Four summers ago, as a 16-year-old, I didn't realize that getting a summer job would be the best thing to ever happen to me. All I knew walking into my first day of my very first job was that my mom was making me give up my summer to fold T-shirts for eight hours straight so I could make my own money and “learn a little responsibility." *eye roll* Little did I know, that in the hell that is retail, I would meet some of the best friends I have ever had.

Our first summer working together, it was obviously awkward. None of us knew how to be the first one to introduce ourselves. Instead, we would make small talk about the pains of employment as one was clocking in and the other was clocking out. On top of that, we didn’t have our licenses, so asking our parents to drive us to hang out with strangers was seriously way too much effort (not to mention eight-hour workdays left us way too tired to function).

Then came the second summer, when we returned for round two of our first job, but this time as veterans. The comfort in knowing what we were doing this time around, with the added bonus of being licensed drivers, caused us to strengthen our friendship after finally working up the courage to hang outside of work.

It has now been four years since I’ve met my best friends.

We have spent countless hours on the beach trying to catch the lifeguards’ attention. We’ve sneaked Mike's Hard into the basement when we thought our parents weren’t looking. We’ve since moved out of retail (smartest decision we’ve ever made) and now have PTSD from our first place of employment. We’ve taken each other on dinner dates, because boyfriends and summer flings are overrated. We’ve eaten one too many ice creams and an embarrassing amount of s’mores, because "beach bods" are also very much overrated. We’ve taken an unhealthy number of Snapchat stories whenever we find the energy to rally and do something spontaneous. We’ve visited each other in our respective home cities because it is literally impossible to wait for summer to reunite us. And on top of all of those things, our four-year-old group chat remains active throughout the annoyingly cold winter months when we don’t even recognize each other without our tans.

I am beyond lucky for awkward introductions, eight-hour workdays, and destroyed T-shirt displays, because if we didn’t have something to complain about we would probably not be sitting on the couch together at this very moment.