First it’s the Brown Thomas and Arnotts Christmas shop, then it’s the lights on Grafton St and Henry St. You can feel the Christmas spirit infecting every street corner, shop and pub. All of a sudden, customers start saying it won’t be long til’ Christmas, looking forward to time off work with friends and family. For bar staff the fear of what is unaffectionately known as “silly season” starts to needle its way into your stomach.
It starts off with a general proclamation from the boss: “It’s Christmas, there are no nights off till January.” This is for the new staff, the old know the score. The managers know it’s unfair, they don’t want to be there any more than you do. I heard one barman say he has gotten used to not seeing daylight for the month of December. Finishing at 5am and back into work the next afternoon means a month of constant nights. If this sounds overly dramatic, it’s not meant to: it’s our chosen career, whether full time or part time, to put ourselves through college.
Most don’t understand the difference compared to the rest of the year. The late nights are doable, we’re used to that. Long hours on our feet, no problem. Drunk customers, a matter of course. Even the Christmas playlist that’s played “All I want for Christmas” at least five times since you started your shift is awful, but it can be tuned out after a while, even though it’s not even 9pm yet. Even catering for over-demanding work Christmas parties, notorious for office politics – and often unspoken, shall we say, “shenanigans” – is an art form, learned with experience. None of these things really bother us, and in fact many of us like them.
We have the macho goon who decided that this was a stellar idea that nobody except him could have thought of
However, the most wonderful time of the year for many can turn into living hell with a side of festive cheer thrown in. The star on top of the Christmas tree of awful experiences is the recently established “tradition” of the “12 Pubs of Christmas”. What’s more is this culture goes against everything that is Irish about going to a pub to enjoy a drink.
Doing “12 Pubs” is not cutesy, quirky, original or even fun. To put in bluntly, it’s stupid and it’s an outrageous attempt at forcing people to have fun. Those who participate in it are usually the focus of unadulterated disdain from the entire bar trade.
Let me put it in perspective for those who can’t seem to fathom why this could possibly be the case. On top of all the aforementioned extra Christmas duties leveled on members of the bar trade at the busiest time of the year, let’s take a moment to fully wrap our minds around 12 pubs.
First we have the macho goon who decided that this was a stellar idea that nobody except him could have thought of. He comes storming into the bar and without fail makes some crude joke at any female bartenders. From there, you just know you’re in for a night of misery. We have the cries of “noooo I wanna be served by the cute bartender over there” by that woman who’s had far more than one too many glasses of the house white. Without fail, the people who organise and attend these obnoxious pub crawls are the rudest, and most demanding customers we have to deal with all year.
The 12 pubs makes life for bar staff almost unbearable. We can see groups coming from a mile off, sporting garish jumpers that get ruder and and more lewd every year: all we hope is that we’re one of the first pubs on your list, that you haven’t quite managed to gather all of your people yet and you’re just here for a short time before you move on. Nine times out of 10, that’s not the case.
Their attitude is riddled with entitlement as if we, the bartender, should be thankful that they are coming in and giving us business. Well, I can tell you right now that is as far from the truth as you can imagine. There is a unanimous feeling from floor staff, bar staff and managers that the 12 Pubs is one of the worst “traditions” ever to be created. It should go the way of “Arthurs Day”. At least Irish people realised that was a campaign invented by Diageo to sell more Guinness
For some reason, all 12 Pubs have a rule where you need to try to get a free drink from the bar. This is clearly not going to happen, and there is nothing that will make us give you that drink. Why would we? Just because you’ve come in on a Christmas work party really doesn’t make you special.
Doing 12 Pubs is not cutesy, quirky, original or even fun. To put in bluntly, it’s stupid
Most of the time people are a bit more generous around Christmas: they’re a bit more polite when ordering at the bar, they tip a bit more and often the bigger Christmas parties will make sure the staff are looked after. But when the 12 Pubs comes around, the rule of bars is the same: if you’re sound, we’ll be sound. You tip us, and we’ll make sure that we know your face when you come to the bar and if we can we’ll probably serve you first.
There is something in the air surrounding the 12 pubs that forces large groups to insist on cramming themselves into a pub that is already full to bursting point. Please, we beg of you, just go somewhere else: it’s not really going to make much of a difference to you but it makes the world of a difference to us. It’s not even pleasant to be in a crowded bar: nobody gets heard, you end up losing people, drinks get whacked out of hands and so on. Stop forcing people to drink in every pub – go out, drink and enjoy it. It’s not fun for anyone if if it’s only 10pm and you’re already throwing your guts up all over the stairs. Oh, and don’t even think about ordering a tray of fifteen shots, and downing them before you’ve even bothered to pay. Yes, we know that “still counts as a drink”, but we don’t want to wait for you to fumble through your pockets for change to split the round because you “didn’t realise” tequila was six quid a pop.
Let’s get this straight. As a bartender it can be great working in a bar. You have your regular customers who are great craic to have around, you have people who come in and you can have a good chat to, and all in all it can be a pretty great job to have. It’s fast paced and sometimes stressful, but if you have a good group of staff it’s very fun. When stag and hen parties come everyone gets a bit peeved, but that’s part of the job. But you’ll notice no pubs have banned hen and stag parties: on occasion they’ll get refused from even entering a pub if they are visibly on 12 pubs. But when it comes down to it, there are pubs all over Dublin that are introducing flat-out bans. If you look at the type of bars that are banning them, it’s constantly the nicer, more respectable bars – The Swan, The Long Haul, Opium, and JJ Smyth all have flat out bans. This says everything about the culture surrounding 12 pubs.
Instead of spending a night that’s going to consist of drinking too much, constantly trying to find people you probably don’t even want to be out with in the first place and contemplating buying a non-alcoholic shot (they exist, just ask), find a cosy corner in a bar with a roaring fire and the company of old friends. Go out with your real friends, those who you love and you want to spend the Christmas season and most importantly who will look after you. Anything else is unwanted, unpopular and unnecessary.
