When I was young, I worked at a couple of fast-food restaurants. I already knew I was headed into business, so these jobs were never part of my long-term career plan. They were mostly a way to have some fun, meet girls, keep gas in my Ford Mustang, and food in my belly.
The pay wasn’t great, but the experience turned out to be extremely valuable—sometimes painfully so. Those jobs taught me things that still influence the way I see life today. I made some lifelong friendships, too.
My Masterpiece
One night, I quickly assembled what I thought was a perfect cheeseburger. Everything was in its proper place, and it looked ready to go. A few minutes later, the customer returned to the counter, smiled, and asked, “Where’s the beef?”
I had been so quick putting the sandwich together that I hadn’t given my co-worker on the grill time to put the actual burger on it.
I still laugh about that one. It's a good reminder that you can do everything right and still get the most important part wrong.
But some of the more lasting lessons came at closing time, in the back room.
Back Room Lesson #1
That was where we cleaned the equipment that kept the restaurant running: the fry station, the salad bar components, the burger station, the dessert machine, and everything else that needed attention before the next day.
Everyone brought their dirty equipment back, and I was responsible for cleaning it. In between those loads, I had my own list of closing duties, including changing the hot oil and parts on the pressure cooker, scrubbing, mopping, and whatever else needed to be done.
The guy who trained me was a little older and had enough experience to understand how things really worked. One night, he pulled me aside and offered some advice I’ve never forgotten.
He told me that the girls would sometimes come back to the dish area, flirt a little, sweet-talk me, and try to get me to clean their equipment ahead of everyone else’s. That way, they could finish their work, leave early, and get on with their evening.
He said, "Don't do it."
The problem was that once they were gone, I would still be there with my own work to finish, plus whatever I had moved ahead for them. To the managers, it would look as though I was falling behind.
His advice was simple: Don’t let someone else’s priorities throw your work out of balance.
Keep the work moving in the proper order. Pace things so that everyone could finish around the same time and we could all leave together.
It was a small lesson, learned in an unlikely place, but it stayed with me. Sometimes helping someone immediately is the right thing to do. Other times, saying “not yet” is the better decision—not because you don’t want to help, but because you have responsibilities of your own and a larger operation to keep running.
Always keep the big picture in mind.
I still think about those nights when I see young people working behind counters and in restaurant kitchens. The pay often isn’t much, the work can be messy, and the hours can be long. Yet those jobs can teach you about responsibility, teamwork, timing, and dealing with people in ways that are difficult to learn from a book.
Having been there myself makes it easier to appreciate what those workers are doing. I know there is often a lot more going on behind the counter than the customer ever sees.
Those early jobs didn’t make me rich. They were never supposed to. They gave me something useful in return: experience, friendships, and a better understanding of people.
They taught me to show up, manage the work in front of me, and recognize that sometimes the smartest answer is not “yes” or “no,” but “not yet.”
And, of course, they taught me to make sure there’s actually beef on the burger.