Give The People What They Want
Even if it kills them
Summer’s over, folks. Get your waterproof out, bring the barbeques in, and prepare for three months of misjudged outfits and goosebumps on bare thighs.
It was nice, though, wasn’t it? Three, maybe four, weeks of uninterrupted sunshine. It’s taken me two weeks to paint two walls - I just needed an excuse to get outside. I think I’m on the eighth coat now. It’s just five inches of thick sage green paint. If you press your hand into it, I bet it’d leave a full impression as if it were a memory foam mattress.
But what’s new? What can I ramble about in your inbox for the first time in nearly six months? Well, I’m sure almost all of you know about *what happened* before I arrived home. It’s funny how long it can take you to reset following a life-changing event like that.
Anyway, it’s old news. We’re moving on to bigger and better things, like working in a brewery. Who’d have thought that pulling (and drinking) pints would be the best job ever? Probably most people. And they’d be absolutely right.
When working in supermarkets, I used to love manning the kiosk, because you’re almost always giving people what they want. Cigarettes, scratch cards, lottery tickets. You’re a dopamine dealer, satisfying the addictions of some of society’s most vulnerable people. I remember one elderly woman who spent £50 a day on scratch cards. She didn’t drink or smoke, she said, so that’s where she got her kicks. I’m not saying it didn’t get a little bleak every now and again, but you were almost always making people happy. People are happy to excuse till issues, scanning errors, even straight up rudeness, providing they walk away with their pack of tiny deaths, or a worthless pink slip that inevitably ends up in the bin. It’s funny how many of us are addicts. It makes me wonder whether there’s something built into human nature that predisposes us to the irrational rationalisation of addictive behaviour.
Pulling pints provides a similar sense of satisfaction. What makes this job all the more pleasing is that the product is shit hot. You’re giving the people what they want, but you’re also supplying quality to the consumer. There’s a Walter White smugness to it all that you can’t help but enjoy. Not only that, but the brewery’s rural location means that you also get far fewer of the ‘drink to numb reality’ sort. There are no divorced ghosts paying £6.70 for a pint of double-dry-hopped IPA. They’re in the backstreet boozers, grumbling over Sky Sports News and drinking Stella out of a Madri glass.
I’m not saying there’s a hierarchy to the licenced and legal sale of addictive substances. But if there was, I’m sure working in a rural brewery frequented by cheerful walkers and wealthy landowners would be right at the top.