I first started bartending at a Hoboken establishment when it first opened in January 2001. I worked until November 2003 until I was, as the owner old me, "benched". I had a two year haitus, and I started bartending again September 2005. Now that I am doing this again, here are my top 5 pet peeves while I’m working behind the sticks. Other bartenders may know what I’m talking about, or maybe they will disagree with me. From this list I excluded my whole tipping principles, which you can find by clicking here.

Order everything at once & have your money ready: A girl came up to the bar the other night, and said, "A Miller Lite, please." I walk to the cooler, get the beer and walk back, putting the beer on the bar and said, "$4 bucks". She replied, "Oh, another one!" I walk back to the cooler, get another beer, put that on the bar, and say, "Ok, $8 bucks". She looked at the two beers and conferred with her group, saying, "...and a Captain & coke!" I make the drink and tell her, "$14 dollars." She goes into her wallet, fiddles around with money, then turns and asks her friends for money, while I’m getting yelled at my other customers to serve them. Bartenders need to sling the drinks out as soon as they can, and this is just slowing us down.

Patrons who order stupid drinks: I get younger drinkers who come in and say, "I will have a Mind Eraser!" or "Three shots of Scooby Snack!" I know how to make Mind Erasers, but when it’s busy, you don't want to be sitting there making a layered drink. I don't know Scooby Snacks, and I would ask these people, "What's in that?" and they have no idea, either. Upon looking it up, a Scooby Snack has 1 part Malibu, Creme de Bananas, Midori, Pineapple and whipped cream shaken together. In other words, a pain in the ass to make, especially when the bar is busy. Sometimes people order a "Pink Pussycat" or a "Purple Nurple" and I have no clue what these shots are - so I just concoct something that has vodka, color it to look pink or purple and say, "There ya go!" Most people have no clue anyhow.

People who have no music taste: The bane of my existence at the bar is the jukebox. There are multiple reasons:

People have no concept of playing music to the crowd. You get three people in a full bar who like Phish. They play Phish on a Saturday night in a packed room and everyone else is thinking, "Is that music or is someone strangling a seal?" To remedy the situation, I just hit the skip key and either feign ignorance, "That jukebox is on the fritz again!". If I know the customers I will jokingly chide them for playing such a bad song choice, and ask them to play something better.

Everyone wants to hear the "song of the moment". Every 2 months there is a supersong on the radio that everyone wants to hear. Kayne West. Outkast. Beyonce. Kelly Clarkson. The problem is that these songs get played ad nauseam every night at the bar. Two girls may come in, stay for two hours, play that song, and leave. Another patron comes in and does the same thing. Pretty soon you are about to rip the jukebox off the wall. I can’t turn the damn thing off – the owners make decent money from people dropping their money into the jukebox, Megatouch and Golden Tee.

I liked the old days when a bartender could set the music tempo and play the songs from their CD collection or Ipod. Sometimes patrons would ask for certain bands, and we would play that for them. When I used to work with a girl named Teresa, we would have a slamming good time behind the bar listening to Rage Against The Machine and dancing with each other while we worked. We would get the crowd pumped up, doing shots and when the bartenders have fun behind the bar – it’s contagious – the people have a good time, too. And that folks – is the point from many bartenders perspectives, we want our customers to have a good time. We want them to drink, have fun and meet people. The music sets the tone for the bar, and when it is inconsistent and jarring that ruins the whole mood.

Rude customers: There was a guy who came into the bar who for some reason was always rude to me. There were a series of events where he would order from me saying things like, "You aren't friendly - get the other bartender!" or he would look at the shot I poured in a rocks glass and say, "This is it? This is all you’re giving me?" Now, I like to think I give good customer service, but it only took a few more similar situations where I had to set this guy straight. One night I finally had enough, when he got angry at me for pouring a shot incorrectly. He was right, it was a shot I didn't know (Snakebite, I think?), his pal told me how to pour it - and it was fairly terrible. I didn't charge for the shot and he kept giving me grief over it while I was working. Finally I went off on him. Keep in mind that this was the culmination of about four weeks of this guy being a jerkoff. I laid into him, starting with, "What the fuck is your problem, exactly?" I detailed everything he did the last 4 weeks, in front of his friends and his fiancé. His friends were all saying, "Oh, we're sorry. He does that when he is drunk!" and at the end of it even he was saying, "Look, I’m really sorry."
I wrote before that the bartenders aren't servants. I certainly could have handled it a bit differently, but it was a busy bar night and I was at the end of my tolerance rope. I saw the same guy a week later; he shook my hand and apologized again. Nice guy when he's sober.

Underage kids: I was in college and I tried to get into bars when I wasn't 21. Sadly, I never had ID because my brother refused to "lose" his license for me and I wasn't the kind of brother that would steal it from him. Nowadays, thanks to modern technology, we have a tremendous amount of customers from Stevens University who come to the bar with NJ licenses that are incredibly real – I simply cannot tell if they are a fake or not. Some are good customers who drink, tip and act normal. But the other morons make them look really bad. They punch holes in the wall, steal things from the bar and rarely can handle their liquor. I want to buy a scanner than runs a license under and it will verify if it is genuine or a fake. I just want everyone in my bar who is older than 21, for financial reasons also. I’m sure the Stevens kids don’t really care, but if the bar gets busted for serving underage kids, the bartenders face some stiff penalties. There are plenty of young 20-somethings who act like morons, too - but the older the patrons are less likely they will be a complete asshat in a bar.

Those are my pet peeves while I bartend. Here are my pet peeves while I’m a patron.

Male bartenders that ignore guys and serve girls first: I don't know how many uptown bars there are in Hoboken when I will stand there with my tried and true technique of holding my money out, and the bartenders proceed in serving the girls first. As a bartender, I absolutely treat everyone equally, and this favoritism drives me insane. Of course as my bartending friend Tiffany emailed me, after she read my blog: "Oh, I use the reverse discrimination that you hate…I ALWAYS serve men first…they tip…women don’t tip other women unless they are ugly..hence they usually don’t tip me! But women do it to me as a patron all the time. They ignore me and serve my boyfriend, then of course I love to say, "Hi – over here! Yeah, I’m paying!" They get all pissy because they can’t flirt with him and NOW they are getting stiffed by the girl they chose to ignore."

Any bars that have a line: I think any Hobokenite who waits in line for a bar is a complete fucking moron. There are NO BARS in this town that are worth a line. You have a trillion bars to choose from, and you want to wait in line for 30 minutes to drink in a bar? No way, not me. Plus, the bouncers at Madisons keep people outside when the bar is half-full. Why?

Going to any bar that has 10 people or more wearing the Man Suit: Now that the winter is upon is, the next variation of the Man Suit is the Sweater Man Suit, where the culprit wears a sweater over the shirt - but the collar, cuffs and untucked tail are all showing - yes, I’m guilty as charged, here. Places that have the "cool yuppie crowd" always have the same vibe: You go there with friends, get into a circle, talk with each other, and ignore everyone else. Am I right? People go to a bar to drink and be around other people who drink - but don't talk to them or socialize.

Bartenders who complain: I may have my pet peeves, but I do realize a simple thing about bartending - the ratio of money to work is ridiculously easy. You pour drinks, talk to people and hang out at a bar for 8 hours - then walk out with a fistload of cash. As much as I may make my comments about my peeves, don't take any of this the wrong way - bartending is one of the best jobs ever. If they offered 401K and health care, I would be tempted to leave my IT job and do it full time. I sit there and do the math, and some bartenders work two shifts a week (16 hours), and make more money than a schoolteacher who works 5 days a week (35-40 hours).

Hey, that's just me. Have an interesting one? Email me or leave a comment. Same rules about comments apply to real life - don't be a dick. :)

Furey owns and operates a blog on Hoboken life at www.philly2hoboken.com. Email him at philly2hoboken@gmail.com or use the realhoboken.com forum.