Throughout high school I bounced around between a lot of minimum wage jobs, so I've accrued a lot of experience in the daunting realm of customer service. From food to retail to reception, I've done it all, and have even held two jobs at once sometimes. I know for a fact that there are a lot of young people out there who sing the same song as me, who worked crap jobs all of high school and college to pay for their clothes, car, phone or even school. Everyone who shared this experience knows how scary and terrible customer service can be with the terrible hours, strenuous tasks, bad pay and endless string of rude or angry customers.

No matter how miserable I was in the moment, in retrospect I'm glad for those experiences, as I'm sure many other ex-waiters, table bussers and retail assistants are. In fact, I firmly believe that working those little gigs is an experience that all people should have because it definitely gives you a more grounded perspective on what it means to work for what you want and teaches common respect that many people seem to, for some reason, lack. Never again will I not throw my change in the tip jar, because I know how valuable every penny is to the person behind the counter. Now, I wouldn't even dare to yell at an employee, let alone for something out of their control, because I know how terrible it makes the other person feel. I'll always and forever greet and thank the people serving me and clean up after myself to make everyone's day a little bit easier. Before working these jobs, though, I may not have thought of these small actions that are really common courtesy. When going out with friends, you can almost always decipher who has and who hasn't worked in customer service by the way they treat the people and things around them.

So, to those of you who come from where I come from, I'm sure you understand what I'm saying. To those of you who haven't had this kind of experience, however, I implore you to open your eyes and treat the employees you interact with like the actual human beings with feelings that they are, especially in the upcoming holiday seasons when their jobs become so much more hectic.