Ups and downs - Why would you choose bartending?

I have heard it at least hundred times. When it's Friday or Saturday evening, everyone is out having fun, why would I settle for standing sober, selling more than I could ever drink myself?

I personally love it. I didn't enjoy drinking that much after turning 18 (in Finland it's legal to drink in a bar and buy alcohol at age of 18), nor did I enjoy being in a bar. It was always loud and messy. If you dressed up some assumed you are "free beef to hunt on" and if you wore more casual clothes, you felt like out of place. I have never enjoyed being hit on by a stranger in a bar, especially when the stranger usually won't understand that no means no or being polite doesn't mean that you are hitting on them. More drunk you are the more people try to use you, make you go home with them.

But when you work there, if someone is clearly too much out of line, you can throw them out. Also you have authority, when as a customer some others may act so out of line.

And the pay is good. Here in Finland we get extra for working nighttime, or on a calendar holy/sacred day (in Finnish calender it's every Sunday) and sometimes even double. So you can do few hours and still make OK-money. The trick is to get the hours. Some have two, even three different workplaces and contracts. There is a catch tough; for every contract you have to pay more taxes.

So to get it all together, you have to love what you do. Picture this;

You are standing in front of many people. All are waiting for you to take their order. You know what you're doing. Every drink, every different name for a beer, everything. You small-talk and chat and laugh with the customers, some of the orders you know before they even order. Some leave tips, some don't, but over all, with  good drive, you enjoy every second of it.

We all have a thirst to do what we love. Some do it as a hobby, some do it as living. I have found wilderness as my other beloved thing, but I can't do it just yet. So I go running in the woods. So I go outside and take photos. So I dream. But also I'm in a good place now. Southern bartender, dreaming of becoming northern wilderness-guide...

Well, we all have dreams!