Having a difficult time ordering drinks over the loud music?  Well that’s a weekly dilemma for many customers and bartenders in the DC nightlife scene.

I’ve mentioned several times before that my hearing is on the fast track to becoming legally deaf.  Bartending in nightclubs takes a toll on the eardrums.  I constantly find myself unintelligently saying “what?”, “huh?”, “excuse me” in response to drink orders.  To cope with this working hazard and avoid serving the wrong drink order, I’ve searched far and wide for a solution.

Almost at a loss, I realized many of us (bartenders) are coping with our club deafness by using hand signals to communicate.  Holding up fingers to communicate the price of a drink, scribbling notes on napkins, tons of finger pointing and lip reading, are some of the ways bartenders have utilized in order to deal with the hearing shortcomings that are associated with loud amplified music.  Guests have also compensated by texting their orders and holding up their phones.   Thanks Gallaudet! Clever!

However, I recently came across an article about gang signs……. could some of these primitive hand gestures that bartenders use to communicate be mistaken as gang signs?  There was an extensive chart displaying many common gang signs.  What if beyond my knowledge I’ve been throwing out gang signs to unsuspecting guests. 

Another hazard for bartenders coping with loud music is that we must place our ears right on someone’s mouth to hear even the slightest hint of what the guests are saying.  I feel as though this is more of a downer on my end than the guest in the event they forgot their gum that evening.

Maybe I should start with some sign language courses, but what is the real use unless the person you are trying to communicate with actually knows sign language as well.  It’s like the years of French I took in school, besides having forgotten the grand majority of those 8 years; I’ve known tops, ten people who were fluent in the language. 

Perhaps we can all begin with some baby steps, say give a signal for at least the drink specials we are now offering.  Besides the open bar on the main floor Fridays and Saturdays 9pm-10pm, we now have $3 Guinness beer, $6 rum and coke, $6 Patron espresso shots, and $150 Kettle One vodka bottles. 

It’s all about learning to adapt, and if Helen Keller can figure out how to pump water out of the well in the backyard, than figuring out how to communicate with a customer in a loud nightclub should be a cinch! 

Ultrabar kicks off the DC nightlife summer season with their new summer drinks specials!

Everyone loves drink specials and we at Ultrabar pride ourselves in offering the hottest deals in the city!   In addition to our popular, hour long open bar every Friday and Saturday night we will now be offering the following drink specials to commemorate our 4th year anniversary and to kick off the summer season with a special thanks to the many patrons who have frequented and supported Ultrabar over the years!

*$3 Guinness
*$4 Dos Equis
*$6 Rum & Cokes
* $6 Patron Espresso Shots
* $150 Ketel One Bottle bottles

For more info follow us on Twitter and Facebook. It’s an easy way to get up to the minute information on upcoming events, free admission deals and new drink specials!

Two weeks ago, I flew off to central Florida to spend time at the family gathering.  The town is a gated community of about 60,000 people.  Cars are definitely allowed, but it is a golf cart community so you can literally go anywhere and everywhere in your golf cart (even drive thru fast food), which of course I took full advantage of.   I soon realized I was about 40 years younger than the majority (Florida, big surprise), which got me thinking about retirement.  

So since people back in the day use to die at 65, I guess the age to retire was probably 40 or so.  Now that people live much longer lives, retirement age is on the rise.  I went to the government website to fully grasp the concept.  This is what I found: 

If you were born in 1942 or earlier, you are already eligible for your full Social Security benefit. If you were born from 1943 to 1960, the age at which full retirement benefits are payable increases gradually to age 67.

So who knows when our generation will be able to retire, if ever.  Seeing as I feel I’m ready to retire already, I suppose I have a long way to go, which got me thinking… Like most things in life, how can you generalize just one age to allow retirement (if you want to collect from social security)?  Don’t different jobs have different shelf lives and put different levels of strain on oneself, thus speeding up the aging process?

I propose a new idea.  Since I’m here in DC this would be the place to do it right?  For example, those of us working in the DC nightlife industry are probably aging at a rapid pace.  Take into account all those late nights for starters.   Ultrabar for example is open at 9pm on the weekends for an hour open bar and closes at 3am.  Also, the loud music, though we all love the variety of anything from house, hip-hop, top 40 and Latin tunes, I can already attest I’m going deaf.  Then there is the obvious drinking which goes for you club goers as well.  I know we make it tempting at Ultrabar with all the drink specials like $4 Dos Equis, $3 Guiness, $6 Café Patron, $6 Rum and Coke, and $150 Kettle One bottles.  Then lifting heavy beer and liquor cases and basically standing for a living. 

I’m in no way saying it’s the hardest job, but there should be some scale on how much your job decreases your life span to coordinate with an appropriate retirement age.  For example, think about miners, those guys in West Virginia are really speeding up the time of death so maybe they should be allowed to retire at 25, give or take.  On the opposite spectrum, those who sit at a desk all day, they could be good to go until 80 years old at least, sit and be fit, how much strain could that really place on anyone?

I will be looking into this further and who knows, maybe in one or two years I’ll be relaxing in Florida, wearing my Talbots and Crocs and getting into a competitive shuffle board competition.  Until I work this out with Obama, you can find me at Ultrabar on the weekends.  Check the websites for Ultrabar and Panorama Productions and get info on upcoming events, admission discounts and bottle/drink specials.