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Recently I was thinking back to my days when I worked part-time at a Dunkin’ Donuts. Definitely not my favorite job, but there’s a positive side to every bad situation.
Initially, I had wanted to work there because I had a friend who worked at a Dunkin Donuts and she told me she always got free coffee. So besides the paycheck and tips, I was driven by the idea of free coffee. And thus my caffeine addiction began. I worked really hard, workings closing or opening shifts, depending on my school schedule.
Learn Time Management at this Part-Time Job
Eventually, I became a permanent employee on the morning shift. This is when I discovered that I’m a morning person. It took a while to set in, but nowadays I don’t allow myself to sleep in past 8:00 on my days off.
During the morning rush, you need to be on your A game. The customers don’t stop for a couple hours straight, meaning there’s no time for your routine work of stocking and cleaning. Keeping a list in your head of what needs to be done as soon as the rush ends (after a while you just know how long these things typically go for each day).
For a morning shift, time management was important if you wanted to leave on time. However, on a closing shift time management was vital. Customers were either endless or nonexistent. There was no predictable pattern in the evening. You had to know what had to be done by what time. Otherwise, you would be stuck there an hour or more after the store is closed, hating your life, wishing you were home in bed.
I didn’t just learn time management on the job. I had acquired this job in my senior year of high school, so I was starting college within a year after being hired. That being said, I had to learn how to efficiently juggle 4 college classes and 35 hours of work each week.
It wasn’t easy at first, but I eventually nailed it and successfully graduated with my Associates Degree!
Improve Your Multitasking Ability for College and Beyond
Working in a coffee shop is definitely no joke. Between taking orders, filling those orders, stocking, and restocking materials, talking with customers, and so much more. When I started this job it was incredibly overwhelming. I just wanted to quit. Looking at all the other employees there, I noticed how easily they would glide through their shift as if it was second nature.
I put myself into the mindset of “if they can do it, I know I’ll be able to do it too.”
Soon enough, that job became second nature to me as well. I could be working on and complete multiple tasks at the same time. I’ve successfully been able to apply this newly honed in on skill into my daily life, as well as jobs that followed my Dunkin Donuts job. Being able to multitask efficiently is a seriously awesome skill. It increases your productivity levels by 1000%.
Grow Your Network So You Will Have Strong Connections Once You Graduate College
If you take anything away from reading this post, I hope it’s this point. This is the most important thing I’ve taken away from working at a coffee shop in my late teens/early twenties. I’m sure even Steve Jobs stopped at Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks for an iced coffee once in a while.
This is actually the driving reason I wrote this post. In my time working at Dunkin’ Donuts I met a handful of people who made the biggest impact on my life, launching me to where I am now. One of my regular customers turned out to be one of the Deans at my college. After some communication, he was able to put me on track to receiving a grant that covered my entire tuition for my final two semesters of college.
Another regular customer that came by I connected with over the adorable baby she had just had recently. I found out that she was a CNA, working at a big local hospital. This intrigued me since I was already planning on going into the medical field. I went ahead and became certified in January of 2016. My new friend advised me to apply for the hospital she worked at, because there was an opening on her floor. After putting in a good word for me, and some patients, that was how I landed my first hospital job as a CNA.
Working at the coffee shop in itself wasn’t the best experience I’ve ever had, but how many people can say they really enjoyed working fast food? I can absolutely say I don’t regret the experience, and what I gained from it.
What part-time job did you work while you were in college? Did you gain any important life skills from that job, or just spend every minute of working there counting down the days until graduation? Tell me about your experiences in the comments!
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