Training

I had the pleasure of being unemployed for about three and a half weeks this summer. It wasn't lazy unemployment. I moved from Toronto back to my hometown of Winnipeg. I reviewed Fringe Festival shows for Ignite 107 which was a blast! Then I took a couple of days vacation before embarking on the dreaded job hunt. I printed 50 resumes with the intent of pounding the pavement for as long as it took to find a job that would be the right fit for me and my school schedule. As providence would have it I got a job at the first place I applied on the spot! Wahoo, no more traipsing about the city. (and a lot of high quality scrap paper.)

And so I've recently begun working as a server at Canadian Chain Restaurant (name changed to protect blogger). CCR is your standard corporate restaurant with a nice long menu to memorize, drink specials every day and a ton of staff. Also there is a nice looooong training period. At the risk of sounding super arrogant (which I'm not, I swear) I'm a pretty good server and a quick learner. I did NOT want to go through all the crazy stupid training stuff they were going to make me go through. I just wanted to get out onto the floor with a bunch of tables and start rollin' in the cash.

Maybe it's because I've been praying for patience a lot lately because my first couple of shifts certainly seemed like tests. Not only had I been off my feet in a real way for almost a month so my dogs were barkin' but I also had to put up with know-it-all 19 year-olds training me. I know, I'm a martyr.

Shift three comes along and lo and behold they are letting me have TWO whole tables to myself to serve and take care of for the night. Easy peasy. I get their drinks and take their orders and promptly punch them in...COMPLETELY INCORRECTLY! Miss High And Mighty (me) screws up within seconds of getting a little responsibility. I'm grateful they didn't know my attitude because my manager was gracious and so was the table.

I learned an important lesson that day. I learned that training has a purpose and to try and jump ahead or think that you know better gets you into trouble. A scuba diver with no training quickly becomes a scuba sinker. If you don't train and are not in shape to climb a mountain you could die on the way up and never get the beautiful view from the top.

SO Lesson #1: Don't skip over the lessons you learn in your life because you are going to need that knowledge later.