First in, last out and happy as a pub manager

The 22-year-old assistant manager of the Big Tree Tavern in Dublin's Dorset Street never went to college to study how to be a pub manager. But Ms Kate Flattery did do two years of a four-year degree in genetics in Trinity College Dublin.

No, this isn't the new requirement for people who wish to be pub managers and owners, but the period in university did teach Ms Flattery that she did not want to be a genetic scientist.

It may have been the white coats and the stuffy lab atmosphere that made her do a U-turn on the career front. When she moved to Dublin from Trim, Co Meath, she took a part-time job as a lounge girl in the Quays Bar in Temple Bar for some extra money. She ended up loving it.

"It's one of those things; it's one of those trades - once you start you just get into," Ms Flattery says.

She attended college during the week but says she didn't enjoy it. "College really wasn't for me. It never appealed to me and I just drifted out of it." Yet she would not seem to be too far from academia given her two A grades and two B grades in the Leaving Cert.

Nevertheless, after a trip to Germany during one summer - where she worked in Munich as a barmaid - she ended up leaving college and going into bar work full-time. "Quays Bar had only just opened and it was busy and there was a real buzz off it," she says. "I got on very well with all the other staff and any time I thought `I've had enough' I just ended up staying. You get stuck into it."

After a couple of years working full-time there, a position came up in the Big Tree Tavern, another pub in the Louis Fitzgerald group. "I had a chat about it with all the head people and they decided to give me a chance. I had to prove myself and I was given a trial period." She worked in the Big Tree Tavern for about nine months and was made assistant manager only a couple of months ago.

"Completely different," is how she describes the transition from being behind the bar to working as a manager. "You're responsible for anything that goes on. You're first in, last out," she says. "There's a lot more procedures and paperwork. You're dealing with cash a lot more, whereas before, once you had finished, you'd be off out the door. But there's a lot more in it now and it's much more challenging."

The salary is another attractive aspect of the job and Ms Flattery says there is a lot of money to be made in pub management if you can prove yourself to be a good worker. The job, she adds, offers a good package with over-time, health insurance, a pension and holidays.

The Licensed Vintners' Association says an average salary for those in the bar trade would be about £16,000 (€20,320). This would go up to £25,000 for managers. In the Dublin region alone there are approximately 4,000 full-time staff working in bars and about 700 managers.

Ms Flattery doesn't feel in any way lacking because she has not done a course in management. "You just need a lot of cop on," she says. "The staff here are very good. You don't have to keep at them to do their jobs, they just do it." Flexibility and adaptability are among her strengths though she does admit that the two years in science probably helped when it comes to doing the figures for the bar.

For all the enjoyment, the job remains hard work. She starts at 9.30 a.m. five days a week, making sure all the staff are in on time. She assesses the cash flow and answers any queries from suppliers. The lunch-time rush hits and then she goes on a break. She's back in the pub by the evening and works until about 12.30 a.m. Monday to Thursday and 2.00 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

But Ms Flattery insists the image of bar work as being unsociable in terms of working hours is wrong. There are no split shifts for bar staff in the Big Tree Tavern and rotating days means people get to have weekends off.

If you want to be a bar manager, says Ms Flattery, you have to want to do it, be enthusiastic and willing to work hard. You have to be able to take control of situations where clientele may get a little too drunk or when it's time to tell the punters to go home. Being able to communicate with people is the key, she adds.

While Ms Flattery says she would like to be able to own her own pub, she realises that soaring pub prices mean this is a distant dream. More attainable, she points out, is owning a bar in the Carribbean with palm trees swaying in the breeze and water lapping along the shoreline. And it's a far cry from the lab rats in the university genetics department. . .

(Series concluded)