A Brown Employee’s Guide To Pubs

Artwork by Faye Dolan

A sad truth I’ve accepted is that race creeps its way into the forefront of most of our life experiences. It weaves its way delicately into our minds… arriving in low, hushed tones so as not to awaken our conscience, like a quiet, sly whisper settling in the back. A soft voice masked in an assuming confidence that we do not question, but in fact rely on, to help us perceive the people around us. I came to this realisation while working in one of Ireland’s landmark pubs. 

As someone born and raised in India, with a family in the hospitality business, the philosophy of the customer’s always right was deep-rooted early on in life. With this naturally came the inner conflict every time I had to deal with drunk and sometimes inappropriate customers who’d try to grab my ass. It was a constant battle between two voices inside my head: one that thought it best to walk away and pretend like nothing ever happened, and the other that wanted nothing more than to kick them in the balls. 

The first night I started work, I remember laughing to myself, thinking that the person responsible for stationing the employees must really love to play Candy Crush. It was like a perfect, clean-cut divide of two racial worlds. If you were brown, black, or any other colour on the darker spectrum, you had a certain job outside the bar. Cleaning tables, spilled drinks on the dance floor, broken glasses, and so on. This was pretty much the case, with the occasional diversity token on the bar. What got to me the most was the oversimplification of foreign cultures. It didn’t matter whether you were South American, Indian, or Nigerian. To the white bosses, we were all the same. We were a singular “other.” 

It was only weeks later, during one of my shifts, where I felt a sudden, almost intuitive grasp of reality. I had spent the better half of my Friday night elbowing my way through tall, stumbling drunk crowds of people too horny to take any notice of me. The only thought running through my mind was deciding which empty glass to clear next. The repetitive, monotonous movement of my actions numbed me. My hair reeked of stale cigarette smoke. I was cold, my limbs heavy from exhaustion. But when I walked into the break room, overwhelmed, I was revived by an unexpected jolt of life. 

The break room was a tiny, cramped space to the right of the staircase. Although intended for all the staff, it was mainly used by employees that weren’t, well, white. It became a safe space for us. That night, it was filled with reverberating and uproarious laughter. Snacks were making the rounds between a few of the employees, who comfortably seated themselves on the cold, marble flooring. They were rambling about something or the other in fast-paced Portuguese. It truly felt like someone had tipped a bucket of paint, brimming with colour and life, into the space. 

As time went on, I didn’t even mind that most of the Brazilians mistook me for a native and would often speak to me in Portuguese, expecting me to naturally keep up with their pace. I had come to my own conclusion that their anecdotes most likely involved an unwelcome interaction with a drunk customer that night, so I thought it best to just listen and let them get whatever it is they needed to off their chests. The fact that my mother tongue was actually Hindi would sooner or later come up, is what I told myself. 

So this whole spiel about this “perfect, clean-cut divide of two worlds” and “this invisible wall separating us from them” didn’t seem to pose much of a problem. At least on the surface, it worked out in everybody’s favour. Maybe I was overreacting. Everybody was happy in their own cultural bubbles. Interactions that required a brief merging of the worlds were always so perfectly orchestrated. Just the bare minimum of light, friendly conversations were kept lest there be any accusations of racism in the workplace environment. 

Why is it that when we come across culture shocks in life, it is almost as if there is a limit; an inevitable, predestined acceptance that none of us can actually learn from each other? I would think that this is, at the very least, detrimental to the efficiency of a workplace. It may be the easier route, but I find that we often hide behind the excuse of cultural differences, to get to know each other at all. With most of my observations so far spoken through the lens of race, there were moments where I knew all of us employees were collectively suffering. For instance, I’m sure me being brown had nothing to do with watching someone get fingered on the dance floor.

I eventually found a healthy balance in the chaos, one that meant standing my ground firmly. It was an empowering feeling when I stopped giving so much power to the people around me. What helped was reducing every interaction I had to merely business. I did my job and plastered on a generic smile while doing it, but in no way did this mean I needed to be comfortable taking selfies with older men, nor did it mean that I would have to tolerate them holding on to my waist, or breathing down my neck. 

This isn’t some coming of age story where I find newfound confidence and become a changed woman, it’s just to say that there are certain situations in life that will teach you to set boundaries for yourself. For me, this was definitely one of them. The day I set boundaries for myself was the day I finally accepted that I was, and am, worthy of respect. 

Lots of people think that Asian women especially will put up with all kinds of shit. I think this stigma stems from the colonial mentality that people of colour coming to a first-world country should feel nothing but gratitude. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had to take a step back, and genuinely tell myself that I, like everybody else, deserve to be here.

I’ve longed for someone to just tell me that I belong - in this country, in this moment, in this job. Though in all honesty it wouldn’t have even made the slightest difference. Because it was always supposed to come from myself, and when it did, I knew there was no one else that could have made me believe it.