Font ResizeI knew it was coming, I could see all the signs.
A lack of communication, a lack of appreciation, a general taking for granted. In retrospect, it seems so obvious. Considering all the facts, how could it have continued? Irreconcilable differences, I think it's called, meaning that no matter how much each party tries the differences are just too great. Perhaps no one is right and no one is wrong, it is just the way that things are.
But, today, all I have are the memories. There were times that we laughed, and times that we fought. But for the majority of time that we were together we shared a common goal. Perhaps it was all the weekends we spent together, or the holidays - Mother's Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, the Fourth of July. In sickness and in health, as the saying goes, we stood side by side. For the better part of four years we spent more time with each other than with anyone else.
It wasn't really love at first sight. It took some time for us to iron out our bond. There were some things she did that I thought were strange; I'm sure the reverse was true. We had experiences with others and baggage as well. And we brought that all to bear in our own relationship. But through trials and tribulations and many long hours we figured out a way to work things out. As a result we were successful and we were happy, for a time.
But then something changed, tensions built. It wasn't one thing but a
Now, I will be faced with the awkwardness of explaining her absence to all of our mutual friends and acquaintances.
"I think she is doing well," I will have to say.
"I wish her only the best," I will repeat ad nauseam.
I will then have to act as if all is well, sometimes with more success than others. Then there will be new partners, eventually, and everything will work out, it always does.
Oh, I am talking about my "work wife," not my real one.
In the bartending business working behind the bar really is a team effort. No matter how many bartenders are "behind the plank" they have to learn how to work together sometimes under heavy stress and in close quarters. There is the physicality, the closeness, the interaction and the common goal. If these all these aren't in line, the working experience can be quite tense.
When you spend the majority of your time and most holidays (those are the big days in the restaurant business) with these people, you form unique relationships.
But sometimes it is not about the two of you. There is also the management-bartender relationship. And no matter how well two people work together if one of them doesn't get along with management, the situation becomes a losing one. I have been on all sides of that arrangement.
A Harris Interactive poll sponsored by Randstad, an Atlanta-based employment company, revealed some statistics about office relationships. It concluded that about 53 percent of the women surveyed have, or have had, an "office spouse," a person on whom they lean emotionally, and confide in about personal matters and relationship issues. The poll also concluded that 42 percent of men polled claim to have had an "office spouse." These are not defined as romantic relationships, but emotional ones. In my many years in the bar business, I'd say the numbers for restaurant employees are much higher.
Some of my best friends are people with whom I have bartended for extensive periods of time. I have had to say goodbye to them for various reasons. Many I have truly cared about, and the only thing that I know for sure is that I will have to do it all over again someday. In the words of Shakespeare's Juliet: "Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow."
True enough perhaps, but I can't help thinking of the great bar song by Semisonic, 1998's "Closing Time," the last line of which goes: "Closing time - every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."
With that in mind I will head off to work tomorrow and know that perhaps another great friendship is just right around the corner. But for today I will bid a fond farewell to my "work wife." Goodbye and good luck; I will miss you.
Jeff Burkhart is an award-winning bartender at a Marin bar/restaurant and an author. His columns appear weekly in Here. Contact him at jeffb@thebarflyonline.com.
