Working on holidays can be one of the most taxing aspects of a career in the service industry. After all, what would St. Paddy’s Day be without a pub crawl, and Valentine’s Day without a place to wine and dine your significant other? That means on these special days. bartenders and servers will end up facing a flood of extra food and drink tickets until closing. The silver lining: holidays are often when business is at its most booming, and the tip jar may start spilling over.
Still, some holiday shifts are more draining to work than others. To find out which ones are the lousiest to grab a shift for, we consulted Reddit’s popular r/bartending subreddit. There, bartenders far and wide weighed in on which holidays are the worst to work on, whether that be due to notoriously skimpy tips, extra-entitled customers, or hordes of sloppy drunks creating an atmosphere of mayhem.
