Shared by Darcy O’Neil over at his blog Art of Drink
- New bartenders, please take note not to repeat any of the points below, so you can survive your first bar job.
- Current bartenders, get your acts together, so you don’t get fired eventually down the road, unless you are ready to leave bartending.

In any case, these will be good advice to everyone who’s in the industry. If you have more tips you wish to add, reply below.

1. 1. The term “quality” never crossed your mind, people only drink to get drunk, right?
2. 2. To make a great drink requires the use of 151 proof rum.
3. 3. Pissing off the servers is your nightly entertainment.
4. 4. Running the dishwasher without soap doesn’t concern you.
5. 5. You jam bottles into the ice bin and scoop ice with the glass.
6. 6. You think the floor drain is a sink so you dump your shaker on the floor.
7. 7. You think short pouring is good because it makes the bar more money.
8. 8. You steal tips from your co-workers.
9. 9. You think expiry dates on juices and milk are guidelines.
10. 10. The only reason you bartend is for free booze and cheap girls.
11. 11. When someone tips poorly you assume you did nothing wrong and that the guest is an asshole.
12. 12. You think sour mix is a direct substitute for real lemon or lime juice
13. 13. You don’t know what bitters are.
14. 14. You huff and sigh when somebody orders a drink you don’t like.
15. 15. Your theory on drink making is: more sugar equals better drink.
16. 16. When somebody orders a $100 snifter of cognac you expect a $20 tip.
17. 17. You don’t know what a snifter is.
18. 18. Washing your cocktail shakers is done once, at the end of your shift.
19. 19. Your goal is to have sex with all of the servers of the opposite gender.
20. 20. Your goal is to have sex with all of the servers of the same gender.
21. 21. Your breasts are more important to making tips than your brain.
22. 22. When asked about a cocktail on the menu, you read from the menu to give the answer.
23. 23. You think Rose’s lime, sour mix and lime juice combine to make a better drink.
24. 24. You haven’t washed your work cloths for weeks and just leave them under the bar.
25. 25. The blender is your favourite bar tool.
26. 26. Sticking your finger in a drink to taste it doesn’t concern you.
27. 27. You use your hands as ice scoops.
28. 28. You wash your hands once per shift, at the end of the night.
29. 29. Using a three day old slimy lemon wedges doesn’t raise an alarm bell.
30. 30. You spend more time talking to the servers than the guests at the bar.
31. 31. Everything you talk about has sexual connotations.
32. 32. You call in sick because you have another hangover.
33. 33. You drop limes on the floor and can’t be bothered to wash them.
34. 34. You think the bar is yours and drink whenever you feel like it.
35. 35. Getting drunk or high, while working, is normal.
36. 36. You put a lime garnish on single malt scotch.
37. 37. The only drinks you know have sexual names.
38. 38. A 60 year old lady asks for a nice cocktail and you server her a 1-800-Fuck-Me-Up.
39. 39. You break a glass in the ice well and decide it’;s nothing to worry about.
40. 40. You strain fruit flies out of the liquor then put the liquor back on the bar.
41. 41. You carry around a fly swatter and kill flies while people eat.
42. 42. When it gets really busy, you go for a smoke.
43. 43. You chastise people for their drink orders.
44. 44. You “borrow indefinitely” from the till to pay your rent.
45. 45. You make the drinks “strong” without charging appropriately.
46. 46. You fish fruit flies out of the draught beer with the tip of a straw.
47. 47. You treat your bar-back like dirt, but expect exemplary service.
48. 48. The solution to every problem is: just add bitters.
49. 49. You develop a “god complex” just because you are a bartender.
50. 50. You think you are an elite bartender and ignore guests request because you think you know better than they do.
51. 51. You serve our friends first, no matter how long other customers have been waiting.
52. 52. When you’re in the weeds you never look up.
53. 53. You fail to survey the entire room on a regular basis.
54. 54. You let the drunk creep at the end of the bar harass the woman sitting by herself trying to read her book.
55. 55. When your beer pours foamy you just let it run from the tap, instead of checking your lines or gas.
56. 56. You don’t know how to check your lines or gas.
57. 57. You don’t cut enough fruit for the night shift (if you’re an opener).
58. 58. You leave your dirty shift-off dishes in the sink for the opening bartender (if your a closer).
59. 59. You fail to ring out and/or re-bleach your bar rags regularly.
60. 60. You can’t be bothered to wash the soap/sanitizer/lipstick all the way off your glasses.
61. 61. You forget that you are supposed to listen to your customers problems and personal drama, and instead, share yours.
62. 62. You bad mouth competitor establishments.
63. 63. You bad mouth the owner, fellow employees and while you’re at it, customers.
64. 64. You play pool, video poker, darts, etc. while you have customers at the bar. (“I’ll be right with you!!!”)
65. 65. You are too busy text messaging or talking on the phone to notice you have thirsty customers.
66. 66. You get ticked off if customers don’t graciously thank YOU.
67. 67. Can’t be bothered to make up more bar lemon…just use the lime. It won’t matter.
68. 68. Never put a bottle back form whence it came.
69. 69. You pour single handed long island iced teas.
70. 70. You drink whatever you over pour.
71. 71. You wipe down the bar right into the ice bin/ speed rack/ and/or beer bin.
72. 72. You never have a pen/ lighter/ and/or bottle key and bother the other bartenders on your shift all day/night.
73. 73. You look up drinks in front of customers.
74. 74. You don’t know how to make a drink so you just wing it or ask what colour it is.
75. 75. You bum cigarettes off of customers.
76. 76. You constantly butt in on your coworker’s regulars.
77. 77. You don’t cut people off when they’re clearly swallowing back their own vomit to muster up the breath to ask you for another.
78. 78. You don’t wipe down your bottles.
79. 79. You bail at the end of the night to get out of stocking beer.
80. 80. You substitute a milk ingredient with bailey’s or kahlua.
81. 81. When you don’t know a drink, instead of looking it up or asking how to make it, you just say you don’t know how to make it.
82. 82. While washing bar glass in a 3-comp sink, you don’t even pause in the sanitizer long enough to let it do its job.
83. 83. You regularly serve drinks in glasses with women’s lipstick marks on them because you don’t do a thorough job washing glasses, and don’t check the glass before making drinks.
84. 84. You switch to plastic towards the end of the night even though you have plenty of glasses, just because you don’t want to wash glasses anymore.
85. 85. Instead of offering a welcome greeting you just point or nod, or maybe say, “Yeah?” as a way of taking a customer’s order.
86. 86. When I tell you exactly how I would like my martini made, you still rinse and dump out the vermouth and shake the shit out of it because that is the only way you know how to make it. You may even ask me “What kind of vodka was that?” even though I called a gin.
87. 87. You go on and on about cocktails, but once off shift all you drink is rum or bourbon.
88. 88. When asked what the most imaginative and groundbreaking cocktail you’ve ever seen is, you reply with something that ends in ‘-collins’, ‘-flip’, ‘-sour’, ‘-fizz’ or any of the other myriad suffixes attached to formulaic cocktails.
89. 89. You use glass cleaner/bleach/antibacterial spray interchangeably and preferably add them all together and label them ‘the widowmaker’.
90. 90. You serve the same drink to every single person who asks you to pick a drink for them, no matter how different their tastes.
91. 91. Every drink on your cocktail list involves either lemon and sugar, bitters, or is some hideous concoction labelled ‘a [insert tacky name] martini’
92. 92. You have to look in a not-even-a-Mr.Boston-no-name book to make an Old-Fashioned.
93. 93. You come in to your shift 20 mins. late and immediately get on your cell phone for the next 10 mins. to “help drum up some business by calling my friends”.
94. 94. You’re constantly 15 mins. late because you are not getting along with your spouse/significant other and feel the need to have a ‘talk’ right before work.
95. 95. You can’t take out trash or get ice because that’s a ‘guy job’.
96. 96. You don’t rotate product when restocking because that would require kneeling down on an ‘icky’ floor.
97. 97. You leave empty liquor bottles on the shelf so when the next shift’s BT grabs it he has to find the backup.
98. 98. You’re oblivious to the 6 people that have been sitting in the stools next to your 2 girl friends because you think that your friends will tip you better on the $10 tab you’ve given them than whatever the 6 people. can possibly muster up.
99. 99. You top your Margaritas with Sprite because ‘that’s the recipe’.
100. 100. You make a White Russian in this order: kahlua, layer it with half and half, then layer that with vodka, because ‘that’s the recipe’.
101. 101. When in doubt, Rum And Red!!
102. 102. You think that ‘a little bit of brown on the edges of your lime wedges is fine- after all, they’re still mostly green’.
103. 103. You refill your speed pourers daily with new on top of old and only wash them when they ‘look dirty’.
104. 104. You rinse EVERYTHING in cold water because your fingers are too sensitive and it’s the same as hot anyway.
105. 105. You over-serve a customer because ‘he SAID he was taking a cab home so I thought that was ok’.
106. 106. You don’t card someone because ‘dude- he was going bald and I thought I saw some grey in his hair’.
107. 107. You don’t understand why a dull knife is actually more dangerous than a sharp one.
108. 108. You think that flaming shots are the shizit!
109. 109. When people ask you for a ‘nice red’, you give them the $15/ glass red automatically with no questions.
110. 110. You use grenadine to make your cocktails taste good.
111. 111. You leave bottles within reach of customers.

*Thanks to Darcy’s Blog and its contributors we compiled the 111 signs you are a bad bartender.
**Feel free to reply below to add your own tips and we’ll update as it goes along.

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