Bartender
(Female, Age 25) from Saginaw, MI
This is a REAL-LIFE job profile written by a Female aged 25 who works as a Bartender in Saginaw, MI. We have removed all names and personal information in order to protect privacy. This professional kindly spent a bit of their time to complete one of our job profile surveys so that prospective job seekers like you could read their insights. Please excuse any punctuation or grammatical errors in this profile.
At a Glance
Current Job
Basic data on your current job
| Job Title | Bartender |
|---|---|
| Salary | $20,000 |
| Other Compensation | None Set |
| Hours/Week | 30 |
| Company Size | (not answered) |
| Location | Saginaw, MI |
| Years Experience | 1 year |
Career Ratings
Opinions on your CAREER overall (i.e. not just your current job)
| Years in Career | 0 |
|---|---|
| Education | (not answered) |
| Income Rating | 0 / 10 |
| Interest Rating | 0 / 10 |
| Work-Life Rating | 0 / 10 |
| Fulfilment Rating | 0 / 10 |
Current job Q&A
Describe the type of organization you work for.
The Coast – Single person owned company. One location, restaurant and bar during the day, nightclub at night
Describe your job role and responsibilities.
Opening the bar, counting till, keno machine, gambling machine, cleaning, stocking coolers, serving food
Please list an additional benefits (beyond compensation) that you receive.
n/a
Do you feel you are under/over or well/fairly compensated at your current position?
Under…boss pays $3.00 an hour compared to most bars around pay $7
Does your job entail you working with others on a daily basis? Is this something you like/dislike about your job? Please explain.
I love new people, and that is exactly what I get at my job! New faces every single day!
Do you work collaboratively with supervisors/managers?
Yes
Do you work collaboratively with your co-workers?
Yes
Describe your work location (e.g., office, home, theatre, in the field) and what you like/dislike about working in it.
I wish the building were a little more updated and my boss tries to run a restaurant in a kitchen that was not set up to do the amount of business we do.
Please rate each of the following aspects of your current job on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the highest/best):
Income: 2
Benefits: 7
Hours: 4
Co-Workers: 1
Supervisors: 3
Job Title: 8
Level of Responsibility: 6
The Actual Work: 5
A day in the life of…
Please describe a typical workday for you in your current job:
| 5am to 6am | |
| 6am to 7am | |
| 7am to 8am | |
| 8am to 9am | |
| 9am to 10am | |
| 10am to 11am | 10:00 am – arrive at work one hour before bar opens and one half hour before the cook shows up. Enter dark building. Go into kitchen and turn on the grill and fryers so they are hot when the cook arrives. Before the doors open at 11:00 I make sure the lights are on, the television is turned on, the till is counted, the club keno till is counted and turned on to connect, must take all empty beer bottles usually 6 – 24 packs out back behind building to the shed. Must take two empty kegs outside and tap new ones. Come back inside, brew fresh coffee, stock beer cooler. Come out of beer cooler, approximately 10:40 by now. Make sure all trash is taken outside and new bags are put in all trash cans, make sure all straw and napkin holders are full and stocked for the day. Make sure all floors are swept and double check bathrooms to make sure they are clean. At 11:00 I unlock front and side doors and we are now open for business. |
| 11am to 12pm | 11:00 – 11:15 Sit at bar, smoke cigarette and drink cup of coffee. After, I roll the silverware into napkins for the day and make sure all menus are wiped off. By now it is about 11:45, and it’s Friday, so the budweiser beer delivery man is here, and I have to check in his order. |
| 12pm to 1pm | 12:10 – beer order is checked in and stocked into the cooler. I go back to the office and get the checkbook, and I fill out a check for whatever the weeks order was. Beer delivery driver leaves, about 6 customers come in for lunch. Slow lunch crowd. Wait on them, and they all want salads before their meals, which I have to go make in the cooler and slows me down immensely because this place is NOT set up like a restaurant! |
| 1pm to 2pm | Continue waiting on customers, get them their bills and cash them out, bus off tables, wipe tables and take dishes back to the kitchen. Friday is the day we tear down our large glass washer and clean and sanitize the inside, so I begin to do that as I have no customers in the bar. I begin to wonder sometimes why we are open for lunch, as eight people is a crowd. |
| 2pm to 3pm | Finally finish the dishwasher at about 2:15. It is such a pain to get put back together! Sit down to grab a quick salad and more coffee for my “lunch”. We don’t really get a break, as I am the only one here, so if I have a minute, I take it. It’s going to be a long day. I hate Fridays. 2:35 – I get up and begin to scoop bar cheese into tiny solo cups. I have to fill a five gallon bucket with these, we serve them with bread sticks at dinner. |
| 3pm to 4pm | continue scooping cheese while I wait on the one person drinking a beer at the bar. Finally finish the bucket at about 3:15. Then I begin my check of the bar for the night bartender who is my manager. I tend bar during the day on Fridays and waitress at night. I make sure we are stocked with Orange juice, cranberry juice, grapefruit juice, and if any of our containers are low I fill them. I then slice enough lemons and limes for drinks to fill two containers. |
| 4pm to 5pm | At 4:00 I put a tartar sauce bottle and ketchup bottle on every table in the dining room. There are 19. I also make sure they all have salt and pepper shakers. I pull out the huge 55 gallon cooler we have that is full of ice and salad dressing and put it on a shelf in the kitchen. This is side by side with two tubs that I fill with ice and then place a bin full of salad in one and green peppers, tomatoes, and onions in the other. This makes it slightly easier to get salads made for dinner. I make sure the 55 gallon cooler has all the water drained out of it, fill it with fresh ice and make sure all of the salad dressings inside have a ladle and the coleslaw and cottage cheese have spoons in them. The breadstick warmer gets plugged in, and we are just about ready to go for dinner. |
| 5pm to 6pm | I get a quick rundown of the specials from the cook, and make sure the bathrooms are decent and full of toilet paper, paper towels, and soap. All five of the girls working tonight check with the boss to get their sections. I am in smoking as usual, as the boss gives her friends sections where they will make alot of money. I’m ok with it tonight. I’m kind of cranky and tired anyhow. Dinner is starting off very slow. |
| 6pm to 7pm | Between 6 and 7 I only wait on three tables, but they are all nice and it goes very smoothly. I am now anxiously staring at the clock – we are pretty slow – I am hoping my boss will let me go early, Fridays are a long day filled with busywork. I am tired, especially after working late last night. |
| 7pm to 8pm | I ask my manager if I can take off early and her response is even if it is slow there are plenty of things for us to clean. I find myself washing the front of the base of the bar and cleaning out trashcans. God I hate my job sometimes. OK – most of the time. I so don’t get paid enough to do this. I get another table, who only orders two drinks and some bread sticks. Easy table, thankfully. I can feel myself getting grumpy. |
| 8pm to 9pm | At 8:15, the table with the two beers and bread sticks goes home and I am scheduled to be out in 15 minutes. One of my last jobs before I go is to sweep my area of the dining room, put the ketchup and tartar sauce bottles from the tables into the coolers, and make sure everything is nice and clean. My feet hurt. Irrelevant, but I thought I’d mention it. Finally, it’s time to clean the bathrooms. I hate doing this. The men in our bar are disgusting, and the bathroom always stinks. I find myself wondering yet again why I have to do this. Oh well. I need a job. Cleaning urinals reminds me how much I need to go back to school. Finally finish cleaning the bathrooms, and I punch out at 8:52. 22 minutes over, thats actually kind of an early night. They ask if I am going to hang around for a drink afetr work, but I can’t wait to get out of there. |
| 9pm to 10pm | |
| 10pm to 11pm | |
| 11pm to 12am |
Table of Contents
How you got your job
How did you get your current job?
Sign posted on the board outside, walked in and asked for an application.
What was the application process?
Filled out application, got called back two hours later, talked to the boss for 10 minutes and starte dthe next day. They were REALLY shorthanded.
Did you have to interview for your current job? If yes, what did the interview process entail?
Kind of. My boss was sitting at the bar eating dinner and playing club keno while he talked to me for about 10 minutes. Told me to be there tomorrow AM at 10:00.
If you can remember, what questions were you asked during the interview?
Have you bartended before, what hours can you work, and why I left my last job. Pretty short interview. He wasn’t actually very thorough,
Do you feel your employer properly prepared you for your job? Explain.
No. There were many days a person would come in to cover my shift at the end of the day and be upset that something wasn’t done, but no one had showed me what I was supposed to do.
Was there training for your current position? If yes, what did it entail?
The training for my job was actually basically trial and error. There was a book of mixed drinks on the bar and if you had any questions, you looked in there, and if you messed up too badly, someone made sure you knew you did something wrong.
Do you feel your educational background prepared you for your job? Explain.
Not really. My personality helped me with my job.
If applicable, do you feel your internship experience helped you prepare for your job?
N/A
If someone wanted to go about getting a job similar to yours, what would you recommend for him or her to do?
Just go in to a restaurant or bar, tell them you will never get experience if someone doesn’t give you the chance, and tell them by them training you they get to mold you into the employee they want you to be! It never hurts to ask! You can always take a bartending course also.
What skills do you think a person should have if they want to pursue a position like yours?
Very socialable! Need to have a sense of humor and the ability to deal with alot being thrown at you at once and be able to maintain their cool when they are put under pressure.
Do you feel that you need a certain level of education or training to be successful in your job?
Not really – you either can do it or you can’t.
What advice would you give to someone who was about to start work in your position/ line of work?
BE STRONG! Let it roll off your back. People drink and say things that are rude and cruel, but take it all with a grain of salt and remember that they are not sober, and you are the easiest person to take their problems out on. Just don’t take it personally.
Long-term career plans
Is your current employment part of your overall career plan? Why or why not?
Most definitely not. I plan to work as hard as I possibly can to put some money away so I can finish school. There are too many problems associated with working in a bar, and someday when I have children I do not want them to look up to me and think this is an admirable way to live. Also, it may sound conceited, but I am too smart to spend my life slinging drinks across a bar.
What are your current career goals?
Currently, I wish to save up money so I can go back to college to get my degree. I hope by the time I am 28 I will no longer have to waitress or bartend. I hope to have a promising career that provides the income I need and the benefits I need also.
Is there anything else you would like to share about your career?
Well, it’s fun for awhile, the late nights, knowing everyone, even partying with some celebrities! But in the end, it is kind of a disappointing job if you seek some sort of fulfillment from the work you do.
Prior work history
Please list your most recent jobs prior to this current job:
| Title | Length | Salary | Description | |
| Prior Job 1 | Bartender | 14 months | $7.50 + tips | Private club for veterans. The American Legion. Job was to bartend and make sure the club rules were followed and members were kept happy. |
| Prior Job 2 | Waitress | 1 year | $2.65 + tips | Waiting tables, all different shifts, opening, closing. |
Educational background
Please list your educational background:
High School GPA:3.6
| GPA | School | Degree | |
| College (Undergraduate) or Technical/Vocational |
3.8 | Delta | Electrical Engineering |
| Graduate or Professional (Masters or Doctorate) |
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