Lessons Learned from Odd Moments on the Job

Lessons Learned from Odd Moments on the Job 2 Sometimes even the odd moments at work can teach you something useful. Common sense isn't so common One of the first jobs I ever had was in a fast-food pizza restaurant in Montreal. The youngest by far on a shift of 3, I started as pizza maker and then graduated to cashier. Why was a 16-year old dealing with customers after only a few days on the job? Like most other pizzerias we also sold ice cream, which used to arrive in large vats. During those first days, one of my colleagues put away a vat of vanilla beside the cleaning supplies in the *storage room*. Avoid making assumptions Working at Amazon.com HQ in Seattle on the 3rd floor, I often took the stairs to get some exercise. The stairwell usually empty, I would run up and down as fast as I could. One day I was bombing down the steps, swinging myself around on the metal banister when I almost collided full-bore into legendary CEO Jeff Bezos on his way up. Luckily, I was able to yell “Jeff!” and throw myself against the wall in time. He was nice about it and with the reinforced concrete cushioning my body, I decided to walk from then on. Do you have any funny work stories with a message? This article is part of the What I Learned From Odd Jobs group writing project (started by HighCallingBlogs) that I heard about on Group Writing Projects. Like the lessons?