In the summer after my sophomore year of high school, my parents uttered the statement that no lazy 16-year-old wants to hear: “You need to get a job.” I had spent my freshman year in a relatively low-stress job, but had to leave due to not getting enough hours. This time around, starting with my second job, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

Turns out, finding a job as a 16-year-old was a lot more difficult than I had anticipated. After what seemed like endless interviews and an even more endless stream of rejections, I received the offer I eventually took: as a cashier at a chain of drive-through convenience stores.

If you’re from my neck of the woods, in southeastern Pennsylvania, you’ll know what I’m talking about. These stores sell pretty much everything: milk, cigarettes, iced tea, empanadas and more. 

Now, I’m not going to act like my job at the convenience store was akin to saving the world, but as a truly impatient person, it taught me more about patience, among other things, than I ever could’ve expected. 

Starting my first day at that job was one of the most anxious days of my entire life. It was my first real part-time job and I had never tended a cash register before. 

One of the first harbingers of my future distress in this job was actually on my very first day. It was a hot September afternoon, and the air conditioning was thankfully on. However, with the convenience store being a drive-through, the windows were constantly open.

Being a heat-sensitive person like myself, I was pretty reactive to any sort of above-average heat. Starting off my first day of actual work by sweating like a pig was not exactly what I had in mind. 

Another time that I regretted my choice of employment was a few months after my first day. Right when I walked into work, my manager (who was actually one of the good parts of the job) told me not to go to the bathroom the whole shift. 

Before I could ask why, my manager told me that the pipes from the toilet into the front lawn of the building were screwed up, and that dirt and grass were coming through and out of the toilet, preventing us from using it. 

You’d think that this would be an easy fix, right? Wrong. This bathroom problem went on for two weeks without any fix or word from the higher-ups who were supposed to handle it. Finally, after pretty much begging the owners to fix the issue, the toilet became usable again.

The store itself wasn’t the only point of contention I had with this job — the customers were a part of it too. Now, don’t get me wrong, most of my customers were great, but there were a select few that made the job a little tougher. 

I truly do think of myself as a genuinely impatient person, especially around people. Many times, customers got irritated because I was too slow or didn’t get their food ready fast enough. In the interest of not losing my job, I didn’t have a choice but to learn how to develop my patience or get fired trying. 

There were also a lot of little tricks I learned from having a convenience store job. I know the difference between pretty much all types of Marlboro cigarettes: reds, lights, super lights, menthols, menthol lights, 100s, 72s, etc. Never thought I would need to know that, but here we are. 

I think when you go from a really bad job to a really good one, you realize that things could be a whole lot worse. Now, as a bookseller, I work four-hour shifts, three days a week – when I used to work for seven hours, four days a week, after being in school for seven hours straight. 

It’s really important to recognize that even though some jobs can feel dreadful, they can still have their benefits. The more technical stuff, like working a register and customer service, actually helped me to land a job I wanted, one that I have worked at since my senior year of high school.

I look back on my time as a convenience store cashier pretty often. Yeah, it sucked while I was working there, but the fun moments I had with coworkers and the stories I got to tell after were well worth it. Would I work there again, though? Nope, not a chance.

Eamon Bonsall is an opinion columnist at The Review. His opinions are his own and do not represent the majority opinion of The Review staff. He may be reached at ebons@udel.edu.