How I became a Publican

Working in a pub hardly seems the most glamorous of careers and it’s not. It’s not hard work, it’s constant work. So if you are workshy becoming a publican isn’t for you. If you are people focused and community orientated, then it’s worth giving a go.

As one of the youngest in the UK in 1993, I would like to say that I broke a few glass ceilings and was an early pioneer for women in the pub trade. Sadly, the second oldest profession has always had a stream of strong women working in it and doing very well for themselves. What changed was peoples perceptions in the early part of last century, and it became no job for a lay-dee.

Thankfully by the time the 90′s got here the pub industry was ready for me, young, female and feisty.

The days are long, make no doubt about that and you have to be able to do every single job in a pub. Yes, every single job. Including moving barrels. No matter how big they are if you know how, you can move all with ease. Don’t let people tell you otherwise.

If your big screen stops working in the middle of a football match, you become and electrician or TV repairperson – whatever the circumstances dictate. Even if your only electrical skills are changing a plug – you have to do something or else your profits are going to get up and walk to the next pub with a big screen.

You have to be able to hire and fire in quick succession, you have to obey the employment laws and get rid of people that steal your stock, because they feel they are underpaid and over worked. You learn never to employ friends, family or God forbid – customers. You learn that banning the staff from going out with the customers means you won’t have many rows with them when the inevitable happens, they break up.

You learn quickly no matter how good you are at your job, ALL of your customers without exception can do it better than you.

Or so they will tell you.

You learn that 2 weeks notice is sometimes enough.

You learn to cater for 4 football teams with 20 minutes notice. You teach the local gypsy population how to write a symbol on a chalkboard so they no longer queue jump on the pool tables, thus preventing 3 fights a night. You learn to put a name to the symbol and so do your customers. What you never are able to teach them is to let you know when they want to use the pub for a wedding or christening and then you are left running all over west London in a cab borrowing barrels of Guinness because the 20 you have, isn’t enough.

Problem solving is a key skill, it’s the skill you will use the most. Never mind always having a smile, or some conversation – problem solving is what you do the most and this skill will grow.

Problem 1 – No customers / not enough customers

Solution: Go out and get some, get off your backside and go and get them. Entice. Lure. Promote. Do it.

Problem 2 – Only old men drink in your pub

Solution: Stock what the youngsters drink and then go and fetch them. Entice. Lure. Promote. Do it.

Problem 3 – Customers fighting each other

Solution: Bar them. Bar them for life. It stops inside the pub real swift. Keep this rule and enforce it. If you mean it they will stop fighting.

Problem 4 – Drugs and Drug dealers

Solution: Don’t allow it in the pub, Bar them. OK, there is more on this and I am happy to expand but I have less than 1000 words here. Clearing up a drug infested pub can be done, cleanly, without violence and swiftly. It’s so easy a 20 year old girl did it.

The girl in the photo is me, at 3am after having roller bladed around the bar top and jumping the ashtrays, for a dare. In the pic we are debating whether I should allow a 60 year old bloke to race me round the roads in a shopping trolley as we have run out of champagne, and another publican has 2 cases we can borrow. Only I feel too tired to walk so they my beloved customers, offer to take me there in a shopping trolley and this swiftly turns into a race.

Violence happens around alcohol, not often if you manage the situations carefully. It can happen between the customers and it can happen between you and the customers. In the pic can you see the cast iron stools? at 8 months pregnant I was smacked over the head with one. I survived, the customer nearly didn’t, several of the regulars who knew I could fight my own battles, decided I may need a hand with this guy and threw him out of the door. I locked the door after him. He walked in the next door. I pushed him out of that door and locked it too. He walked back in the third door and I was about to push him back out again when he took one look at me, heavily pregnant and a bleeding scalp. He squinted and said “do you run every pub in town Mrs? only you run the last two I have been into!” then turned and left.

We laughed. Me with relief and because he really thought he had been in three different pubs when he had walked in three different doors to the same pub. Gallows humor is prevalent.

With a pub career you will face and rise to many challenges and you will learn to think on your feet, you will meet people from all walks of life. You will be part of their lives, at their meeting, at their engagement, at their wedding, at their christenings, at their divorce and at their death. You will be the one who calls them a cab home, you will be the one who sometimes carries them home. You will be the one that gives them Christmas dinner as they have spent so much of their life drinking, there is no one there for them. You will be the one that pops round when the older folk don’t show up for a few days, you will be the one that calls the ambulance and notifies their kids. You become a diplomat.

You are one of the pillars in the community.

Sarah

PS if you still want to know how I become a publican, I’ll tell you, you managed this far without being put off. I rang a brewery, got an application form and went along for the interview. At the interview I gave them no reason to reject me and I got the job. At 20.

About Sarah Arrow
Sarah Arrow is the managing editor of Birds on the Blog, in real life she is the communications director of a same day courier service. She is an enthusiastic UK based pro-blogger and co- author of the soon to be published Zero to Blogger
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