With a brand new driver’s license in my hand and the freedom of almost-adulthood on my mind, I jumped right into the job search the first week of the summer before my senior year of high school. Eager for the independence that would accompany my own money, I spent very little time thinking through my options for summer employment and accepted the first job offer that I received. Within a few days, I was wearing a white dress shirt with a black bowtie, and answering the phone saying, “Having a great day at Steak ‘n' Shake, this is Anna, how can I help you?”

Going into the job, I was confident that I was going to walk right in and be capable of exceeding all of my co-workers’ expectations. I was very wrong. I learned quickly that I was going to have to both sharpen and develop skills for time management, crisis management, patience, and organization. I had to learn to work with other people, many of whom did not want to be there any more than I did. I had to be a quick thinker, a problem solver, and an expert on everything you could possibly put on a double with cheese. To be blunt about it, my job kicked my butt.

After several weeks, I started having nightmares about the four-dollar menu and irate customers (I wish I was kidding). I began to ever-so-affectionately refer to my place of work as “Steak ‘n' Hell,” because if I had died and gone straight to hell, it would have taken me a week to realize that I wasn’t at work anymore. Few people wanted to work as a team, managers had an extremely high turnover rate, and the establishment could not afford to shut down to retrain staff members for a day.

Despite the struggle that my crappy job turned out to be, it did equip me with several long-term lessons.

My crappy job motivated me to reach farther for better things.

On my first day, I immediately knew that I did not ever want to speak the words, “Hi, my name is Anna and I have been with Steak ‘n' Shake for 15 years.”

I worked with so many people who had the potential to achieve more, but they let themselves fall victim to their comfort zones. As the saying goes, “a comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there.” I learned quickly how important it is to be thankful for and to take advantage of all opportunities presented to me that would allow me to grow as a person. While acting upon an opportunity always presents a risk for failure, I have found that I would rather try and fail than to watch chances for improvement go by.

My crappy job taught me how to stand up for myself.

It did not take me very long to figure out that there were people at my job that did not want me to succeed. If I made decent tips that night, it would frustrate other servers. If I handled a situation well, I felt tension grow between myself and my more experienced colleagues. Even after working there for several months, I still felt like “the new girl.” I was still getting assigned to sections of the restaurant that were notorious for being “low-tip” areas. I took these assignments as an indication of my own poor performance, and confronted a manager to see what I needed to improve on. He assured me that this was not a reflection of a lack of skills, and had my assignment changed. He then told me, “Have confidence. If you let yourself get pushed around, you will not improve.”

I believe that is something that applies to much more than just surviving Steak ‘n' Shake.

My crappy job gave me an appreciation for the service industry that I did not previously have.

Before working as a server, I tended to blame solely my waiters/waitresses for long waits, cold food, and any other problem that could potentially occur while dining out. I would make my discontentment apparent in the tip I left, or lack thereof. I now know how completely rude and unfair that was for me to do.

Your experience at any sit-down restaurant should be attributed to an entire network of people. Your experience at any sit-down restaurant should be attributed to how well the computer system that communicates between the kitchen and the servers is working on that particular day. Your experience at any sit-down restaurant should be attributed to whoever showed up to work that day, as well as whoever decided not to show up without calling in.

So many things factor into how a restaurant is running, and the server is just the face that gets put on the final product. While there are certainly problems that stem from servers, I now know that more than half the time, I shouldn’t take out my frustration on my server.

My crappy job showed me the importance of working as a team.

To elaborate on my previous point, everything that happens in a restaurant is based on a chain reaction. Hostesses send information to servers, who relay information from customers to the kitchen. Next, multiple people in the kitchen work on separate parts of an order, and then come back together to supply that product back to the server. The server again interacts with the customer, who later interacts with the cashier. Someone comes to clean the tables, and somebody is in charge of making sure that dishes are constantly getting cleaned (the biggest nightmares happened when this part of the system was not running correctly). A manager overlooks all of this to ensure that it runs smoothly. A computer works as a (often faulty) middleman between the server and the kitchen. When one part of the system fails, the whole thing often comes crashing down.

I learned how imperative it is to make sure that I am performing my role in the process as accurately as possible. My actions affect so much more than just myself or the customer.

My crappy job encouraged me to stop complaining and change something.

I was initially hesitant to quit my job, because it felt too much like “giving up.” I told myself over and over again that what doesn’t kill me will only make me stronger, but eventually I realized that my job was not doing either of those things. I was neither advancing nor regressing as a server, but going to a job where I was unhappy was exhausting, and draining. Finally, I realized that complaining about how terrible I thought my job was never going to help anything, and I knew that the only person that could change my situation was me. I classified my job as something in my life that was “high risk, low return” and I wrote a letter of resignation.

When friends suggest that we grab lunch at Steak ‘n' Shake, I smile and shake my head, saying that I can’t, because my PTSD will get too bad. While that’s just a little exaggerated, the 224 days I spent at Steak ‘n' Shake definitely challenged me far more than I had expected. I am thankful that I am able to transfer the skills I gained there to other areas of life, including a job that I am now excited to be connected to. The lessons I learned at Steak ‘n' Shake will resonate with me far longer than I had ever anticipated.