Coffee Talk: Lessons From Bad Jobs

Oct 15, 2012

Coffee Talk: Lessons From Bad Jobs

Waiting tables at Medieval Times. Serving Ice Cream. Popping popcorn. Everyone’s had that god-awful, can’t-wait-to-quit job when they are first starting out in the working world. They’re singed in our memories as the places we can never go back to, but also as the locales where we learned our first professional lessons. Learn to manage expectations as a hostess? Multitask as babysitter/house cleaner/personal assistant? We want to know: What’s the best lesson you learned from your worst job?

image via

elizabeth fitzgerald

http://answertheunasked.blogspot.com/ JMill

Take a job based on the people you work with. If you plan to be there for a while (not an internship, or just a stepping stone to your ‘real’ career), make sure you like the people. I say that you can do the worst of jobs as long as you have the best of people!

Make no excuses. Give your boss no reason to need to call you out. Be early instead of on-time.

Address problems as they arise. If you bottle things up, nothing will get better AND you’re likely to explode.
http://andreachavezdelgado.wordpress.com/ Andrea

Basically, I´m learning that is the only way to get started. One could dream about a “Devil wears Prada entry level job” but the truth is quite different. In fact… very different. Actually the career examples that you guys display in here seem like to far away sometimes. I was putting so much pressure on me, because I wanted to desperately reach one of these dream lifes that actually just led to a denial about any “god-awful” job, thinking that it wasn´t what suits me. Is a learning lesson… and I´m still trying to get that.
http://www.katskull.com Kat Skull

Working in any type of customer service defines the phrase “take everything with a grain of salt”. You will meet so many different people (at a grocery store) and one shouldn’t take the comments personally even if the transaction goes awry.
Kristen B

I definitely learned to stand up for myself and not fear confrontation. After working with an older boss who required that I, the youngest on the team, take all the late/weekend/OT shifts, I learned to stand up to him and provide alternate ideas on how to cover those shifts without him relying solely on me. It has helped immensly in my new job to help talk about the “sticky” stuff like pay/work schedules/time off/lazy co-workers.
Deonnahd

When I graduated high school, I got a job at a restaurant so I could have a little pocket change when I left for college. The servers that were working were working there to make ends meet for families. Many of them had rough pasts that they shared with me. It just made me realize how great my age was and were I was in life and how quickly I would soon grow up!
when we wander

Working at a coffee shop and a restaurant taught me how to be a people person. How to create small talk and smile nicely even whilst dealing with the most impolite of people.
http://www.whenwewander.blogspot.com
Rory

I took my last internship just because it was the first internship that I got accepted to and I felt like I had to take it. I had to move three hours away from my friends, boyfriend, and favorite city to a smaller less known place. I ended up moving back after three months because I was just too unhappy.
I learned to never jump into a job or any situation without thinking of the consequences, I know am very careful about the opportunities I take advantage of. I make sure that I am comfortable with the opportunity and that it benefits my well being.
Chloe Benett

Worst job: Hostess at an insanely busy restaurant across from a courthouse. Not only did we get antsy lawyers we got mean cops as well.

Answer: Under promise. When you tell someone their table will be ready in 20 minutes and it’s ready in 15 they are incredibly happy. So now as an Advertising exec for a large Ad Agency I always deliver early, thanks to my nifty under promise rule.
http://elembee.com/ Lisa // Elembee

Benefits are really important — I left my first job for a higher-paying, more stable position, but the benefits were terrible. I don’t want to say I regret taking the job, because I learned a lot and it’s the reason I started my own business, but if I had been planning to stay in the area I was living in long-term, it would have been better to stick with my old job. I had to wait 11 months to be eligible for their healthcare, didn’t have sick days, and only accumulated 3 vacation days after almost a year there. It definitely wasn’t worth the extra salary.
Elizabeth

Even if you work for a complete sociopath narcissist (like I did), always take the high road when quitting or ending a professional relationship. NEVER burn bridges if you can avoid it.
http://www.thebrandingmuse.com/ Branding Muse

Having a bad job has taught me about what I do not want from an employer. I have learned the value of analyzing a good benefits package, employee retention strategies and being valued in a company. The terrible experience I had taught me about what to look for when I am applying for other jobs and remember that working somewhere I love is more important than how much I make.
http://jessinbelgium.wordpress.com/ Jess {JessinBelgium}

Good or bad, things always looks different from someone else’s perspective. Step out of your own shoes the next time something is hard at work and you might come up with a way to solve it.
AllyBee

I’ve learned that that is something that I don’t want to ever do again lol
http://bethesong.blogspot.com/ Dree

The restaurant manager in my first waitressing job always told me to “play smart”. I realised what he meant one day when I returned to my waitressing job after I finished a part-time shift at another restaurant. I walked into work, my face puffy and red from crying because I had been yelled at by the chefs all day. I hadn’t done anything wrong, but they were frustrated with their working situations and I was the lucky scapegoat. When my restaurant manager saw that I had been crying, he told me that I was making a big mistake by not playing smart. Instead of taking their anger and covering up their refusal to cook food, and then dealing with angry customers, I should have stepped back and let a manager deal with the situation they had created. As the newest waitress, taking the brunt of the anger wasn’t the most pleasant experience. Playing smart also means not giving away too much information at work – it’s amazing what people will use to try to get ahead. I also consider “playing smart” to be learning what you can about your job so you can stand behind it and be known as reliable.
http://profile.yahoo.com/JZWC7LTQT7HSKRHMGPG7XFQ7JA Anna

I never struggled too much with my pre-college graduation jobs (i.e. swiping gym cards, serving drinks on a golf course, and wiping snot off children) because I knew they had an expiration date – I was going to graduate and get a better, “real” job eventually, so the temporary frustration was bearable.

But when I had a series of “real” jobs after college, I realized they were not a ticket to feeling better. Instead they were tear-inducing, mind-numbing, and so so so frustrating at times.

The biggest lesson I learned that is no matter how soul-sucking a job feels, there is always something valuable to learn from it.

Also, terrible jobs don’t have to last forever, finding a different position is always an option!
Rlhebein

My worst job was a temporary job at a condominium the summer after my freshmen year of college. I was a hired as a temp and told I was going to be a secretary, however upon arrival they took me to a large office in the basement and told me the property manager had quit suddenly and I would be taking her place. It was such a steep learning curve with no one to teach me the ropes, and I dreaded my phone messages from tenants with leaks, cracking walls and yes, even bats in my unit complaints. Over time however the complaints and the questions started repeating and I finally got my footing. Even though it was very stressful it taught me great time management skills and how to deal efficiently and fairly with people’s concerns.
Sarah

Learn to pick your battles and know when to assert yourself. Also, know that bad situations won’t last forever and taking the initiative to gain marketable skills will pay off.
quasimomo

sometimes you learn a lot about what you DON’T want to do for a living, and that is half the battle! i worked at horrible law offices and advertising agencies during and right out of college, and hated the long hours and ridiculous egos. those experiences helped me rule out professions until i honed in what i wanted to do. i also learned to have confidence in my intellect and capabilities and stand up for myself (eventually; this was a hard lesson to learn, in all honesty.) good luck to all job seekers out there!
Shannon Drake

Trying to learn that no matter how long you have been out of high school there are still the women, and sometimes men, that are caddy and like to create drama in the work environment. Before I quit my job, that I stayed at for 2 months=worst experience, to start my own company we had a ‘pow wow’ at the end of my first week. True story. Our boss called the 5 women (ages from 20-30) into her office so we could has out the drama that was going around. Me being the new girl of 5 days I had no idea what was going on. From then on we had those wonderful ‘pow wows’ weekly. I just kept my mouth shut for 2 months and sat back and watch this craziness unfold.

Needless to say it gave me the final push for me to get the heck out of there are work for myself.

http://www.dylandrake.blogspot.com
janine

When I worked a job that I really and truly hated, I learned that I needed an action plan in order to get out of it. I wasn’t going to quit without having something else lined up, and I didn’t want to quit for another job that I was going to hate. This forced me to not only make a plan for when I was going to quit, but also to start researching many different fields to help me understand what the best next move for me would be. Just starting on the process of finding my next job was liberating; I was already beginning to move on. I ended up taking a position that was great for me for many reasons, but the best part was being happy at my job.
http://steelpetalpress.com/ Shayna – Steel Petal Press

I waited table for many many years. I learned a smile and a good attitude can go a long way. Swallow your pride and work hard, the world doesn’t owe you any favors.