Magical Movie Moment: "Are You A Bartender?"

You know how when you're watching a movie, and the character either sees something or just turns his or her head away.. and the the movie goes back several years to a "defining moment" of their life - a moment that is crucial for understanding who that person is?

I think we all have a few events just like this in our own lives, where something happened or something was spoken.. or we made a very specific choice that irrevocably caused our lives to go one way, and not another. 

I call these "Magical Movie Moments," and this is one such story...

1989, Nashville Tennessee. The restaurant was "Major Wallaby's." Because of some debt I'd accrued when I was young, dumb and full of bad ideas, I found myself working an exhausting schedule of two waiter jobs at the same time. And like most of us in the restaurant business do eventually, I was experiencing a phase of major burn-out, and was desperately needing some change in my life. I approached management at both jobs, requesting to be moved to a bartending position (a position usually highly coveted amongst young wait-staff, and hard to get into because of the comparatively low turnover rate, combined with the very few available positions). Without directly threatening to quit per se, I did tell both managers that I would go to work full-time at whichever job gave me a bar position.

Turned out, the Nashville Ruby Tuesday I was working days (lunches) at would be needing a bartender soon due to an upcoming busy season, and agreed to begin training me! A very corporate environment, I was soon enlisted into training alongside Sam, Kerry and Julie (the more experienced and currently full-time bartenders) and given a big fat training manual full of policies and procedures, along with page after page of recipes to learn, and a schedule detailing which written tests I would have to pass, and when. My daytime training shifts turned into standing at the "well" pouring water and juices into our jiggers for practice, while watching "the real bartenders" pour real drinks. Occasionally when a manger wasn't around, they'd even let me pour a real drink as well - albeit only when closely supervised.

I'm still working at the other place all the while this is happening. Like I said, I'm so burned out on waiting tables that I've requested to simply be allowed to "expo" on our busy Friday and Saturday nights. That's a shift where (at this place) you remain in the kitchen mostly, and receive plates of food from the cooks as they come up, placing them in specific order (according to where guests are seated) onto larger trays for the servers to run to their tables the moment all entrees are completely ready to go. It's stressful and extremely fast-paced yes, but you're not dealing personally with hungry weekend guests at all, which is what I most liked about, and needed from, the position at the time.

The Friday night started chugging along as usual, except that I kept hearing snippets about the bartender (Trey) being late, and things were getting busy up there. This is where the magical movie moment begins, btw.

Our floor manager comes into the kitchen on this busy Friday night and calls my name. "Guy" he asks "Are you a bartender?"

Thinking only about my other job, I tell him "Well, I haven't taken my final written tests yet, and I've not been allowed to..."

"GUY!" He snaps. "That's not what I'm asking you." He's standing not a foot away from me now, in his pressed pink shirt, trademark suspenders and bow-tie, looking me directly in the eye over his glasses. He repeats the question.

"I'm asking ARE.. YOU.. A BARTENDER?"

Oh. What he's really asking me sinks in. Ladies reading this likely won't get the significance of this moment so much. But I know my guy readers already do. For men, what we do for a living (what we produce) is very tied to our identities, and self-perception. From what I can tell, he has a pressing need, and I'm being offered a field promotion, IF I will rise to the challenge being presented this second only. Also, how we men respond to certain crisis situations, or how we perform and come through (or not) "in the clutch" resounds in our confidence levels and self-esteem for many years to come.

This is why 22 years later, this magical movie moment remains still so firmly etched in my soul, in such detail. 

To date, I'd never set foot behind this restaurant's bar. It wasn't permitted. To date, I'd never "solo'd" even a slow lunch shift as a bartender. My mettle has never been tested in this arena. Nonetheless, I have a male authority figure six inches now from my nose needing to know RIGHT NOW whether or not I am the answer to his immediate problem.

I still remember my spine straightening and my lungs and chest expanding before looking him directly back in the eye, completely understanding the question now, and answering him with an easy exhale. "Yes." I respond. "Yes, I am a bartender."

He smiles and says "Then get up there. Trey's a no-show. We need you."

It would be fair to say that I was too "in the moment" to give you an honest evaluation of how I did that night. I can only honestly tell you that I walked up there not knowing where a single bottle was or how to use the bar's computer, AND that I worked my ass off non-stop for the next four hours. But Trey was fired for not showing up that Friday night, and just like that Major Wallaby's offered me a big fat raise to go full-time there. 

And well, while I hated to do it to them (they'd been SO nice) .. "Good-Bye Ruby Tuesday."

So what makes me think, or write of this now, you might perhaps be wondering? Or not.

Present day again. I'm standing at the bar the other day, for what is fast becoming to me an increasingly inordinate amount of time to have to wait for a couple of drinks for my table.

My co-worker (stuck in the same situation) turns to me and asks "You used to be a bartender, right? Why don't you just go back there and make them yourself?"

I turn to her, thinking privately to myself "USED TO BE???" and somewhere between blithely and condescendingly (altho I truly meant neither) I reply

"I *am* a bartender. Bartending's not something you do. It's either something you are, or something you're not."

A slow smile spreads across her lips. She's been in this business a long time herself, and she slowly nods, acknowledging that I'm right. I can tell - altho she's never personally seen me bartend - that my over-confidence and easy answer tells her beyond any shadow of doubt, that I am one. Her eyes are still asking me to go make her drinks for her, in fact. But it's not allowed.

Instead, I wait patiently for my drinks... and for my chance to show this place just exactly what I've got.