Bartending is very different this side of the atlantic (Posted By Shane)

There are many similarities between bartenders everywhere and the crap we all have to deal with, but unfortunatley here in the UK things are very different from most of you guys in the states and canada. Having briefly lived in New York, I would kill to work as a bartender over there full time.
Here in the London and the uk as a whole, most rookie bartenders earn minimum wage a measly 5.80 pounds an hour, and even some of the guys longer in the tooth earn maybe 7-8 quid an hour, however the kicker is our tips are realitively nothing, maybe a crummy $30-50 on a good night. The problem here is that most bartenders are students looking for a quick buck and bosses are only happy to employ them on the cheap and don't care about the standard of the crap they flog.
This causes major problems for us guys in for the long haul and leaves us with 3 choices, 1 is quit and get "a real job" (not happening: early mornings, offices-no chance!)
Another is to learn quickly and be a bar whore switching jobs every few months gathering more and more experience and hopefully getting into a good cocktail bar, where the pay is much better, as are the tips but with so few around this is extremely difficult and is achieved more by luck than skill.
The final choice is to prove your worth and get into management asap, working up the ranks from supervisor, to head bartender, bar manager and God forbid general manager.
This is the road I have been forced to take, in this capacity I now deal less and less with customers, make less drinks and spend more time at my laptop and dealing with the general managers problems, doing rota's and other disinteresting shit. So what has happened is that london's best bartenders are now forced to give up what they enjoy and are good at (serving quality drinks and dealing with customers) to sustain a living and therefore the industry is left in a shambles with bottomfeeders throwing out slurried drinks without care or passion.
Don't get me wrong i'm more than grateful to have a job with a decent wage but I feel my fervour and love of this industry is being wasted, and I believe this trend has to stop very soon if our industry is going to survive with any of its reputation intact.
During my time working as a bartender in NYC I was amazed at the level of respect the bartenders were shown comparison to london, where we command just a bit more respect the homeless and just a bit less than the trash man. Unfortunatley there is no tipping culture in the uk whatsoever and many of the bottomfeeders don't even bother to try to earn tips by working harder, they see is as a waste of energy as they are guranteed money for their shift anyway.

Overall I hope things change fast otherwise the industry here in the uk is screwed, which would be a terrible thing with olympics fast approaching.

Anyone got a spare green card?