. I’ve mopped up every bodily liquid a human being can produce, with the exception of spinal fluid.

And in that time, I’ve seen many things. I’ve seen girls snogging each other in front of me in an attempt to get a free drink. I’ve seen the local gangsters having their weekly meetings on Table 26. More importantly, I’ve seen the people of Nottingham at their absolute best, and all-time worst. I’ve seen you laugh, dance, sing, cry, snog and fight - sometimes, all in the space of half an hour. And then, when the towels have been put on the taps and the last punter has shuffled out, I go to another bar, hook up with other people who work in bars, and gossip about working in bars. 

I suppose a good way to start this column is to attempt to educate you, the average punter, into not being such a dick when you’re on a night out. The following is a list of the Top 5 things that are guaranteed to piss off the average bar person. If you recognise yourself in any of the following, please make some effort to check yourself, and we’ll get along just fine;

1. Waving cash in my face at the bar, as if I haven't seen you

Not only does it not work, it actually makes your wait longer, because I’m bar staff and not a lap-dancer with a Crack habit. And no, waving more money about than everyone else doesn’t cut it, either – those tenners are not magnets, and I am not made of iron filings. The best way to get served quickly by me is to point out the person who really has been waiting the longest, and I’ll make sure you’re next.

(And please don’t give me that “I’ve been here twenty minutes” crap; I’ve only been on the bar for twenty minutes and I didn’t clock your potato-like fizzog when I came on my shift. Why is it always twenty minutes, by the way? Why not a quarter of an hour, or three months, or since the Eighties?)

2. Demonstrating that you know precisely fuck all about alcohol when your idea of a quality vodka is Smirnoff bloody Red

Real Ale enthusiasts get a lot of grief for wearing jumpers and playing Beardhammer in the snug of Ye Olde Tavern, but at least they know what they’re putting down their throats. A lot of punters, on the other hand, know about as much about alcoholic beverages as they did when they were 14, and thought that having a go at their Dad’s homebrew in the garage two nights after he put the water in would be a good idea. Seriously, you cannot go one night behind a bar without having to deal with an oxygen thief who wants a Bacardi & Coke when you haven’t any in stock, so you show them the white rum you have behind the bar, only for them to say “I didn’t ask for rum. I don’t like rum”. Well, I didn't ask for  window-lickers. I don't like serving window-lickers. 

3. Demanding that your pints of soft drink have no ice in, because you ‘want your money’s worth’

Some people actually believe that bar staff are involved in a global conspiracy to snatch as much money out of the general public’s hands as possible, when in actual fact we’re all on a set wage, we do what we’re told to by our managers and their managers, and we don’t all roll about in a pile of money in the office at the end of the night and gleefully recount the time we skanked 5p out of you by ramming up your drink with ice. If you really want your money's worth for a warm drink, why don't I just pour the thing into your cupped hands? Or shall I just give you the syrup, which you can top up over the course of the night with your own spit? Wouldn’t want you to feel ripped off now, would I?

4. Assuming that, because I work behind a bar, I must be a Grade-A Oompah-Loompah with no direction in life

If this is your attitude, please stop at home with a dozen cans of Diamond White and stop breeding. The amount of grief bar staff have to take on an average night would keep the HR department in an office job in enough overtime to buy Nottingham, particularly at the end of the night when we become the only people you can take it out on. Listen; it’s not my fault I had to take your drink away because you still had it on the table half an hour after last orders, and you’d left it there while you were having a piss. Or you’ve had a shit night because your mobile got nicked, or you didn’t get your end away.

I work behind a bar because it suits the way I want to live my life. Furthermore, the people I know who work behind bars are some of the most intelligent, interesting and creative people I know, who are usually having better lives than the average suit-robot or factory-rat. When we leave the pub at night after you’ve had a go at us, it’s usually to do something more interesting. When you leave, it’s because you need to take an anaconda-like piss up against a shop doorfront, with the slow realisation that in about 7 hours time, you’ll be slumped over your desk or workbench. So how the fuck dare you.

5. People with champagne tastes and lemonade pockets

No names, no pack drill, but I’ve worked in a few bars in the swankier part of town, and it wasn’t until then that I truly understood the meaning of the term ‘fur coat and no knickers’ (I still don't know what 'no names, no pack drill' means, though). Two-bob 50 Cents with Argos gold chains. Bubblehead girls in market Gucci who believe that if they push their credit-card limit through the stratosphere they’ll have a chance to snare a lower-division footballer. Sales morons who can’t function as normal human beings until they shove enough Vim-flecked cocaine up their noses to clean every bathroom in Peru. All of them spinning out a glass of whatever Jay Z is namechecking at the moment for as long as possible.

Look, if you actually like champagne, get Cava instead – it’s made the same way, just in  a different country, it tastes the same, and it's a damn sight cheaper. Better still, just ask me for a lemonade and lime in a fluted glass - I won't think any less of you. Mainly because I couldn't, frankly.

(Oh, and a quick note to all those people who think that pulling out a wodge of notes to pay for your three pints of pissy Carling is a good way to impress bar staff; it isn’t. We just assume that Giro day has come around again).

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