New Year's isn't quite as much fun if you're pouring the drinks.
by Dave Chamberlain
In the seconds before the clock strikes midnight, there's a tingle of electricity. It's the moment everyone has been waiting for, it's the reason you paid $100 to spend the night in your neighborhood bar, it's the reason everyone you know is guzzling every bit of booze in sight.
Champagne corks hurtling themselves against ceilings, the bubbly spills over the cocktail dresses and ties. On television, a man without age celebrates with two million or so of his best friends in New York. The ball slowly drops; it becomes the longest minute in your life. "5... 4... 3... 2... 1." Revelry. Songs no one knows the words to. Women kiss men they don't know. Men slam bottles of champagne. It is the best part of the best party.
Unless you're working.
The coming of midnight—and hence the New Year—might be the climax to a night of relentless excitement, but for bartenders, for cocktail waitresses, for waiters and hosts, the strike of midnight singles one thing: their first break in more then six hours. The first break from slurred words, from whiny patrons, from pouring beer and cleaning glasses.
"Midnight," says Don Mason, a bartender at Southport Lanes who has worked New Year's Eve since 1997, "is the first chance for the bar staff to rest for a second, do a shot with your co-workers, hug your friends, and maybe have a quick drink of champagne with the customers. That lasts about a minute, then its back to serving the customers."
The general misconception about working on New Year's Eve is that the bar and waitstaff make bundles of money. "Believe it or not," says Mason, "New Year's is usually a pretty modest night." At most bars, all tips are pooled and divided among all the working employees, doormen and kitchen staff included. Though it differs year to year, Mason estimates making between $120-200—a small take for the busy Southport Lanes' bartenders.
And it's money they earn. When you're on the other side of the party, the dark side of "Auld Lang Syne" is what stands out. According to employees at Lucky Strike, one patron was so drunk last year that she relieved her bladder in a supply closet—a supply closet filled with jackets and boxes of bowling shoes. According to Mason, New Year's Eve is "Just the standard. People puking in closets and the bathrooms. Maybe on each other. No big deal." And though that may push the average Joe's limit of tolerance, that's not even the worst part about working on the night of the world's biggest party. "The worst thing is the lack of respect from the customers," says Mason. "When you throw a tie on the kids, it seems like they automatically lose all their manners."
But in the end, when the last customer is shuffled out the door and the last collection of pint glasses is washed and drying, the barstaff can enjoy their own New Year's Eve celebration. As one former employee at Lucky Strike puts it: "All that time people spend drinking as much as possible before midnight, bartenders and cocktail waitresses can do the same damage in forty-five minutes."
copyright 1999 New City Communications, Inc.