Richard Molloy

RICHARD MOLLOY

“Fuck you, Roger!” I say in my head as I smile at Roger and give Roger his pint, take Roger’s grubby tenner and give Roger his change, then try to avoid Roger because Roger likes to sit at the bar and watch me work, and Roger likes to make remarks about… Every. Single. Thing. I. Do.

You all know a Roger – and I’m really sorry if you’re called Roger – Roger’s not his real name. I’ve changed it so he doesn’t know I’m talking about him.

It’s Clive. I’m gambling on the fact that, because Clive’s a Sun reader, he probably won’t get past the first paragraph.

What can I say? I like to live on the edge.

Anyway, you all know a Roger – he probably means well enough, and, yeah, he’s probably lonely and harmless, but I can’t help but wonder what other professions endure this running commentary on their lives. I wouldn’t dream of standing behind an accountant and snorting every time they entered a figure into the wrong column, or howl at a chef for over-salting their consommé. I’d be terrified to offer advice to a scaffolding crew on the tightness of their ledgers or the angle of their transoms; and extremely wary of standing past the sign on a double-decker bus and criticising the clutch-control of the driver.

So why does Roger (and all the other Rogers and Rogettas) think it’s acceptable to be the soundtrack to my shift? Why is he the Motson of my misses and the Coleman to my crises? And why is he never, ever funny?

We all get a bit like that with certain factions of the general public at times. It’s utterly impossible to avoid it in most walks of life. But the bar can be the cage and the rest of the pub the viewing gallery, and some people take full advantage of that for their own particular, perverse entertainment. Hospitality and social interaction can be abused, then dismissed as harmless fun by those that brandish banter as a baton.

Most days, this passiveaggressive bullying is absorbed and accepted as most of us are old hands at interactions with the glib and the glum, but should we really just take it on the chin? I’m a grumpy, weathered old gaffer, but I remember being young and working the bar alone. And I’ll never forget the bullies.

They weren’t fresh from the building site or the footy. They weren’t coked-up, twenty-somethings either. They were generally in Pringle sweaters, slacks, slip-on shoes and came in half-cut from the golf club. (It wasn’t just golfers. The majority of golfers are decent people doing something that they enjoy, but there seems to be a small percentage that overstate their white, middle-aged, male privilege by peacocking around the local pubs in groups of five or six, metaphorically peeing up every lamppost on the way.

I remember wincing as they swaggered in, knowing the next hour or so was going to be a ruddy cocktail of misogyny, racism, and body-shaming as they recalled mostly fictitious or inflated conquests of showdowns and shagging whilst complaining about the beer and demanding immaculate service because “we pay your wages, mate”.

Bar-stool bullies can affect hospitality workers everywhere. I can’t help but wonder how they come to think it’s acceptable whilst also worrying about at least some of their pasts, and, more pertinently, their ultimate intentions.

Then I sigh and count my blessings. Same again, Rog?