This summer, I got my first real job working for a charming, seasonally opened restaurant located on the coast of Connecticut. The small community around it is where I've been spending my summers for the last 13 years and I couldn't imagine it any other way. The job I took in the "casino" as we call it, feels sort of like a rite of passage. As I grew up here, I'd see the older kids in the area working there and I always thought to myself how much fun it would be to have such a wonderful job; scooping ice cream, making big pots of coffee, but most of all, seeing all of the people and getting to know them, too. I thought that it would be a great experience for life in general, and that it would also be fun at the same time.
When I finally got the job this summer, I found out that all of my presumptions were, in fact, correct.
First of all, there is something special and exciting about working in a job that isn't babysitting. It feels like you're finally moving up, moving out of the tweens and teens and into real (young) adulthood. Luckily for me, this job isn't one of those nightmare first job experience stories that you sometimes hear.
Of course as a first-year employee, I have to take out the garbage, do the dishes a lot, sweep the floor and other things like that, but you've gotta start somewhere, right?
This fall, I'll be going to college to study psychology. I've always defined myself as a "people person" and I've been that way for my entire life. So working in a restaurant isn't really what I'm going for career wise. But while the actual work I've been doing isn't necessarily what I want to do for the rest of my working life, the interactions with people and the communication I've been able to have are.
What I learned from my experience at the casino is that while I may not be making homemade Caesar dressing or frying chicken tenders 20 years from now, I can use this experience to help me in the future with whatever it is that I choose to do with my degree. It all adds up if you make it add up.
Overall, I take so much pride in the fact that I am working in the casino, improving my skills and myself this summer!