Familiar story I guess.
Being the lazy student I am, i've only ever had two jobs (official jobs, paperboy doesn't count!!) It's fair to say that I quit my last job rather ungracefully...

Pubs. They're everywhere. Every corner of every village in nearly every country in the world (except Ireland. They ARE a pub). Obviously, a pub job sounds ideal for a recently turned 18 year old. Serving alcohol to people, how novel!! Plus it was literally 30 seconds from my old house; I could practicly see who was working before I got out of bed each day. To add to the "perfect job", it was going to be cash in hand, free bar at workers parties, and obviously mixing with the locals.

Turns out instead of getting to serve people, they shoved me in the kitchen for the first year to "make sure I got on with people".
I'm sorry, did I give them the impression I was recently let out of jail? Was it that I have extra limbs that might scare customers away? Maybe they thought I might be secretly an alcoholic and steal all the beer? Idiots! How hard is it to get on with customers??

After 12 months of plate scrubbing, tea making and feeding the already rediculiously overweight owner (he also smoked 40+ a day, slept 18+ hours a day, and spent EVERY evening drinking enough to kill a hores (fair play to him, he did own two pubs...)) I finally made it into the bar!

It was about this time that I realised how crappy customers really could be, and regretted ever taking the job. I had also planned a few weeks backpacking round Europe for the summer, and so my escape was set...

I planned to do the whole "see you next week" routine, to pack my bag, and vanish from the country, a bit like a cool drugs deal or something, only I had no drugs (at least not until Amsterdam, that of course is another story). I was just worried that the owner would take offence to me not turning up, and I may in fact be baring myself from my own local...

Happily my plan worked even better than I though. I arrived back from touring Europe to find my parents had moved to Sweden, and i'd receieved a place at Leicester University, over 300 miles from the pub.

That was nearly a year ago now, and i've not been back once. I did hear the owner got cancer though. Shame; he really wasn't such a bad guy...

Length? 4 weeks of 40 degree heat and spliffs galore.
(Arsonist burns pubic hair for a living, Tue 27 May 2008, 2:05, Reply)