Celebrate New Year’s Eve with a contest about the great drunken holiday

Until the mid-1990s, I spent almost every New Year’s Eve — starting as a teenager — busing tables, waiting tables or bartending (or doing all three).

It can be a grueling night for a restaurant staffer, what with a dangerous holiday combination of booze, unrealistically high expectations (“You’re having fun, aren’t you? Why not?”) and pricey packages. For the people working, all that can add up to a lucrative night. But not always.