I was restless one night last week and scooped up my book and headed out. Sixteen minutes later I entered a Starbucks, ordered a low-fat hot chocolate, no whipped cream, and sat down to read.

Usually conversations around me are white noise when my face is in a book, but I was the only one in the store and the voices of the workers stood out.

"Is this the last time I'll be working with you?" said the girl to the guy.

"I don't know, my last day is Thursday, are you working then?"

"Hmm...no. I was supposed to but switched cause I have a big test Friday."

"So this will be the last time," the guy smiled.

"Oh my God," she said.

A customer sauntered in and they were distracted by their jobs. A car rolled through the drive-through.

I got back to focusing on my book and they receded to the background.

Maybe twenty minutes later the clock rolled past eight, quitting time apparently for the guy. I looked up as he gleefully shot past me as if a great adventure awaited him just outside Starbucks' doors.

"Good bye," said the guy as he waved.

"You'd better come back and visit," she shouted from the back.

He promised he would, though I knew better, and he was out the door...into his car and onto the rest of his life.

And I was reminded of all the jobs I left when I was a young man, finding my way, stepping carefully from foothold to foothold, climbing unsteadily into my hazy future.

Most of my jobs centered on fast food. Funny, I made almost every kind of fast food one could make.

I made tacos at a place called Taco Fiesta, which sounds so...uh...happy! But my greatest memory is working with a middle-aged man and thinking that I did not want to be working at Taco Fiesta when I'm forty. Not that I was smug about it, the problem is that he was smug about it. Just too cocky for a guy slinging burritos.

I made burgers at McDonald's. I'll never forget the lesson I learned about people counting on you and how motivating that can be. Long story. It has to do with the milkshake machine. I've shared it in my workshops.

Then there was the only place I've ever been fired from. And it was over a girl.

It was a hot dog joint in suburban Chicago. I was in high school, it was a Friday night. I was slapping relish on dogs when she came in. I knew her from school and she was going to a party. She wanted me to go too.

Suddenly, I was sick, of course. I went to the manager and told him I needed to go home. Somehow he saw through my performance, my long frowny face and my coughy throat. Shrewd fella.

I said I really needed to go. He said that I didn't. Finally he told me that if I walked out the door I couldn't come back.

I debated for about a shard of a second. Hot dogs or girl? I said, I gotta go.

And he was true to his word.

The girl? I don't think I ever saw her again after that party. To be honest I can't even remember her face. Ah well.

Then in college, my first management position ever was at Garcia's Pizza in a Pan on Wright Street in Champaign, Illinois.

Tacos, burgers, hot dogs, pizza.

It's amazing the roads we walk, the steps we take, the lessons we learn, the impressions that are made upon us that make us who we are today.

Yep, I thought about all that when the young guy escaped Starbucks for the last time, onto his next rung, his next impression.

I had made many such escapes.

Sincerely,  

Doug

Doug Cartland, President
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