Ever worked at a liquor store?

I worked in one for a very short time when I was in high school, stocking in the back room. But I was under age and the owner - who was paying me in cash "under the table" - got nervous and I was back looking for work after only a week or so.

Here in Ontario, all our liquor stores are controlled by the provincial government, so if you do work in one, you get paid quite well, and have a job for life, even if the store you work in closes. They just get transferred somewhere else. In that situation, it's pretty amazing what they put up with. I've never worked in one, but I deal with them for my catering business. As a consumer, one of my funnier memories is asking an employee if a particular new wine was any good, and he said "Well, I wouldn't know, because I don't drink."

I just had to scratch my head and wonder "Rooow??"

I do get paid pretty well, but that's only because the liquor store I work at is one of the best in the area. Over 550 types of beer and a 6 shelf liquor counter the length of the store, plus a deli. It's excellent here.

All the pay is standardized, even if you work in a crappy store. The move now with the LCBO, our governing body, is to close smaller stores and make larger, more classy stores, with wider variety. I must say, I don't think I could find even the best store here stocking 550 types of beer. Part of the problem with not being privatized is a more 'middling' selection. I know a lot of private importers who are just fed up, as the approval process to get a product listed with the LCBO is excrutiatingly long, with all the red tape. You sound lucky.

I am very lucky. Customers would walk in and be extatic becuase we carry a certain beverage that they can only find in the upper peninsula of Michigan. It's an excelent place.