I have always had trouble sleeping ever since I was a kid. You could call me a bit of a night owl, couldn’t wake up early in the morning but could easily stay awake till 3/4 am. Hence its quite fitting that my occupation is that of a nightclub manager, a connoisseur of the night. Maybe I am pigeon holing myself here a bit too much, the venue I run actually plays host to a number of things. A restaurant, functions and a bar for after work drinkers all of which I am in charge of. Nightclub manager sounds more risqué and mysterious though. Its also the part that strangely enough I believe has really helped prepare me for parenthood as we are going to find out. I mean at the end of the day I am dealing with other peoples kids but even at the baby stage in
parenthood I have found some very funny similarities. If you look closely at
your own job you might be able to find things that you have learnt that have
prepared or just helped you out with parenting. In saying that, if you work in
childcare that is just cheating. That’s like being able to practice for a
surprise quiz, doesn’t count.

Since Covid has spread across the world my working world has disappeared entirely. In Melbourne, the hospitality scene has all but shut down completely. Normally on
a Saturday night you would find me either on my nightclubs front door, trying
to tell the dolled up 15yo girls who claim to be 23 that I don’t believe them,
or in our triage area dealing with another drunk kid throwing up in a bin
(Mainly because he couldn’t wait long enough for the bucket to arrive). The
clientele at my nightclub, most definitely not out of preference, is that of
the younger side of 20. Young, dumb and immature, mix that with alcohol and you
have quite a similarity to a baby. So lets see how managing a nightclub has
prepared me

 

1. Vomit is nothing

Most people don’t really deal with vomit much unless its their own and at that point you are normally too drunk to care even if you are rolling in it. I, on the other hand, get at least a double dose of it every Friday and Saturday night. Most of the time I am lucky and it goes in the vomit bucket (We have an appointed bucket for people to throw up into), sometimes I am unlucky and it lands on the floor, very rarely I am a really really unlucky and someone leaves their dinner on me. Definitely not one of the
perks of the jobs but I have now seen the silver lining. If I can get through
having someones dinner on my nice new jacket then a bit of milky vomit can be
brushed off.

 

2. Garbled “Speech” Translator

My son is 4 months old and he has been getting more and more talkative. When I say talkative at this age I don’t mean giving you his thoughts on the state of the economy, I mean a lot of grunting and babbling and when I say grunting I mean like a little piglet who is stuck. Then throw in the facial expressions and the different pitches in grunt and babble and I was scratching my head. Then I thought back to work and a day party I ran. A lot of drinking and a lot of drugs which I won’t go into except for this. Ever seen a guy in a K-Hole who has been drinking all day in the sun. Trying to get the pin number for his phone, in the 30 seconds of lucidity, to get someone to pick him up before he drifts back into the K-hole. The baby makes much more sense!

 

3. Dealing with naughty children

A lot of kids who go to nightclubs are little turds. It’s a fact. Alcohol and 18 years of age, a good mix does not make. I then have then have the, what can be described as both joyous and infuriating, opportunity to put them in their place. These are kids who like to act out in the nightclub, who think they are the cool kid and can do what they want. You know the kid at school who had to show off to everyone, that kid. Then I swoop in a make sure they realise that they are not at home, this is not their property and I am definitely not their parent. Sometimes I have some fun with it. Ever told an 18 year old kid that you have the power to destroy their social life by
blacklisting them from every nightclub in Australia, the look on their face is
priceless. Scantek is a thing of beauty! So usually I will tear into them, kick
them out of the nightclub and threaten them with being blacklisted. I used to
have a bit of fun with them to be honest. But with my partner being pregnant I
started seeing it from a different perspective and since then my approach has
shifted. And then one night one young male, who I knew, thought it would be a
good idea to jump up on the DJ decks stand while the DJ is playing and try and
punch a hole through the roof. Lo and behold he manages to fall off the stand,
crack his head and pull out the power cable to the decks stopping the music mid
set to a huge crowd. Now replace this with baby falling off entertainment unit,
cracking head, pulling out power cable to TV mid show you are watching. The
similarities are remarkable don’t you think.  I had two choices, I could tear him a new one (i.e. shout at him till he cries) and throw him out or I could give him a stern
warning and teach him that what he did was wrong. Step in fatherhood goals,
guess what I did. Well to be honest I started by shouting, I mean it was too
easy, I couldn’t help myself. And then something happened, my voice lowered, I
calmed down and started acting like a parent. How dangerous it was for him, to
learn from his mistakes. I was hitting fatherhood goals. At the end I told him
he was a good kid but never do anything like this again, to go back inside and
enjoy the rest of his night but never do anything like that again. Fatherhood
was coming to the forefront

 

4. Dealing with poop

Babies poo a lot, its a fact. Poo goes literally everywhere. The nappy, the change table, the floor, you, your watch. Everywhere! There is nothing you can do about it. If you haven’t had poo on you in the first week then you are some kind of Dad legend. I think I lasted two days before getting poo all over my hands and most likely my clothes. Once it has happened a few times you get used to it, poop no longer bothers you really. I didn’t even need to get that far. Now you should know whats coming just by virtue of what this post is about. Prepare yourself, its pretty out there. Yes, someone pooped themselves at my nightclub and yes a very small portion of it ended up on my skin. I had to carry this unfortunate girl (actually it turns out I was the unfortunate one) who was having a bit too much of a good time and had drunk a little bit too much. Turned out her good time was going to go downhill pretty fast and I was going to be the unexpected beneficiary of that thing going downhill. As I was carrying her in my arms, being the self appointed knight in shining armour, I felt a warm trickle seep down my arm. After putting her down, there was a small rivulet of brown smeared down my arm. I had been marked with a turd. Some 10,000 washes later and I am still scarred by the memory of the brown stream of poo. I am know taking the power back and turning it into a good memory. I can deal with any poo my son flings my way.

So what have we learned :-

1. Nightclub managers get covered in a lot of bodily fluids on a weekly basis. Fathers get covered in a lot of bodily fluids on a daily basis.
2. Nightclub managers have to deal with drunk children (i.e. babies) on a weekly basis. Fathers have babies

Thanks for listening to my Ted talk. Leave a comment if your job has prepared you for fatherhood in some weird way