Nice people finish last

If there is one place akin to life-altering revelations, it’s the hospitality industry. Hospitality folklore tells us that the customer is always right. Even if they’re wrong. I disagree.

I’m a polite bartender. I don’t stand at the bar texting my BFFs 4eva when people are waiting to order drinks. When people sit down at recently evacuated tables, I offer to wipe the table down. I say “excuse me” when I have to move past people to clear glasses or carry drinks. I do this because I get paid, but I also do this because it’s the same kind of behaviour that I would expect from anyone else.

Unfortunately this is the kind of attitude that begins to wear down from almost the moment you begin another shift because for every friendly, decorous individual in existence there is an equal and opposite unfriendly, indecorous wanker. Is it just my imagination or are people getting ruder? The other day, a guy at the bar ordered a Southern and Coke. We are a small bar and don’t sell a lot of spirits in general, so we don’t stock Southern. His eyes bulged out of their sockets, “No Southern? You’re seriously telling me you have no Southern? Is this actually a bar?” Yes, it’s a bar, you sloppy, inebriated lush and there are hundreds of others in the Melbourne Metropolitan area, so do us a favour and go irritate someone else at 2:30am.

I didn’t say this. I smiled. Strained.

A guy friend recently told me the story of a girl. Because it’s always a girl. Or boy. Or both. A girl he had been seeing for several weeks who invited him over to her place one particular night. He arrived to find her half-naked on a couch, with an equally half-naked guy on top of her. Why would you do that? Invite over the guy you’re seeing so he can see you fondling another guy’s tonsils? Or do it when you’re seeing someone in the first place?

There’s truth to the ‘nice people’ cliché. If this year has taught me anything, it’s that good luck and privilege are like backstage passes and converted warehouse apartments- usually bestowed upon those who least deserve them.

Maybe my friend Chris is right. He believes that nice people win out in the end. I think he’s a perpetual optimist, but he’s also dating the girl of his dreams, and seems happy…

All I want to know is: since when did being a decent person make you some kind of target?