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" Every Tuesday night for the past two years, I have doled out $4 Miller Lights and margaritas at a hole-in-the wall pub next to my apartment that doubles as a karaoke bar. I cannot count the times I have wanted to quit. Now, I cannot thank the manager enough for giving me extra shifts. I always thought I was better than the other employees at the bar because I had a &amp;quot;real job&amp;quot; and was only there to make some extra cash. These days, I don&amp;#039;t talk back to the angry customers who think I put too much olive juice in their martinis and I silently pray that the drunk men who stay until closing time will give me good tips because they like how I fill out a pair of jeans.  Before, the bar was my second job, and it&amp;#039;s very strange to think that this is now my primary source of income. Sometimes I wonder how my parents would feel about it \u2014 but I&amp;#039;m too afraid to ask them. Surely they did not drop $100,000 on my college education to see their only daughter get hit on by men twice her age while wearing an outfit half her size. I had gone to college to become a journalist \u2014 a word that symbolizes international expeditions, Pulitzer Prizes, and bylines in important magazines; a word that still gives me goose bumps, despite the fact that things haven&amp;#039;t worked out so well on that front.  For all my initial complaints about bartending (the long hours, the obnoxious customers, counting soggy dollar bills at the end of the night), I have developed friendships with the cast of characters who make regular Tuesday-night appearances. There&amp;#039;s Jade, the 40-something single mother trying to re-enter the working world, having spent the past five years as a full-time mom and the past two in a bitter custody battle with her ex. Then there&amp;#039;s Mark, the civil court judge who loves ginger ale and comes to the bar with the sole intention of singing Buddy Holly. He confides in me about his wife&amp;#039;s multiple sclerosis, which, according to his most recent update, is getting worse. The bar and Buddy Holly provide a brief escape from his fears, and I like being the person he lets his guard down with. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.marieclaire.com/career-advice/advice/a2721/working-bartending-job/>