It was a busy summer Sunday, and a customer was complaining about an offensive stench from the upstairs bathroom. Just what I need, I thought to myself, as I balanced two hot plates of fish and chips on my left arm and what felt like a 5kg beef and Guinness pie in my right hand, my fingers slipping slowly from the plate’s edge as my tendons strained against the weight. I’ll check it out right away, I told the flustered customer with a forced smile, as I bustled downstairs to deliver my food (and rage) to the waiting diners. 

I trudged back upstairs, questioning whether this alleged horror warranted nearly breaking my fingers and tumbling down the stairs in a tidal wave of marrowfat peas and beef gravy. Then I smelled it. I had barely even touched the door when I knew – Susan, I take it all back, you were right. It was offensive. So offensive, I briefly considered throwing my t-shirt at my manager and quitting right then and there. But mama didn’t raise a quitter. I gritted my teeth and stepped over the threshold into no-man’s-land, into certain death. My eyes watered. My knees buckled. The three-bean chili I had for lunch staged a violent protest, and I went straight back out again. 

Without getting too graphic, putting my hand into a black sack and fishing out what can only be described as a premature baby from the women’s toilets, with barely a flimsy bit of plastic between me and certain chaos, was not how I envisioned spending my life. I wanted more. I wanted to be my own boss, and not the kind that makes food handlers play plumbing roulette with their bare hands. 

At the time, I was a waitress and bartender at a busy Irish pub in the heart of a tourist town in Dublin (name withheld to protect its bathroom’s honour). I spent most of my time talking to people, whether at their tables or behind the bar, and learned a lot about human nature and psychology. For example, a tourist will order a Guinness, blissfully unaware that the half-filled pint settling on the drip tray isn’t theirs yet, and take it back to their table, lips hovering dangerously close to the brim of an underdeveloped pint. Meanwhile, old men will send their pints back if they’re not in the right glass, which, conversely, I rightly agree with. If my whiskey shows up in anything other than a tumbler, it’s going straight back to the bar. 

People will talk about anything when they think the bartender isn’t listening. But spoiler alert: we’re always listening. Not because we necessarily give a shit. There’s simply not much else to do between pulling pints and waiting for Guinness to settle.

There’s a lot to be learned about human nature by opening your ears and paying attention to pub-goers. That lingering aura of Guinness farts didn’t just appear from nowhere. That’s Johnny, three seats from the end of the bar, cognitively dissonant of the biological warfare he’s been unleashing for the last hour and a half. And the girl four seats down, wrapped around the fella she met last night, she’s going out with the guy who works in the pub up the road. But that’s none of my business. None at all. 

Being a bartender is about reading the room: who’s up for a chat? Who just wants to drink in silence? Who’s cheating? Which ones have flatulence problems? That older gentleman who insists on ordering only from me? Probably just lonely. The lady who tips me a euro for every drink I bring her might miss her daughter who just moved away. The girl who’s cheating on her boyfriend might be in an open relationship. You don’t know people’s stories, but you adapt to their demeanour. Pick your battles: if they’re quiet, don’t force the conversation. If they’re chatty, humour them. It’s not rocket science.

Psychology comes into it a lot more than you’d expect; copywriting is no different. 

Choosing your audience is the first part of marketing – knowing who you’re talking to and what they want, how to use language so they understand complex concepts without hurting their brains. You’re not barking your product at them or pouring your service down their throat in the hopes that they’ll swallow at least some of it; you’re just talking to them.

Copy isn’t about convincing them of something or forcing a sale, it’s about starting a conversation. Getting someone to click into your content is the first battle, but getting them to read all the way to the end? That’s as hard as cleaning out a Sunday afternoon toilet with nothing but a plastic bag and a set of rosary beads. 

You spend your life as a young adult being told the same spiel: go to college, get a degree, land a good job or you’ll never get where you want in life. Well, here I am, pushing 30 with two degrees and a decade of work experience on my back, and am I where I want to be? Absolutely not. You can do everything by the book and still end up in your late 20s, completely lost. But that doesn’t mean you’re not learning from the experiences you’ve had.

Getting screamed at by secondary school teachers, failing college exams, writing a thesis, scrubbing toilets, getting bossed around and treated like a cadet in boot camp for a poorly wiped table, being told to fuck off by drunken patrons, doing countless interviews for roles you’re more than qualified for and getting nothing but rejections, handling difficult customers whose sole purpose in life is ruining yours; none of it is fun.

None of it is futile. It teaches patience, adaptability, problem solving, and quick thinking. And that’s exactly what every good writer needs to have. 

You might be wondering – what the hell do fish and chips, cheating girlfriends, Guinness farts and toilet cleaning have to do with writing? Everything is writing. I wanted more than just a job, I wanted a vocation. Something that forced me to search the depths of my soul for the very words I couldn’t find in my own head. I wanted something with meaning, something with life. Something where I could write what I was thinking and have people relate to me.

Tell an American tourist the life story of Jameson and suddenly, they’re a whiskey drinker for life. Explain why Guinness is pulled differently and watch them stare wide-eyed as it settles from brown to black. Vent to the flirty old man at the bar about the bad customer you just had and he’ll promise to knock them out next time he sees them. Write an article about digital transformation shaping software and fintech businesses? Same thing.

It’s all storytelling. It’s all writing. 

Storytelling is nothing without creativity. But what’s that without pressure? Some of my best writing has come from sheer, unadulterated panic. I had three months to write my thesis; how much do you think got done in the two weeks before submission? A LOT (let’s keep that between us and not my thesis supervisor). Work ethic and creativity go hand-in-hand, and pressure is the warm hug holding them together.

Take bartending: someone asks you to make them a cocktail, bartender’s choice. Here you are, seven different types of fruit in front of you, two kinds of ice, a wall of spirits, and a fridge full of juice. Your brain cells are rubbing together like they’re huddling for warmth in a blizzard.

It’s the same with copywriting: deadlines and constraints force innovation. You’d be amazed by what you create when you dive head-first into it. Don’t hesitate, don’t hold your breath: just go for it. 

What’s your worst grunt-work story?