It is important to understand from the outset that we are not talking about simply taking orders, mixing, and serving drinks. We aren't talking about the kind of impersonal "bartending" we see at any other franchise restaurant that happens to offer bar service. We are talking about professional bartenders who spend most of their time and invest a major portion of their lives engaging in the world's second-oldest profession.The real purpose of a professional bartender is to "tend" to the patrons on the other side of the bar. It isn't about the drinks--a vodka martini at one establishment is not significantly different at another. Bud Lite is Bud Lite, whether at Louie's Underground or the Cafe de Upper Crust. It's all about serving the patrons, making them feel important, and bringing them back again, again, again ...
Sure, a bartender must know the mechanics of mixing drinks, working a register, and handling the inventory; but those are skills that can be learned in one of those six-week bartending schools. Knowing how to interact with patrons at a bar, however, is partly inborn and partly a skill that is mastered only by experience. And this is where Second Life bartending experiences enters the picture.
Bars and Bartenders in Second Life
There are hundreds of clubs and lounges in Second Life. All have a bar, and a lot of them include a bartender animation ball. (For readers who aren't fully acquainted with the workings of Second Life, and animation ball is an object that "animates" an avatar to perform certain motions that more or less mimic a real-world activity). With the owners permission, an avatar can touch the animation ball, and immediately appear to be doing ... well, bartender stuff. This is usually something simple such as wiping the top of the bar, washing glasses, and fussing with the well.
Second Life patrons sometimes order a certain drink, and the bartender offers it to them from his own inventory of drink objects. The objects are sometimes animated, too; so the patrons appear to be drinking from the glasss. More often, however, the order-and-drink sequences are simply role-played and a simple game of "let's pretend." So drinks in second life are very rarely sold for Second Life cash. There is no income from liquor sales in Second Life.
The only cash income from these places is through the tip jars. Establishments sometimes provide a tip jar for the avatar that is doing the bartender animation. Most often there are also general tip jars for the establishment. The cash income for the bartender and establishment rarely come close to justifying the time invested in the enterprise. People do this for the fun.
The conclusion here is that the bar in a Second Life club, restaurant, or lounge is not a money maker. This is exactly opposite the situation in real life where bar receipts often support the rest of the establishment.
So how is it remotely possible that working as a bartender in Second Life can provide any useful experience for real-life bartending? It's all about the patrons.
It's All About the Patrons
The hundreds of clubs and lounges in Second Life are fertile ground for honing the skills that matter most in the bartending business--tending to the patrons. The drink role-play isn't necessary, and is actually a distraction to the real job at hand, which is to make every patron feel welcome, comfortable, and important to the establishment. It isn't about the drinks or anything else sold or given away, but about the dialog the bartender establishes with the patrons. A bartender learns engage them in conversation and get them talking to one another. When successful, the conversation and avatar activity tends to get noisy and confusing, just as in any real-world establishment that is worth visiting again ... and again, and again. And that is the real value of a professional bartender, whether in Second Life or real life.
The opportunity for gaining valuable and sustainable bartending experience is freely available in Second Life.
Getting Behind a Bar in Second Life
It is obvioulsy important to understand the culture and language of Second Life before making any serious moves toward becoming a bartender. For anyone new to Second Life, this means wandering about making friends, learning how the monetary system works, refining an appropriate personal appearance, and visiting the clubs and lounges. Six months of regular visits would be a minimum.
When ready to try a job, it is important to approach the owner of the establishment first. This person has invested a lot of time, energy, and real-world cash into building the place and trying to make it a popular, fun place. Negotiate a schedule and go to work (at no cost to the owner, of course).
Evaluating Success
It is rather easy to evaluate the success of this learning task. It's a matter of keeping a log of the approximate number of patrons served each shift, and then the number of repeat patrons. The amounts appearing in the tip jars can be a secondary estimate of success. But, again, it's the "stickniess" of the bartender's personality that makes the whole thing work ... really no different, in essence, from real-world bartending.
Hint: Maintain a list of patron's names and a brief note about them and their interests. Then impress them when they show up at the bar again.
A Concluding Note
A vast majority of the real-world workforce is "ordinary." And the "ordinary" workers are those most vunerable to economic and social instability. They are the people standing in unemployment lines. If our bartenders in Second Life can see a ten-fold increase in the number of visitors hanging out in the establishments were they work, it's certain they are stepping out of the realm of the ordinary.
And of course "ordinary" people would tend to be skeptical of this entire notion of building vauable real-world career assets from virtual-world experiences. On the other hand, the "extraordinary" would simply go about making it a reality.
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