What’s the Scoop?
Sometimes your greatest fear can become your greatest strength.
Years ago, when I turned sixteen years old, my father informed me that I was getting a job. It wasn’t something that I wanted to do, and I resisted and fought him. But he held strong. He believed that kids need to learn how to work, make money and become independent.
When I was young kid, I had had a speech impediment, one which embarrassed me every time I spoke. My natural shyness quickly became a paralyzing shyness. When people I didn’t know (and even some people I did know) spoke to me, I would go mute. Speaking was very difficult and the longer the span of time passed before I replied, the harder it became for me to speak. Often times people would give up on waiting for my response and just walk away.
Naturally with a history like this, I was terrified of getting a job. I did not want to be with people I didn’t know all day. I anticipated the shame and embarrassment I would feel each day when people spoke to me and I didn’t answer them. I begged my father to reconsider.
He did not.
One Saturday, after his announcement that I would be getting a summer job, he drove me to an area near our house that had restaurants and shops. I went into five or so stores and restaurants and filled out applications. As soon as I would finish one and hand it to the employee behind the counter, I would race out the door to my father waiting in the car.
I hoped and prayed that no one would call me for an interview. But, of course, a business did. Baskin Robbins.
Baskin Robbins. The only ice cream shop near us for miles, and, quite frankly, one of my favorite eating establishments. You would think I would have been excited to interview for them.
I don’t know any more if I was excited or not. The years have dulled my memories and erased many of them. But I doubt that I felt much excitement.
What I do know is that the manager liked me enough to offer me a job. I started working there soon after interviewing with them.
The Baskin Robbins job didn’t last long. After it ended, I got a job at a nearby Wendy’s that summer and the next summer, I was hired as a cashier at a steakhouse a few miles away from my house. I stayed with the steakhouse for two years.
Ironically, I learned that I could talk to people. And the more I interacted with customers and coworkers, the better I became at it. I discovered that my speech impediment did not define me. The people I met at my jobs didn’t know my history; thus, they had no idea that I had once had what I saw as a deficiency. I could finally leave it in the past.
I also learned that I was terrible at scooping ice cream. My wrists were weak and my scooping skills were nonexistent. I lasted five days before the manager informed me that he was letting me go.
Funny sometimes how things work out. What I feared the most- - talking with people- - turned out to not be so bad. As a matter of fact, it became something that I have spent my life working on and I now take pride in being able to talk to almost anyone. It has taken me years to get here, but working those low- paying, customer-focused jobs taught me that I could do it.
What I wasn’t expecting is that I would get fired from my first job for something I didn’t even know I was bad at doing — scooping ice cream.
I was a little humiliated when I was fired, but now, thirty some years later, when I tell my Baskin Robbins story, people just laugh at it.
And so do I.
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