I work at a resort on Sebago Lake in Maine called Migis (pronounced ‘my-ghis’) Lodge. Migis lives up to its unique name: the Abenaki word means “a place to steal away and rest”, and the website describes the property as “35 cottages nestle[d] amid 125 acres of pine forest, stretching along 3,500 feet of Sebago Lake shoreline in southern Maine”.

A much smaller version of the property began in 1916 (that’s right, this is its 100th birthday), and the doors have been open ever since.

The Main Lodge in 1942

The Main Lodge now

There are many different places to work at Migis: you could work in the kitchen, the front desk, be a cabin boy, a babysitter, waterski teacher, housekeeper, you name it. We’re basically our own town with staff to provide for anything a guest might possibly need, so they can leave their car keys on the dresser and not think about them again until it’s time to go home. As for me, I work in the dining room as a server.

The dining room

We do a lot of different things to keep meals interesting: Breakfast Cookouts on Sundays, Island Cookouts (yes, Migis has an island) on Wednesdays, Lobster Bakes on Fridays. But I think we’re most known for our sit-down dinners, where gentlemen are required to wear jackets and collared shirts and guests are served a five-course meal. One of the owners, Tim, says that though the dress code may seem “archaic”, people would complain if the rule suddenly disappeared, and I completely agree with him.

You see, one of the things that makes Migis so special is that a large percentage of the people we host in the summer have been here before. Parents will come with their kids and make it their big vacation of the year, and when the kids grow up, they bring their own families. Some guests have been coming for over forty years, and many generations congregate and compare how Migis has changed over the years, or, more importantly, how it hasn’t changed.

The biggest part of my job at Migis is being as hospitable as I possibly can. When I first started as a server in 2015, my goal was to provide guests with excellent service; after all, they’re paying quite a lot to be here, so I want to make sure they’re getting what they paid for. With no previous waitressing experience, I didn’t think there was anything more to it — as long as I took orders correctly and paid attention to bring out the food in a timely manner, I would be fine. And I did provide very good service if I do say so myself — even if I forgot something, or messed up, people were forgiving because they saw how hard I worked, how hard I tried.

But service and hospitality are two very different things, and you kind of need hospitality in the hospitality industry. Otherwise, it would be called the service industry. Service is “the occupation or function of serving” — it’s an action, what I do to you (which is, take your order and serve you food). Hospitality, however, is “generous and friendly treatment of visitors and guests” — it’s the relationship between employee and guest. For me, it’s having conversations with the people I serve, asking them where they’ve traveled from, how old their kids are, what they did that day. It’s remembering how an elderly woman takes her evening coffee so I don’t even have to ask. It’s recognizing that a family who has never been to Migis before might not know about everything we offer, and explaining to them how they have unlimited access to kayaks, canoes, tennis courts, hiking trails, etc.

Hospitality is going the extra step to make a guest happy — from being able to always accommodate a need to making someone feel like they’re a part of something special. At Migis, that’s the reason generation after generation comes to vacation with us. Sure, there could be another business that has a rich history, fine dining, luxurious cabins, and waterfront activities for all ages; they can recreate what Migis has, the things we do, even the uniforms we wear. But there’s no copying who we are — people who put guests first, who want the guests to enjoy their stay as fully as possible, who want to make families turn Migis into a family tradition.

When I was first looking for a summer job, I knew I needed money. I wanted to buy clothes, new books…you know, things geeky teenagers want but their parents won’t buy for them anymore. I was hired at Migis and knew I would have a lot of learning to do since I had no work experience. What I didn’t know was that I would be learning so much more than just how to be a waitress, even a good one. I was learning how to empathize.

Things go wrong. I make mistakes, like forgetting that I put toast in the toaster for a guest, and twenty minutes later, he’s hungrily complaining, “Where’s my toast??” And sure, sometimes people aren’t very nice and they overreact a little and ask for the manager over a piece of bread, and I got annoyed. But imagine if it was eight in the morning and you were excited to go down to the beach, or you just wanted to read a book on the terrace, and ordered some toast for breakfast. Something quick and easy so you could start your day. And that toast never came. So not only was your day of relaxation delayed, which would be annoying, you were hungry. Or, as the kids these days phrase it, hangry. When I’m hungry and someone screws up with my food, I’m not always very nice either. So I get it.

That’s a really small, pretty silly example of something that’s so important in life, but I think it works because I’m kind of a silly person. And my friends love the story of Toast Guy. But, really, being able to empathize with someone is an incredibly valuable quality. And that’s the biggest difference between service and hospitality.

Why is this so important? Why am I writing an article about it on the Odyssey, where my main audience is teens and young adults my age? Because hospitality extends beyond its industry: learning how to empathize and understand why a person feels the way they do is a lifelong skill that lends itself to any aspect of life, any interaction. Sometimes, in the midst of drama when politicians and celebrities say the wrong thing, we can forget to put ourselves in their shoes. We probably wouldn’t like to live their lives as much as we might think. And when you go to a restaurant, or a store, or the bank, you don’t remember the employee who gave you your food, helped you checkout, or deposited your check, you remember the one who asked you about your day and where you’re from, who actually cared more about you than your money. The one who made you feel good.

I want to be the employee that makes people feel good, and I love working at Migis because everyone else does, as well. If everybody thought that way and tried to act that way, we probably wouldn’t be as angry when people make mistakes, and live happier.