You might be comparing apples to oranges. You were a barback and not a
bartender. Did you have any schooling when you worked as a barback? Did you
have your "BARCODE" or TIPS certificate. If you did than you might have been
treated differently. If you were a schooled bartender working as a barback
than I appologize.
"Bartending will teach you nothing about bartending", I tend to disagree. If
you work as a barback at many places I know you do everything except take
money and make and serve drinks. A number of places when I went looking for a
job said they DID THERE OWN BARBACKING and they had three bartenders working.
(That place had the longest bar I have seen yet.) So barbacking will help you
be a bartender at a place like that, if you have had both the schooling and
the barbacking as opposed to just coming out of school.