I will never forget my first job, and I'll never be able to thank the people I worked with enough for there guidance, friendships, and influence in my life.

Getting a first job is scary, yet so exciting. My very first job taught me so many valuable lessons about life, work ethic, and how to deal with people, all while having a great time and learning how to master the perfect Dairy Queen curl (it’s harder than it looks people, I promise). I was forced to get my first job by my parents, but little did I know it would be one of the most beneficial learning experiences I have ever had.

But trust me, not just everyone can work at Dairy Queen. It takes a cone master, a blizzard-blending expert, or, what I would like to consider myself, the Dairy Queen herself... (Ask my friends; I really am the Dairy Queen.) So if you ever worked at Dairy Queen, hopefully you can relate to some of these points below. Enjoy my article, my fellow Dairy Queen Queens and Kings!

When you first got the job, you were scared stiff.

You adapted quickly and learned all the recipes faster than you ever expected to.

Working at Dairy Queen was prime time for making mistakes, but learning from them right away.

Your coworkers had your back every second of every day.

Your regular customers had a special place in your heart.

Serving baseball teams was absolutely no fun, to be honest.

People who ordered cakes through the drive through were public enemy number one.

You had that one boy on your staff who was super hot, but he friendzoned all of the girls for the sanity of his job.

When a hot boy was at the drive through, a store-wide **EMERGENCY HOT BOY AT WINDOW ALERT** was set off via headset so all your fellow Dairy Queens were able to see his fine self.

Your coworkers turned into your best friends.

Although an eight hour shift seemed so long, time went by so fast, because you were with your best friends having the time of your life.

When a new person was hired, we all tried to intimidate them, because truthfully, it wasn’t our owners deciding if the new people were capable of the title Dairy Queen or Dairy King, it was our job to decide.

You learned a lot about people while working at Dairy Queen.

People will literally judge the size of your cone even after you're like, "Well, a small cone is 5 oz, and your cone is 5.5 oz, so if you’d like me to scoop off that extra 0.5 oz, I would be more than willing to…"

Writing on cakes was a true art.

Dairy Queen was life, Dairy Queen was love.

The truth is my high school days serving up a blizzard and some cones at the local Dairy Queen are far behind me, but the lessons I learned while working at Dairy Queen have only prepared me for the life I am currently living away at college, aiming for an incredible career in my desired major. I am more than thankful for the lessons and the friendships I gained from Dairy Queen. Although my fellow crew members and I have all went separate directions in life, I am still so incredibly fortunate for the summers spent with them, and all the hours clocked trying to make the best products possible.

I'll never be able to pay Dairy Queen back for all it taught me, but sometimes I cant help but allow myself to go through the Dairy Queen drive through, get a small vanilla cone with a beautiful curl on top, and allow that to take me back to all the good times Dairy Queen has given me.