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The First Job(s) I Ever Loved- Part 1

posted 21st December 2009    Written by: Robyn    CATEGORY: All Posts, Job/Career/Work, Quarterlife Crisis, Robyn, Season 1

When I was 14 years old I was sick of babysitting, and I was eager to earn a real paycheck. I started working at a neighborhood pizza joint to make some extra money, and that was the beginning of the rollercoaster romance I would have with the restaurant industry.

At the pizza place, I immediately felt at home. The people I worked with became my closest friends. I found myself stopping by even when I didn’t have the work. I found myself hanging out with my coworkers on the weekends when we all had the day off.

And even more strangely, when I did have to work, it never seemed like work. I just had fun with my friends while we made pizzas and served customers. I loved the fast-paced yet laid back work environment, so I continued working at the pizza place for four years until I had to leave for college. Leaving my first job felt like I was closing a huge chapter in my life, and I knew I would be coming home for the summers to get back into the restaurant industry.

Sure enough, each summer I came home to work. This time I started serving and bartending at a busy bar close to my home. Once again, I loved the work. I loved the people I saw every day—my coworkers and my customers.

Each summer when I had to leave to go back to school, I was sad to leave. Something about working at a restaurant/bar makes you feel like you are part of a team. The people you work with see you have good days and bad days. They see you get angry, stressed, sad, frustrated. Then they see you get an awesome tip, have a great shift, get hit on by that regular customer over and over again.

You help each other out when things get busy or customers get difficult. You exchange stories about what you are saving your tips for. You exchange stories about your tables and your drunken customers. You bond over the whole shared experience of working in the same restaurant or bar. You share the same feelings about your job—you complain about it, but deep down you care and love every second of it.

Eventually you become much more than coworkers and much more than a team—you become family.

Even after graduating from college and starting a “real” job, I missed the restaurant industry so much that I started working one weekend night a week at a restaurant close to my apartment in the city. There I found the same close-knit team and fulfilled that personal need while doing the whole 9-to-5.

My younger sister, Holly, just graduated from college and is preparing to move back home until she finds a job. With my new flexible work schedule, I was able to spend last week in Iowa City helping her pack and move out of her apartment. In between jamming boxes full of clothes and giving resume advice and job interview tips, we took a break to grab a beer at the bar she has been bartending at for the past year.

Holly talked about how much she was going to miss the bar, her coworkers, and the regular customers. While she had started bartending for the money, the bar had turned into much more than her workplace. It had become her second home and the people she worked with became her second family.

It made me remember my days in the restaurant industry. I’m not sure how many readers have worked as servers or bartenders, but it’s something I would definitely recommend. There is no other job like it, and I am a firm believer that people who have worked in this industry are all-around better workers, better communicators, and better people.

I started in the restaurant industry more than 10 years ago. The person I am now is completely different from that person who first walked into that pizza place.

The industry shaped me and forced me to open up to people and new relationships and, ultimately, changed me for the better.

photo credit : star3112

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