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Writer Marius Goubert looks at weekend binge drinking in Bristol. Part two of a three part series. Read part one here

Who needs another unconstructive self-righteous rant about how degenerate the whole thing is? It’s all you seem to get nowadays, particularly in the tabloids. My, how they love to expose the seedy underbelly of contemporary Britain with three page specials on the sordid horrors of binge drinking. How eagerly The Sun like to serve up the holiday snaps of Eastern Europeans who tour Britain’s town centres on a Friday night and marvel at the degradation like they’re on some demented safari.

I wish I could I say they were just getting on their high horse. But the truth is, when I found myself serving customers on my first Saturday nightshift in a Bristol late night fast food joint, I remember feeling like some raw recruit who’d just parachuted into the middle of a warzone.

At every thud against the front door glass, every hurled sandwich, and in the face of every raving customer, I winced in terror. When someone ran in shouting inarticulately with blood pouring down their face, grabbed a wad of napkins, and ran straight into the street again, or when someone’s order made no sense, or when some drunken play-fight escalated into a punch up on the shop floor, I had no idea what to do.

The total absurdity of my training, which had consisted of how to neatly cut a baguette, what promotional offers to push, and how to greet customers correctly, was soon clear. Indeed, as I found myself utterly exhausted and horribly exposed to the writhing crowd as things culminated in the 2AM rush hour, I’d try to convince myself it was all a kind of anthropological experiment - ‘I am Louis Theroux, I am Louis Theroux’– until, slowly, I started getting used to it.

After six months or so, if someone was too drunk to make an order, I gave them steak or chicken. If two people decided to strip to the waist and start brawling, I pretended not to notice, and carried on working even with one of their discarded T-shirts on my head. When girls came in begging to use the toilet, I said it was broken.

When a man screamed that I was guilty of false advertising and was going to sue because I’d run out of Parmesan Oregano Bread, I scrawled a random phone number on a napkin and told him to ring head office. When people threw food I ducked, and every morning at exactly 3AM, I locked the door no matter how many people banged, kicked, punched and spat at me from the pavement outside.

Next week: Marius takes the red pill...

Marius Goubert is a freelance writer with his eye on Bristol and beyond.

Please note, the opinions expressed above are those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect those of Guide2Bristol.