Gold Watch

I've been reminiscing recently on why I've been watching drunk people do naughty stuff for the last decade. I got into the game as a student money earner, it fitted round my studies, it was less work, more money and seemed like more fun than barwork. The money is good, enough to keep me from debt and I'm still at it despite a trip to the southern hemisphere, a graduation and the start of a professional career.
The night job has persisted through all these activities. Now the far side of 30 with a mrs, a car and a real job I'm still doing it in a long black coat on the weekends. The game has changed a massive amount with only one little thing in our favour. The seemingly unaccountable SIA have made their inconsistent civil, not customer, service approach to the licensing bureaucracy both frustrating and pointless. The no-win/no-fee activities of the ambulance chasers have turned the masses into responsibility free walking lawsuits and businesses have responded by just being massively cautious to the extent they stop jobs being done and fun being had. The responsibility free generation has spawned an underclass of drinking chav who fear no one, shout, argue and fight anyone with no sense of control, proportion or sense. The police to me have gradually shifted from practical folk to practical folk with boxes to tick and targets to hit and careers dependent upon these. The days of pills, acid and weed are gone in favour of coke, ket and drink spiking drugs. The students are still drinking though with fees ands loans now the ones with the money to party seem to have daddy's money and not a wide and diverse social mix.
A lot of the initial fun of folding people up and sending them on their way has dissipated. The thrills of confrontations needing skill, wit and teamwork are all still there and provide me with the reasons to keep coming back and getting better at the job, every night, every venue, every person poses a new challenge.