Meet Nina Scalera, a career bartender who also works as a content creator, a podcast host and a social media manager.
Ever wonder what it's like to work the night shift? In The Know by Yahoo's new series After Hours spotlights real people who've chosen not to work the traditional 9 to 5.
In this episode, Nina Scalera shares what it's like to work as a career bartender.
Video Transcript
NINA SCALERA: There's so many layers to the service industry.
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It's a tough job that people don't realize that they think, oh, it's just-- you just show up. You make a few drinks. You look pretty, and you get tipped. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of hard work.
Everyone goes out just to eat and drink, and then they leave, but sometimes they don't really look at the art, and the craft, and the hard work that goes behind it.
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My name is Nina Scalera, and I am a career bartender, but I am also a content creator, a podcast host, and a social media manager. I've always worked in food and beverage.
I started working in a restaurant when I was 13, so that was a pretty normal job considering it was a pizza parlor-- an Italian restaurant in my neighborhood. But when I turned 18, I started working in the Casino, and that is 24 hours, seven days a week, so those hours were the first time I was, kind of, introduced to late night.
And I worked in a nightclub, so I would go in at like 10:00 PM, and I'd get done at 4:00 AM. And that was probably a little like the beginning of me really being introduced to the crazy hospitality lifestyle. I'm very accustomed to the time change.
I guess for many people they wake up and go right to work. I have my full day free, where I get to do like personal things, time to relax, but I also spend--
Now that I'm a little older and I have bigger goals for myself career wise, I spend a lot of that time working on my podcast, working as a social media manager, but also doing home things, whether that's tidying things up, or doing laundry-- things that normally people would do when they come home from their job I do it during the day, which works for me.
So I wake up around like 8:00, 8:30, and I have that time in the morning, not to rush where normies have to get ready go run out the door, hop on the subway, be in the office by 8:00 or 9:00. I like to take my time in the mornings because it's like my me time.
It's like when you come home from work, and throw your bag down, and you get to relax. That's my time to relax. So I like to get out and just whether it's like go for a walk, listen to a podcast, or listen to music around my cool neighborhood in Brooklyn.
Then I think about my goals for the day, whether it's stuff that I have to do with content creation or my podcast, I kind of crush that hard from 11:00 AM till probably like 3:30. So I have that time where I can work from home or utilize wherever I'm making content, and that's like my time to work, and that stuff is fun for me.
So then like, I have to get ready for work, but then I head out and go into the restaurant. And there is this weird moment that you have when it's like 5:00 PM, and you're getting off the subway, and you're just walking past people who kind of have this like sigh of relief on their face.
Like, oh, my God. I'm finally done. I'm going home to my wife and kids or like to a hot meal, and I'm just doing the complete opposite. And you kind of like have those moments where you're like, shit, I wish that was me.
But then you get into work, and you're kind of just hit with being in the weeds. And people are ready to drink, they're ready to eat. They're ready to relax and have fun, so you have to turn it on.
And then at the end of the night, it's closing time. And when you clock out, it's the best feeling. So I kind of get that feeling that I saw people have before. And I head home, and I'm like sometimes I have to burn energy by like watching a show or something.
But for the most part, I like to try to turn it down, turn it off, and get a good night's sleep, so I'm not exhausted for the next day.
I'd say when I was younger and I was meeting new people when I moved to New York and just going about the motions and like trying to figure out my life, I'd say I was a little insecure to say, "and I'm a bartender. This is what I do. I work in hospitality."
And as I've gotten older and actively made a choice to stay in this industry, I love it, and I love all the things that it's done for my personal career goals or just my lifestyle everything. So it's an active choice for me to be like in this industry.
A lot of people are like, when are you going to get a real job? When are you going to find something a bit more steady? But I'm like, I'd love to be a voice for this industry and say how awesome it is and how maybe our lifestyles are a little different but I have so many pros that I have in my life because of working in this industry.
So I really love what I do, and as long as I can make it work with my lifestyle, I'm going to continue doing it.
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