Most occupations have a day dedicated to them and the job of tending a bar is no exception. Bartender Appreciation Day aims to make customers think about the great service their favorite bartenders give while pouring pints and mixing cocktails as well as their great people skills of talking, listening, joking and being a shoulder to cry on and a person to confide in. Over the centuries, a bartender’s job has somehow evolved from just pouring your pint or shot into being a therapist of sorts, to the point that these days, that’s what bartenders are best known for: being the person you can tell all about your life’s troubles while sipping an ice-cold beer. Who could think of a better kind of therapy?
The History of Bartender Appreciation Day
Bartender Appreciation Day originated in America and is linked to the drinks brand, Sailor Jerry. They aim to spread recognition of the day around the world and recently organized a petition to give to the British government that asks them to make Bartender Appreciation Day a recognized holiday in the UK and a day off for all bartenders. Their main argument are that bartenders do much more than just mix drinks, offering a kind of quiet support to troubled, frustrated customers and making them feel like someone really does care about what they’re going through. The brand also organizes voting competitions to find the nation’s best bartender and makes bar visits on the day to distribute free pizza, clothing and taxi rides home for bartenders.
How to Celebrate Bartender Appreciation Day
There are many different ways you could go about celebrating this day, but all of them boil down to the same idea: showing some appreciation and gratitude to the bartender(s) you’ve met in your life that have helped make your unpleasant evening better by listening to what you had to say when nobody else would. Exactly how you decide to do this is up to you of course, but one thing you should remember is that this day does not require any kind of grand gesture—as with most important things in life, it’s the thought that really counts. For this reason, even simply paying your favorite bartender a little visit is something that he or she will appreciate. Buy him or her a drink or two, enjoy a few laughs together. In fact, if you have a bit more time, you could reverse the typical bartender-listens-to-frustrated-patron scenario around and ask your bartender if there’s anything he or she would like to talk about. That may come as a bit of a surprise at first, but it may well result in a very interesting evening. After all, bartenders are people too, just like their customers. They have problems in their lives, they experience difficulties. They have to deal with sicknesses in the family, financial troubles, and divorces. They sometimes wonder where their life is going just like anyone else. Who knows, taking this approach could lead to an interesting discussion that could also cause you to see your own life and relationships a bit differently. The wisdom we can gain from listening to others may seem underrated in today’s social media world, where everyone just wants the whole world to look at them, but the the power of collective wisdom should never be forgotten.
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