To be respected is not a privilege. In the past month or so, I've witnessed more than one situation in which professionals demanded respect without necessarily earning or being deserving of it. While I understand that everywhere I go there will always be an authority to answer to and rules to abide by, I don't accept that I owe respect to individuals superior to me by default. In my opinion, a uniform, title or level of experience does not guarantee respect from anyone. Let me illustrate this with my summer job.
Before getting the job that I have now, I worked in a restaurant for more than two years where I received a $1.50 raise as a result of the skills I acquired while I was there. I knew customer service, I served food, took orders, washed dishes and bussed tables. By the end of my time there I was also a cook in the kitchen. I was proud to have worked my way up in the restaurant, but I knew that I was ready for full service experience or a job where I could master new skills. This summer, I chose to apply to different places to change things up. Unfortunately, the one place that called me back was a local movie theater, where there was an opening in Concessions.
Frankly, I wasn't ecstatic about working in Concessions, but I was grateful to have a job. As a college student, I need to be earning money to help pay for tuition, and a summer job could not be put on hold in the hopes that I would find something better. I gladly accepted the position and embraced it. I went from a restaurant where I knew all of the ins and outs, to a movie theater where other young people my age had been working for at least a year or longer. Most of them are actually younger than I am and have just graduated high school. Nonetheless, they had experience in Concessions and I, at that point, had not. My depth of experience in one place no longer mattered once I was the new girl in a new place. It didn't matter that I had a year of college under my belt and most of my coworkers didn't. It didn't matter that my pay rate at my former place of employment was much higher than the pay rate I have now. I had to put the work and time in to earn respect from my coworkers, and to show them that I was willing to learn the ways of being a Concessionist so that I could be just as useful at my new job as I was at my former one. I am not above anyone.
Life gives us so many opportunities to learn new things, but just because you've made a name for yourself in one place does not mean that name will follow you wherever you go. Once an individual shows me that they are deserving of respect because of their hard work and dedication, then the utmost respect is due. Actions speak louder than words, and diligence means more than any title.
