It takes a special kind of person to enjoy working in a restaurant. Whether you are in the front of the house, or the back of the house, you spend 90% of your shift getting yelled at by customers, servers or managers. Examples of this include (but are certainly not limited to) “EXCUSE ME MISS [insert mistake the kitchen made which you have no control over],” or “Really? An hour wait? There’s a table right there,” and my personal favorite, “Can I speak to your manager?” Despite these bone-chilling phrases, it is the other 10% of the time that makes you realize how much you love working in a restaurant and allows you to appreciate the lessons you have learned from it.

1. Everyone Makes Mistakes: Be Patient

I try my absolute hardest to always be patient with people because no one is perfect. However, some people lack this basic quality and react poorly to other’s mistakes. During my first night on the floor in a new restaurant I was trying to reach around plates and silverware to put down drinks when my tray just sort of… tipped and I spilled lemonade all over the side of a woman. Now, I understand being upset, I mean you’re wet and sticky, but she was livid and screaming about how she had to go home and change and that her night was ruined. I apologized a thousand times and cleaned her up, all while on the verge of tears until every server and manager in the restaurant told me their terrifying stories of spilling cocktails on party-goers and coffee on a baby. Now, I’m not saying it’s okay to be clumsy when serving, but it just proves no one is perfect and we need to be understanding when mistakes happen.

2. A Fake Smile Will Eventually Become a Real Smile

Everyone knows what it is like to have a horrible day and how hard it is to snap out of a bad mood. Unfortunately, if you are a server, you’re not allowed to have a bad day. If you are, you can never let it show. Many of us have mastered the art of fake laughing, and smiling from ear to ear when a child is throwing sugars and food all over the ground, but trust me it’s not always easy. Typically that smile you are putting on turns into a scowl the moment you walk into the kitchen and typically is followed by a slew of profanities, because people can really suck. However, I have come to learn that no matter how hard you fight it, that fake smile and giddy laugh will become a real, genuine one at some point in the night. So remember, always “fake it until you make it” because no bad mood is worth a bad tip (and you really will be happier).

3. It Is Okay To Depend on Your Co-Workers

Nearly every job promotes teamwork in order to be more successful, but restaurants are a little different. We spend 12 hour shifts together on a Friday, only to get home at midnight and go back to work ten hours later to do it all over again. Our lives tend to be consumed by our jobs, therefore working well with each other is not an option, rather it is an absolute necessity. If someone comes to work upset it is very difficult to hide, and it is even more difficult to keep a secret in a kitchen that is the size of your bedroom. This is probably why most restaurant employees find themselves in the middle of a very dysfunctional family. Whether you appear to be the weirdo cousin everyone has to put up with, the cool aunt all the girls go to for advice, or the general manager who is literally referred to as “dad,” you are an essential part of the family. You depend on your family to be happy and successful, so why not depend on the co-workers who become your family, as well?

All in all, I cannot imagine the person I would be today if I had never started working in a restaurant when I was 15 years old. I know I would have learned these lessons otherwise but maybe not to the same degree, or maybe I would not appreciate them as much as I do. I have learned what it is like to make mistakes, or how to force myself to be happy when I want to cry, most importantly I learned that you can find a family in unexpected places.