One summer while I was in University, I was fortunate enough to get a summer job at one of the pulp mills in town. I loved it. For the first time in my life, I made good money and I wasn't in the service industry. My job itself was relatively easy and I was on shift work for the time that I was there. My role at the time was for "fire watch" and clean-up in the chip screens area of the pulp mill. Every two hours, I traveled the length of the chip screens building to make sure that everything was running and ensured that nothing was on fire. I had a selection of clean-up tasks to complete every shift and in the meantime, I monitored the computers to make sure that everything had a green light. There was lots of down time in the job and I could read, write and go for coffee with the guys and just be by myself. It was great.
Up until that point in my "career" (if we can call it that), I worked in a diner, a Chinese-food restaurant, a retail store, a non-profit organization in a retail environment (while dressed in an 18th century period costume), and a bookstore. I am exceptionally qualified to be a retail clerk and up until my summer mill job, all I have ever done was serve people. I am not saying that working in the service industry is bad. It's not bad. For me, working with people and helping them find what they were looking for or giving customers good service when they were dining out was deeply satisfying. If you are good at your job, you can make a customer's day better. You can take an unhappy person and make them happy and gain a repeat customer. You can serve good food to hungry people and make them feel that you will remember them the next time they come in. On the other hand, if you work in the service industry, you also have the ability to make a person's day significantly worse. You are having a grumpy day and you're short with your customer and then they're short with the next clerk and so on and so forth into the pissy day we go.
It's important to remember the impact that we have on one another. I am a person who has off days and sometimes I am less patient than I could be with the exceptionally slow, but kind, server at a local pub. I need to remember that everyone has off days and that we all need to be kinder to one another. Even to the fifteen year old employee at the fast-food drive-through who interrupts you to ask, "is that everything?", right as you are trying to give him or her your next order.
Although I enjoy the convenience of having a regular nine-to-five job, there is a culture that exists among shift workers and weekend retail workers that I miss not being a part of. Some shift crews will have large potlucks, great philosophical conversations and an excessive amount of fart jokes. The weekend or evening retail crews work the hardest for the nicest customers, often without managerial supervision. Still, fart jokes. They are always there and might give you the laugh that you need to make your day better. Happy Monday, Prince George. Enjoy your work week (even if it's not nine-to-five).
