During my last semester of high school, I wanted to get a part-time job to earn my own money before coming to college, as well as gain some working experience. For five months I worked at a boba store and learned quite a few things in the time that I was there.
- People are , very much so, creatures of habit - most customers will always stick to one flavor solely because they “always get that one.” These people know that there are other amazing flavors that have the potential of becoming their favorite- it’s just that they don’t want to venture out. Nothing wrong with that, though :)
- Some customers are just real assholes- they’ll walk into the store when it’s clearly rush hour, and yet they expect their drinks to be out “within five minutes.” Sorry if you haven’t noticed, but there are like 15 people ahead of you.
- Other customers become your friends- I’ve made friends with some very awesome customers that had great mannerisms and were able to carry out casual conversations with me. And believe it or not, there are perks to befriending employees :)
- You’ll run into your old friends that you haven’t seen in a very long time- some of the friends I met in the store, I haven’t seen in 4+ years. Either it was really awkward or it felt just like the good old days.
- You have to be very careful around open cans- one time I got a deep cut between my thumb and index finger from trying to fully open the lid of a red bean can with my bare hands. Btw that area is apparently called cagina (jk it's called the thenar space or perlicue but urban dictionary called it a cagina and that’s what I prefer to call it too).
- I learned how to get comfortable with speaking on the phone- for some reason I used to be terrified of talking on the phone. I remember the first couple of weeks on the job I always made my coworkers answer the phone whenever it rang. And then I started stepping out of my comfort zone and ended up being perfectly fine with it as time went on.
- Your coworkers make working so much better- they are the ones that you’ll develop inside jokes with, the ones that you’ll complain with, and in my case, play the cup song with when there aren’t any customers in the store. I also remember making weird concoctions and taste testing them with my coworkers (good times).
There were several ups and downs to working, but I overall loved my part-time job and am glad I got to learn all of these things and more.
