Working in Bars and Clubs in New York City in the 90s and Smoking.

rbnyc

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Wed Nov-30-05 09:53 PM
Original message

Working in Bars and Clubs in New York City in the 90s and Smoking.

Edited on Wed Nov-30-05 09:55 PM by rbnyc

I want to share some of my experiences working in bars and clubs in New York City as a bartender, waitress, manager, and as a performer before the ban on smoking. And I want to share some of my experiences as an ex-smoker. It's true, I've been caught up in a really puerile discussion on smoking in the workplace over in GD. But my aim is not to drag the argument over here. I just want to talk personally about my own experience, and I don't think that thread is the place to do it.

I started smoking cigarettes in college. When I first started, I actually promised myself I'd quit by the time I was 30 because I knew how stupid it was, and I knew it couldn't go on forever. But I liked it. It helped me stay awake. It helped me write papers. It gave me an excuse to just sit and stare out the window for a minute, or sit out on the porch and do nothing. It went well with drinking; it went well with smoking pot; it went well with acid. It felt good. I loved it.

And I hated it. It smelled. It made me wake up tired. It was expensive. It was impossible to keep away all the moochers, even when I switched to Lucky Strike Unfiltered. It made it hard for me to run, to play softball, to walk up and down stairs. It made me feel like a chump.

I tried to quit many times. I quit for long stretches. Then something would happen and I'd be back to 2 packs a day in a snap.

I worked my way through college waiting tables. Then I traveled around the country and supported myself by working in bars and restaurants, as a waitress, a bartender, a hostess, a manager, and also as a musician.

When I moved to New York City, my service industry experience was way more valuable than my degree, and I continued to work, primarily as a bartender, and also as a performer in New York bars and clubs.

Even with my experience, the job market was tight. It was hard to find a job, and even harder to find a good job, in a good place with a steady clientele of decent tippers. It's a hard way to make a living.

Of course, most bartenders work without any benefits. No health insurance, no life insurance, no 401K. And your paycheck is really just a mechanism for taxing you on your tips. But if you can find a good spot, you can make $200-$300 a night, sometimes more. And once you get a gig like that, you don't want to let it go.

I continued to struggle with smoking. It was very hard to quit, being surrounded by smokers and cigarettes all the time. It wasn't just because of the temptation, but because each time I would try to quit, I'd become more sensitive to the second-hand smoke, and it would make me sicker and sicker. I would start smoking again to desensitize myself, so the environment wouldn't make me feel ill.

Then after a while, I'd try to quit again. I'd make it a few days, a few weeks, a few months. But still, each time, working in the smokey environment became harder and harder.

Some of clubs where I performed as a musician did not allow smoking in the performance space, but many of the bars where I played had the stage right in the same area as the bar. It became more and more difficult, and more and more painful--choking, coughing, literally vomiting--to perform in theses smokey bars, But I needed work. I needed exposure. I couldn't turn down a gig.

I would come home, after a day and night of struggling not to smoke, but still my hair would smell like smoke, my clothes, my skin, my sweat. At one point, I hadn't smoked in my apartment for 3 months, still the whole place wreaked of cigarette stench.

There were some managerial changes at the bar where I'd worked for many years, so I took a job at another bar--and I was damed lucky to find this job. It was at The Knitting Factory--one of the places I'd played as a musician. Some New Yorkers may know it. It has 4 bars. 2 on the main floor, one in the basement, and one in the sub-basement.

I worked in the one in the sub-basement. It was a small room with zero ventilation, and would be packed night after night with everyone smoking.

It made me so sick, and so run down. My friends wondered if I had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or something. I was still struggling not to smoke, myself. Yet I was getting sicker and sicker, and coming home night after night with the stink all over me--all over everything. It was an absolute fucking nightmare.

But I couldn't find a job anywhere else, and I couldn't go back to my other bar. I'd dedicated over 10 years to the service industry. I had nothing else on my resume. I had to pay rent. I had to pay rent in New York City. I was screwed.

This was one of the darkest, worst times in my life. And it was because of smoking and being forced by my economic situation to work in an environment that was constantly packed with smokers.

Eventually, I took a job as a shipping clerk in a wholesale warehouse in fucking Long Island City for $9/hour just to get out of that place.

And then I was lucky enough to find an opening in a community center, and began a new career as a non-profit development professional.

But it wasn't as easy as just making a choice. It wasn't like I could just walk out any time. It wasn't as if I could just quit if I didn't like it. I felt forced. I was economically forced to endure unsafe, unhealthy working conditions for years. It was painful. It was disgusting. And it blackened my life.

Anyway, I am now the Director of Development for a breast cancer organization, and I quit smoking over 7 years ago. It's easy to surmise that I support bans on smoking in public, and I do sincerely see it as a workers health and safety issue, and I'm not just blowing smoke up anybody's ass.

Thanks so much for the space to share.

EDIT: I couldn't get through it without a typo.