Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff

Fall of my sophomore year in college I started my first job — a barista at the campus coffee shop, Sparty’s. I was excited to finally be making minimum wage and have some semblance of responsibility. Those responsibilities included making coffee, heating up sandwiches on the panini press, manning the cash register, and stocking the shelves. This job was par for the course as far as minimum wage jobs are concerned.

With this being my first job, I was excited to prove my worth and show my hard working skillset to my coworkers and customers. It was my first job; of course I was going to be a hard worker! I had goals of moving up into Sparty’s marketing department, which meant I needed to succeed as a barista and make others notice my work ethic.

I worked at a variety of Sparty’s locations across campus, all of which varied in terms of traffic and rush periods. For the most part, right around noon was a very busy time. Students wanted to get a quick bite on their way to class, which, oftentimes, lead to a line that was out the door. The Sparty’s team, myself included, needed to scramble to get through the line as quick as possible to avoid keeping our customers from waiting. I never wanted customers to wait, so I was always scrambling to get things done as fast as possible. Scrambling, of course, leads to errors. I do not recall if I was consistently making errors as a result of this, but I was certainly stressed as a result.

My mindset somewhat shifted after I was placed on one particular shift. I was paired up with a supervisor who was in his senior year. I walked into the Sparty’s location and saw him working by himself. There was a line about 10 customers deep waiting to have their items rung up by this employee. I hopped right in to help out and keep the line moving, scrambling in the process. While I was scrambling, he was taking his time to make drinks and put sandwiches in the panini press. He moved at a slow, methodical pace, which frustrated me because I was working so fast to get through the line. He was a bottleneck!

After we sifted through this line he said to me:

“no matter how many customers there are, don’t stress. There is no reason to panic, just keep moving at your own pace.”

At the time, I was thinking, “this guy is just lazy.” It took me until just now (almost 6 years) to realize his brilliance. His message was not to go slow. It was to keep things in perspective and not to worry about the small things. There may be 100 other things going on in your life, but there is no reason to panic. Stressing out about a given situation is not going to solve the current problem at hand — in fact it is only going to complicate the problem and cloud your judgement. Being calm and alert is the key to any hectic or stressful situation.

This is relevant to me in my current role because there are so many moving parts. It is important for me to keep the end goal in mind and not be caught up in all the minor stressful, annoying details. Don’t get me wrong, the details are critically important to getting work done. But they are not worth panicking over. If there is an email that was supposed to be sent but was not, don’t stress. If one of your business partners was supposed to follow up on a question but didn’t, don’t stress. These little aspects of life are not worth worrying about. Keep in mind the end goal at all times and think about why you’re doing what you’re doing.

Thank you for you the knowledge and insight, Sparty’s employee who I worked with once. I have no idea what you are doing today or what your name is, but you have given me an epiphany on how to carry on with my life.