Dan Grover, a senior majoring in English, is a Hatchet columnist.
It’s time to come clean: I’ve been lying about what I’ve been doing all summer. Well, actually, it’s more of a lie by omission.
Every time someone asks me what I’ve been up to, I feel the need to hedge, hide and dodge the fact that I’m just working. I’m not doing anything spectacular for a company or internship — I’m a part-time cashier at a local grocery chain.
It’s easy to get bogged down in the details of whether or not a part-time job is “worth it,” since there’s constant pressure to make sure that everything we do is worth the investment. But the idea of “worth” is subjective, and internships and fellowships aren’t always attainable for everyone.
I’m hardly the first person to work a minimum-wage job. In fact, a lot of people end up “just working” if their original plan falls through or as they try to figure out a long-term career. But it’s unfortunate that sometimes “work” feels like a dirty word, since there’s a lot that students can gain valuable life lessons and skills from having a part-time job.
Let me give a more concrete example. If you’re working in retail, no one cares if you’re having a bad day when you come in to work. Customers are still going to demand excellent service, no matter what, and they won’t be shy about telling you so (Once, a customer told one of my coworkers, “Smile, it won’t kill you”). There’s no real web of authority or respect to protect you when you work in retail or food service, so you learn to check your problems at the door.
The result is that I’ve gotten very good at leaving behind my feelings about, well, almost everything. When I’m at work, I’m at work. Dissociating like that is a skill I’ve found enormously useful in getting things done.
Along that same vein, “just working” sharpens one’s interpersonal communication skills better than anything else. Every interaction you have with a customer or a coworker comes right back to you. It becomes your job to represent not only yourself the best that you can, but the company as well.
My friends will tell you that I’ve always been a talker, but after working at this job I have no problem starting a conversation with almost anyone. I’ve learned to find points of common ground, even if they may not be obvious, and it’s surprising what people will be willing to share in a grocery line.
Retail also teaches you how to make quick judgments — like “Could I be selling alcohol to someone underage?” or “What do I do about this person who’s belligerent because we don’t have their favorite butter?” And once you make a decision you learn to stick to it, and then defend it.
These are only a few of what I call “Cashiering Life Lessons.” Every part-time job has a unique set of skills and lessons to be learned.
It’s easy to spend a lot of time worrying about if something is “worth” your time, and if it’ll reflect well on you later. But even things that most would assume are useless — like working ingloriously as a cashier at a local grocery chain — can have a way of leaving an incredible mark.
