I firmly believe that it should be required for every person to work at least six months in food service or retail at some point in their life. Working at a restaurant for the past two years has transformed me as a person and taught me some of the most important lessons I keep to this day. Overall, I’d say I definitely have enjoyed my time working in the food service industry, but that doesn’t mean it is always easy–especially when I first started working two years ago. Here are two important lessons I’ve learned from working that I now carry with me in everyday life.
Stop taking things personally
I had trouble handling criticism from my peers when I was younger. I took everything people said about me to heart and couldn’t handle someone not liking me. However, a few months into working, I had a breakthrough moment that changed my outlook on criticism completely.
One day, I was watching my manager bring out an order to a woman. The woman took a glance at her plate and immediately started yelling at my manager because she had forgotten to bring out her cream cheese. If I was in my manager’s shoes I probably would’ve gotten visibly annoyed at the customer and maybe even argued back. But my manager just looked at the customer, giving her a full smile and responding “I’m so sorry about that. Let me get your cream cheese for you” in a cheerful and unbothered tone.
I watched the complaining woman’s face. It was an expression of utter disappointment. She was clearly looking to get a rise out of my manager, and yet was unable to break her. Even though my manager didn’t deserve to be yelled at for such a minor mistake, she didn’t take any of it personally and thus didn’t feel the need to argue with this customer.
From that moment on, I have found satisfaction from reacting positively to negative feedback that I receive at work, and in life. A lot of times, people criticize or yell strictly to put others down or feel superior to those around them. Instead of giving them what they want by pushing back, I’ve found it’s better to just take their words on the chin, and move on. This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t listen to criticism, just that you shouldn’t let it hold you down emotionally.
Enter the Flow State
I’m not sure if this is the exact definition, but I see the flow state as the state of being so locked into an activity that you lose the awareness that you are even doing that activity in the first place. When working any job, but especially service, this skill is paramount, because counting the minutes of the shift just makes the time go by much slower.
It took time to develop, but after working enough hours of doing the exact same tasks repeatedly I eventually developed the ability to clean floors, clear plates and even talk to customers all without thinking. This isn’t to say that my mind was blank, just that I could be having an imaginary argument in my head about whether the Bears should trade Justin Fields, while subsequently telling a customer where the bathroom is.
The flow state not only passes time quicker, but also helps with dealing with pressure situations. Both restaurants I have worked at have been at the mall, which means there are random times in each shift when the restaurant becomes packed with hungry families. Before I had access to the flow state, I would become stressed and start rushing to work as fast as possible due to the amount of customers in the restaurant. This rushing and anxiousness led to mistakes in my work and ended up slowing me down in the long run. However, now I can simply enter the flow state, and I hardly notice the large crowds of people. I just complete one task at a time like normal and before I know it the crowd is gone.
The flow state has helped me through long shifts and also through some of life’s challenges. When a teacher assigns busy work I can enter the flow state and it’s as if the work does itself. When I’m taking a test, the flow state helps me not get into my head about messing up. When I’m playing a sport the flow state keeps me level. The ability to not overwhelm myself is important, and I can thank working a service job for that.
Working in food service has been the most transformative experience of my life and has taught me so many more lessons than just these two. While sometimes challenging, I’ll always be thankful for my time behind the counter.
