“Oh, you’re a sommelier? That is SO COOL!!!! The servant’s entrance is around back.”
Even if my job didn’t have a fancy-sounding French name, it would still be a cool job. Getting paid to be a specialist in wine and spirits? Yeah, there are way worse gigs…I know, I’ve had some epic ones. I once worked on a honey farm, for fucksake (13 bee stings on my first day = no career in honey for your boy).
Unfortunately, for most sommeliers the coolness kinda peaks with the fancy French name. Being a working sommelier is less like being a well-regarded, well-compensated professional, and more like having a solid gold cup to wear to the nut-punching contest; you look great, but you always have that dull, familiar ache…the ache that reminds you that only a small percentage of non-management sommeliers are compensated fairly in these streets.
Before I continue, let us please consider it as read that I am aware of the great cornucopia of occupations that suck WAY more than being a sommelier. The guy that hauls away your garbage…the lady who delivers your mail…the non-binaries working the road crew…all of these are harder jobs than mine. The thing is, believe it or not, all three of these jobs pay better than mine to start (and with no educational requirements beyond a high school diploma, and with no related work experience necessary).
Don’t get me wrong; I celebrate each of these professions, I thank them for their service, and I am glad they are paid fairly. But my landlord does not accept egalitarian sentiments as currency when the rent comes due.
“Love it or leave it, man!!!” – Robert Zimmerman in Mr. Rehnstrand’s class back in high school.
So why would anyone stay in this low-paying job with long-ass hours while the servers are walking out the front door with all the money to go chase chicks? Basically, for one of three reasons:
- You really do love wine. Love, being as good a reason as any to do (or not do) MOST things, is a good reason to be in the wine game. I don’t have anything snarky to say about the folks in this category. I’m glad they exist. There are a lot of worse things out there that people love unconditionally…like soccer.
- You are using it to augment your resumé in hopes of securing a different kind of hospitality job (management, sales, corporate jobs). Also, being a server with sommelier credentials beats the shit out of being just a server when you are looking for work.
- You got into the restaurant business long ago to pay your bills while you pursued your dream of doing some other wonderful, amazing, gratifying thing, but you woke up one day having never come close to achieving those goals and found yourself at middle-age, not wanting to go back to school but also not having anything on your resumé that qualifies you to do anything except work in a restaurant, so you decide to find some little niche within that world to occupy, thinking that it will take some of the edge off of having to go in every day and work a job you have long since lost your passion for but are stuck in for the rest of your natural life.
“Well, that was dramatic. So which one are YOU? And please don’t say its all three. That is SO lazy.”
Yeah, sorry, but it’s a bit of all three. Yes, I love wine. Yes, I like having a nicely credentialed resumé. No, none of this was supposed to be my life. I’m not crying about it. This is where I am…period. Anyway, motivations are less interesting to me than actions are when it comes to this topic…the “whats”, not the “whys”.
As in, “WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?”
Dude, I don’t fucking know. I am honestly not all that concerned about it right now. Bottom line: I am healthy, I have a supportive family, I have a small circle of ride-or-die friends…I’m good. I don’t NEED anything right now.
Well, other than a sommelier job that pays more than a gig at 7-Eleven.