Welcome to season two of Talk with Kristen with an E. This season, we're digging a little deeper into leadership, personal growth, and the courage it takes to follow your passion. Real conversations, honest reflections, because life isn't perfect and neither are we. Hey everybody. Welcome back. Today's episode, I really am excited about this one and I am happy to say I'm excited because I have kind of been at this like. I dunno, it's not quite writer's block'cause I'm not writing maybe speaker's block. Tried several topics for upcoming episodes and they've just fallen like, I'm like, no, that's not the one. That's not the one that, Nope, nope. So today I was literally in the shower and was like, this is it. Like I have got to go to my studio now and record this because this is the topic, this is what I need to share. This is where, this is what we're gonna do. So before we get into that, I probably need to provide a little bit of, well, no, not pro. We're just gonna get into it and I'm gonna set the stage give you why this became the topic today. So I recently got a new job, same company, same organization, actually kind of a little bit. Sort of like what I was doing before. I'm not gonna spoil it because that's going to be a whole episode in itself because of everything I learned from that whole process. I've been in the new job for a few weeks now, it wasn't supposed to be effective until October, but we've had this slow transition and I'm kind of in it now. So I was sitting in the parking lot waiting for my son to be done with dance, and I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna update my LinkedIn status now. What the heck? So I did, I put the new job, and then of course, you know, you get the typical people liking you. Congratulations, all that. It's great. My first boss from my first job in high school, commented I knew you back when. Great to see all your successes. It got me thinking about that job and everything I learned from it. As I started ticking off the lessons from that job in high school and how I'm applying it to my life today, I was like. Oh my goodness. This is gold. Because while he was looking at my new job and my LinkedIn update as, wow, look at all that Kristen's done. I was looking back and thinking like, I've done a lot of this because of you, when I started making the connections, that's where it was. We're gonna talk about my first high school job. I'm gonna go through a list of 15, 16, 17 items of lessons. I learned then and how I still apply them today. And they may be ones that you are already familiar with. Maybe it's ones that you have heard. Your past or can apply to your life also. So I thought it would be good to go over those and while I'm focusing the first part of season two on personal development growth, and leadership. I think this flows into both perfectly. So my first job not my first job, but my first real job in high school was at an ice cream place. The best job I could have had. But it's funny, when I started kind of outlining all the things I wanted to talk about, I was like, oh my gosh, I remember. So much and so much of the specifics of the beginning of my ice cream career to the point I remember specifically when I dropped my application off, for any of you younger people back in the day, we had to go to the place of business ask for a paper application fill it out and turn it in funny because after I'd been working there, people would ask for applications we were taught to say, we're always willing to take applications we weren't necessarily hiring, but if somebody was let go or left, we would have this repository of applications. So we would always take the applications and put them in a folder. I was there for a lot of people coming and going, but this specific night, it was a Wednesday, after youth group, I was coming home from church and stopped at the ice cream place to drop off my application. I got a single scoop of cinnamon bun on a sugar cone. Oh my gosh. Cinnamon bun was so good. Cinnamon ice cream with a caramel cinnamon swirl it was gooey sweet and amazing. All of their ice creams were phenomenal. Everything was made on site. I actually became an ice cream maker The ice cream was so good. I dropped my application off got a call for an interview and I went if I close my eyes, I can picture myself walking from the parking lot to the side door and knocking on the door and him opening the door. And I remember who was in the back during my interview it's a vivid memory, and I don't know why it stands out, it wasn't traumatic. They always say something really great or really terrible happens. It's cemented in your memory forever. Maybe this was my super wonderful thing. At my interview I was wearing khaki pants and a pinky purple shirt. It was a one piece, but looked like a twin set, so it looked like it was like a shirt with a matching cardigan over it, like three quarter sleeves. I loved that shirt so much I wore it in my senior pictures too, with a pair of jeans. Of course, my mud flared jeans with the button fly. That's what I wore for my senior pictures. But for my interview, I wore khaki pants because I was dressing. Nice. I was dressing nice, like business casual I was never going to dress like that at work, but I had to show that I was professional. I was a very professional 17-year-old showing up to be interviewed. I think I was hired on the spot. I feel like it was one of those when can you start things? I even had my workers' permit, because I was under 18. That basically allowed me to work. So anyway, I interview, get the job. I am beyond excited, this was my dream job, which is adorable. I mentioned at my interview. My dad was really into ice cream. He looked at franchises like Dairy Queen, I think might have looked at Rita Zeiss for a minute, or TCBY when they were big. Like my dad was really big into that, and he always talked about. How he wanted to have his own ice cream place someday, and he is gonna name it Spanky After me. So I use that as an interview. One of the questions was why do you wanna work here? And I told that story my dad always said he wanted an ice cream place and name it after me. And since he doesn't have that yet, I want to work an ice cream place. If my dad gets it, I know what I'm doing or something. I was making that family connection that this is what I'm supposed to do. At least the way I remember it I was confident. I'd never applied for a job before. I, the jobs I'd had before I'd work for a family or family business or babysitting. Like this was a real job to me. Real paycheck, real taxes, all the things, and I got it. I started pretty much right away. I think this was October, November of 2000. Minimum wage at the time was five 15. I remember this though. I Googled it just to make sure my memory was right on that one. But I made more than minimum wage. He started me at 5 25. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that was$5 and 25 cents an hour thinking about that. Now this sounds like so ridiculous, but 17-year-old Kristen was like, this is amazing. I am making, making my own money. Keep in mind, also didn't have my own bills, so I was making money just to shop. I did save some too but still, for me it was like, hmm, this means I can go to Goodwill and get my$2 Abercrombie jeans. This is gonna be great. My life's gonna be amazing. That was my job I started in fall of 2000. I stayed through college. During college. I actually was working not quite full-time, but I would work on Tuesdays and Thursdays I had classes Monday, Wednesday, Friday, during the day, and a night class on Monday or Tuesday or whatever. But then my working schedule, I would work all day Tuesday and Thursday all day being like 10 30 to three 30 or 10 to three, something like that. Oh, actually I even been doing 10 to five during the school year. I can't remember that part, but I would be there Tuesdays and Thursdays, usually Friday nights, because a lot of the other workers, mostly high school kids were in band football or cheerleading. I wasn't in high school or college. So I could work Friday nights and a Saturday or Sunday, sometimes both. I was also the person who was almost always willing to pick up extra shifts, partly for the money, more, because I loved being there. I loved the people. And by college I was making more than, I don't remember the exact amount, and so stayed there all through high school my first two years of college because I was going to a local school and living at home, so I kept working that schedule and then I went away for junior and senior year. Came back on breaks and summers, I still worked there. And honestly, after I graduated, my parents had then moved away from that, from that state. And I had talked to the boss about working full-time after college and what he could offer me. And, the money wasn't gonna be enough. And I was gonna need insurance and all of that. And it was, it just wasn't gonna work. I was heartbroken because that was my plan. I was gonna graduate, go back work there and it was gonna be amazing. Funny enough, where my parents moved in Virginia, There was another ice cream place there and I went and applied. I'd had all the experience and a college degree and they're like, yeah, we'll hire you. And they were then paying me$12 an hour. This was 2005. I was getting$12 an hour there. Still no insurance. As the assistant manager, which was a big deal for me ice cream was really gonna be my life. Ended up going a different direction. But there are still times where I'm like, my life would be so fun if I still just worked in an ice cream place. Okay, so anyway, now that you have all that background, let's get into the lessons I learned and how I am applying them today. So these aren't in any order. I kind of just wrote them down as they came to me. Some of them flow, but we'll see. Number one, never take the easy way out. This was a big deal because we were not allowed to use calculators, we couldn't use the cash register to put the amounts in. We had to count the change back to people, and it was hard at the beginning. Math is not my favorite. I'm fine at it, it's just I don't prefer it, but, so we had a cash register. So you would push the button, you know, put the order in. Then MR would come up, and then you know, like, okay, your total is 1351, and then they would give you a$20 bill. So you'd go to the cash register and you'd start at the pennies count out four pennies. You're at 55, you'd get your two dimes. That's 75. You get your quarter. Okay, so now you're up to$14. So then get one that's 15 and then five is 20. And you would go back and you would count the change back to them. Your change makes 14, one is 15, five is 20. Thank you. Have a great night. Starting out you're like, this is so hard. I'm never gonna get this. But then all of a sudden you do, and then like you'd start memorizing prices. Like I think at one point a single cone was 2 76, so if somebody gave you a three or a five, you knew what change to get, but you were still supposed to always start the beginning. Count it out. And I don't know that I understood or appreciated at the time why that was such a big deal, but it's a big deal because then you are making sure that they're getting their right change. You're not just reading it off a screen and then just gathering it. And to this day, when I am shopping, which we all know is, you know, I shop a good bit. I pay attention to people when they gimme the change back. And if they just hand it to me or count it back, I still appreciate having my change counted back I often do it in my head although how often do I pay cash anymore? But I will pay attention and know the change I should get back we did not write orders down. There were not. We didn't have notepads. There weren't pens. You would go to the window, you would take the order, and then you would remember the order, and you would make the order and come back. Obviously, it was fine if you forgot, a big order, like they have two milkshakes, a sundae, a waffle cone like you could ask, but it was important to. Take their order, repeat it back to them so that you knew exactly what you were doing and then do it. The first lesson, is never take the easy way out. How that's applied now shows up in my work ethic how I handle myself at work and also kind of how I expect other people to work, that I expect them to do the work and not take the easy way out. The second one I wrote down is always make a place better. if you have time to lean, you have time to clean.'cause there would be some of these girls and they would just hanging around, leaning against counters, waiting for customers there's always something you could be doing. There are dishes you could be washing, counters you could be cleaning off. Napkins. You could be refilling or spoons you are not getting paid$5 25 to just stand around, do something. As I go to different jobs. I, always look at where I can make a difference, where I can help look for things that need to be done and do it. So it's not necessarily the physical. If you have time to lean, you have time to clean what can I do to make this place better? How can I make me better? Or somebody else better? it's about not being idle. That's different than relaxing. We all need downtime, but when you're on the clock, you should be doing something to make the place better. Number three, the secret of customer service, apologize and offer something for free. And he was really big on this, is that, you know, mistakes happen. And if somebody gets the wrong order or they're upset about something, then you just apologize and you offer them something else. Always make it right I believe this, I still tell this to the people, that the secret to customer service is apologizing and offers something for free because that's all people want. They just want to know you acknowledge what was done was wrong, or not even wrong, but like wasn't satisfying to what they need. And then people love free stuff. So I pay attention when I'm out if something's done wrong, I see how they handle it. It could be as simple as like, you know, dairy Queen gives me a coupon for like a free cone or blizzard because an order took too long it's easy to just make it right and you should always be making it right because. The customer is the one that's going to keep coming back. And if you give them a positive experience, you'll make more money. Like in the end, it all works out for everybody. Now there were some customers, like people are terrible. And for any of you who have worked in any kind of food service or really any kind of service with people, you know, there's terrible people out there. I probably had a handful of customers every now and again who are bad, but they were usually not bad. But I remember this one time it was fall, it was apple dumpling time. It's when you should be happy about life smelling the apple dumplings pumpkin flavors are right around the corner, it's a great time I do not remember why these individuals were unhappy. I don't think it was at me to begin with. There was a situation with another employee and it had escalated, and then as I was the crew leader on shift, I'd gone up to handle the situation. I. And it was so bad. I think they were yelling at me it was terrible. I remember going back into the back of the, so front, like the front of the house was where, you know, all of the ice cream, freezers, milkshake makers, like everything was out front and the back was, you know, stocking stuff. The. Ice cream machines, sinks, front back, same thing I remember going to the back getting a notebook writing out the entire situation as it happened so that when he came into the work the next day, you know what happened and had like my side of the story in case these people ever called and tried to make, you know, a whole issue of what was happened. I don't remember if there was any situation after, but I just. I was crying like I was so just, ugh, it broke me that night. Anyway, secret to customer service number four, trust your people and empower them to do the right thing. So this was something he was great about I talk about just apologize and give something for free. He allowed us to do that, up to a certain point up to aqua, we could give for free. We were able to do that and that was huge because, you've got a bunch of high school kids, sometimes a couple college kids that's a lot. To trust them to give this away, you're empowering them to make the right decisions, do the right thing. That's something that stuck with me because the best supervisors I've had trusted and empowered me. And looking back, he was the first one that taught that to me of how to do it. And it's something that I have tried. To use as I've become a supervisor for like a decade now that I try to use my people too, is that you trust them to do the right thing. Empower them and they do a better job because they have ownership. It wasn't our ice cream place. He was the owner, but he gave us that power. To feel that we were a part of it and able to make those decisions, was huge for me then, and now, number five, also, is allow people the opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them. I'm sure there's some places, whether it's food industry or something else where if you mess up, you're done. I've never been a waitress, but I imagine if you drop your tray and break a lot of, I don't know, plates, glasses, whatever, there's probably at some point where they're like, Hey, this isn't for you. You should probably try something else. But he was really great about letting us make mistakes, whether he knew about them right away or not. One of my favorite things was, every year we would have a Christmas party. Oh my gosh. And the Christmas parties were great. We would go to a little restaurant, get dressed up and, he gave us gifts every year. It was a really nice time to get everybody together and spend, spend an evening together. But one of the things he would do is it was like confession time. So, you know, it's the holidays. Anything you share, like nothing's gonna be held against you. Let's just talk about it. And people had some stories because they would save them all year to share them, and some of them probably were bad. But you know, that was like your free time to like your get outta jail free card. It's okay. Whatever happens, at the Christmas party will not be held against you. One time, oh my goodness, I can still remember this day may was strawberry month. We did strawberry shortcakes, a lot of strawberry flavors. I was making strawberry ice cream. I was bringing strawberries out of the walk-in freezer. The floor was wet and I slipped. I dropped, a five gallon bucket of strawberries all over the floor. It was so terrible. And then I am just like, oh my gosh, what did you do? So now I've got this mess to clean up, but we're outta strawberries in strawberry month. I had it all over me. Did I mention we had to wear white shorts pants and t-shirts with the logo across the front. That was great. It was terrible and I felt horrible and I was like, oh my gosh, what if he finds out like it's. Everything cost money, which I understand more now as an adult, but even then I knew like we had paid for those strawberries. We were not using those strawberries in a product to sell because I had strawberries all over the floor and I've just cost, I don't know how much money. Well, I confessed that story at the Christmas party. Wasn't fired. We all laughed about it. But the point is you, not only do you empower and trust your people, you give them the opportunity to fail. It's not even just fail. It's making those mistakes and learning from it. Do you think I ever dropped a bucket of strawberries again? No, I did not. Do you think I was a whole lot more cautious when I came out of the walk-in freezer and refrigerator, especially carrying a product like in a bucket? A hundred percent. Do you think I was also more careful with the wetness of the floor and making sure everything was clean in my area? Oh, yes. So it's allowing mistakes to happen, but learning from them, we're not defined by our mistakes. Number six, show respect to people even when they aren't around. So there was this time that, um. A girl was very disrespectful to our boss and a customer overheard it. Customer knew exactly who the employee was. That employee no longer worked there. So it is just, you've gotta pay attention and be aware of your surroundings and how you're talking about people. Just really showing respect even when they're not around, and I think that's a huge life lesson that we all should be cautious of. It's not just being nice to people, to their face, but also being kind and respectful when they're not around. Similarly, number seven is do the right thing no matter who is watching. He got cameras installed front and back we don't know if they were recording. Part of me thinks they weren't. They were just there to scare us. But it didn't matter because you knew they were there and they could be recording and he could go watch anything at any time. So it did help, I think, people be more cognizant of what they were doing. Number eight, checklists are the best way to make sure everything done and nothing is missed. Maybe I've taken this one a little too extreme because I am completely run by checklist. Like if it's not written down, it's not happening. If it's not on my calendar, I'm not going to it. Part of it may have started because there was an opening checklist and a closing checklist it was on like. You know, you could like laminate a paper so we could use dry erase markers on it and check it off. You'd check it off, initial it and know if it was done the morning one was good, but the closing one even more, there would be several of us trying to get things closed and everything done, and if people were doing different things, you'd wanna make sure that you were still doing all of them. So like if somebody's sweeping, mopping, washing dishes. Restocking, like whatever all the tasks were, and then having it be initialed or have the name for who did it, then in the morning when somebody's opening, if something wasn't done, the checklist and if it wasn't done right, then they could also see who was the one that was responsible for it. This is huge and provided people with a system. For how to do things. And I think especially when you have high school kids, it's important for them to have that outline many of us who'd been there long enough didn't need the list. You just knew what had to be done, how it had to be done, and what it had to be done. But for beginning people, and again for that accountability, it was really good to have those lists there. So number nine, know your value. This is a good one, and this was one of the ones that really popped out to my head in the shower when I was thinking about this. I loved working there, as I've said many times, today. There was a time I thought I should be getting more hours I needed more money, so I was like, you know what? I am going to go apply for another job. So I, I did this twice. Once was at Air Apostle and once was at Bath and Body Works. And both places. Both times they were different. One I remember doing over the holidays because they, everybody was hiring. And the other may have been over a summer. I just wanted more hours, to pay for college'cause it's expensive. When I got the callback or the opportunity to start, I let him know. I said, Hey, you know, I'm gonna be having this other job. I'm gonna need to work around the schedule. How can we make this happen? He was like, I don't remember what he said, but I ended up getting more hours at the ice cream place and did not accept the second job. I may have gotten more money one of the times too. Don't quote me on that because it's not as strong of my memory. I just remember the like, Hey, you said I'd be able to get 20 hours, I'm only getting 15 or whatever. It was like, I'm gonna get the second job so that I can have more hours. And he was like, oh, well, you know, let's, let's see what we can do for you. And so the lesson I'm taking from that is to know your value. And I think that's so important even in life now, to know what you're worth. Whether looking for a new job or an additional job. Like don't accept the lowest thing if your work is valued at something more. And also just don't accept people treating you differently if you deserve more, Consistency is key. That's number 10. People expect the same size product and quality every time. A single scoop was five ounces, one of the ways he would train is you would get a cake comb. You get a scoop have a bucket of vanilla ice cream, scoop put on the cone put on the scale see what it is, dump it off, scoop a new one, put on the cone, put on the scale until you get five ounces, five, 10 times in a row. This sounds easier than it was because when starting out, does anybody know what five ounces of ice cream looks like? I surely didn't, but let me tell you, if you put a cake cone with a scoop of ice cream on it in front of me today, I will be able to tell you if it's five ounces or not. I haven't worked in the ice cream industry in 20 years, but it's one of those things that just stays with you. But people expect the same thing all the time. If people are scooping different sizes, like let's say one time somebody comes and they have like a seven ounce single scoop. Well, the next time when they come back and you give them a five ounce scoop, they're gonna be like, that's not the right size. I got more last time. Well, last time you were over scooped by an employee who didn't know what they were doing. This is what you get. But it's the reason consistency is key. Milkshakes have three ounce scoops syrup and milk. If they're getting too much ice cream, if it's too thick or too thin, you're not consistent. It's so important for consistency and that goes in life also. You should always do things the right way. All the time, regardless of who's around or who's doing it, like consistency is huge, and that is something that I took away from the ice cream industry. Speaking of the ice cream industry, this isn't necessarily a leadership or a people lesson. Butterfat makes ice cream creamy, and if you want to be able to test or taste the quality of ice cream, you need to get vanilla. This was one of the things he taught too, because obviously there were so many amazing, amazing flavors, and I'm like, oh my gosh, vanilla is so boring. But he was like, no, vanilla is how you taste quality and butter. Fat is what makes ice cream good. Okay. I don't remember this all exactly, but it's kind of like whole milk in a, in the United States is like 4% butter fat. And Dairy Queen. Well, places like Dairy Queen and Chick-fil-A, you'll never see their frozen treats referred to as ice cream because it's not actually ice cream. To be qualified as ice cream, you have to have a certain percentage of butter fat, and I think it's around 11 or 12. Again, it's been a while. I didn't live this up before I started recording, but. Like Dairy Queen, their frozen treat is I think around like 5% butter, fat, and Chick-fil-A, they call theirs Ice Dream.'cause again, can't be qualified as ice cream. And then the higher you get, you know, your Haagen-Dazs, Ben and Jerry's, that's when you're getting more into like your 14, 16, 18% butterfat. So. There's your ice cream lesson for the day, but that's something I learned that stuck with me at least, mostly, we'll fact, check me later to see if my numbers were close. But vanilla really is how you taste it because you're able to, get the full flavor without anything overpowering it. If you get fudge ripple or home run, vanilla ice cream, caramel swirl, chocolate covered peanuts you're not gonna get the quality of the ice cream because you're getting those other flavors and textures over it, whereas straight up vanilla, all you're getting is the ice cream. And let me tell you, I was quite the little ice cream snob for a while. Debatable. I might still be because there is some ice cream that are grainy and gross and I will not eat because it could be the butter fat could be how it's made. The more you spin ice cream is where you get that graininess it's like an art to making ice cream. See guys. I really miss the boat. I believe this is the industry I'm still supposed to be in. Maybe when I retire, maybe I'll get my own ice cream place when I retire. All right, we're almost done, number 12, build relationships and help those who help you. The friendships I made working at the ice cream place in high school were some of my best. I had church friends and school friends, but there was something about my work friends were different I love them and we had so much fun. I mentioned I would work Friday nights after closing, we would go to Denny's Eaton Park and just like I said, there was one. We also would go to Wendy's. This is a funny story. There was a Wendy's just down the street and they would be open late. So I remember vividly, I don't know what night this was, it may have been a Friday, it might have just been some other random night. We went to Wendy's had like really good salads and we got our Wendy's food, and then we just sat in the parking lot, like outside our cars, like picnic style, just eating in the back of the Wendy's parking lot, like out by like their dumpster. Ah, the memories to be young again, right? So what was this lesson? Build relationships, but also it wasn't just the friendships that were made, it was also relationships within the community. We had partner businesses, this amazing pizza place, sometimes we would do trades with them. They'd be like, Hey, we'll bring you pizza and spaghetti. Can we get a quart of whatever? And that was another thing that we were empowered and allowed to do. And looking back now, I'm like, really? Should we have been doing that? Giving away product getting food it was a perk of the job, I guess. But it's important to build relationships. Even in the business world, corporate or wherever you are now, it is still important to one. Have friendships at work. I know this is debatable and we could do a whole episode on it, should you have friends at work or be at work just to work? I am in the camp that it is very important to have friends at work because you spend so much time there that there needs to be people there that you can trust, that you can bounce ideas off of coach and mentor you and just have an enjoyable time. It's also about building partnerships and kind of that, you know, I scratch my back, you scratch yours kind of thing. It's not trading ice cream and pizza, although anybody at work, if you would like to trade pizza or ice cream with me, I am open to that. Or if you just wanna give me pizza and ice cream, also open to that. But it's just important to have those partnerships and knowing the people you can count on to help you with things, but that you are also open to helping them. December 13, hard work will be rewarded. So I started at 5 25. I went up to five 50 I think by that Christmas, and he was really good about promoting hard workers. I went from scooper to crew leader quickly, then to ice cream maker, almost the highest position there. Cake decorator was a side job. If you were there and it was something you practiced and were good at, then you could decorate cakes too. But also, there would be mobile events. Like he would take the rolling freezer and some ice cream and we would do like community days. For, croquet tournament. Oh my gosh, that was one of the most fun things. I didn't even know there were croquet tournaments. I did that for a couple years. The 4th of July Community days event was one of my favorite too. But anyway, you would get to go to those events if you were a better employee'cause he's not gonna take out, you know, the crap employees to, because it was kind of like a reward. So. And I still believe that, that if you work hard, you will be rewarded. It may not always be right away, but that hard work does always pay off. And I still believe that today, similar to that, number 14, it's more important to try than to get it perfect. I still struggle with perfectionism, but I'm working on it. Decorating cakes, there would be some people that would want all kinds of crazy thing on cakes and it'd be like, sure, we can do that. When I take the order, I'm like, yeah, I can do that. I remember I put a duck on a cake once. That one was actually really cute. I did a skateboarder, that one not as good, but I put in great effort he taught a trick where you draw something out on wax paper. And use it to trace it on the cake, because if you put it on the cake, not with the pencil side down, pencil side up, and you could use a little toothpick and kind of make the indents on the, top of the ice cream cake, then you could go back in with the icing and fill in the little sketch that you made. But it's still important, like looking back customers were usually pretty good. I don't remember anybody ever being upset with a cake that we'd done. But it was about trying like, you know, sometimes trying is more important than getting it right sometimes. And practice really does help. If you have time, practice the shells design on the, borders of the cake and just practice it over and over and over again. Also, a tip, if you ever have an icing bag. Hold it in your hand and then fold it over it and scoop the icing in. It makes so much less mess number 15. There are difficult people in the world and sometimes you'll have to work with them. Be kind, always. There are a lot of different people in this world, and there were several girls I did not enjoy working with. They were annoying. There was one girl specifically, she was so annoying looking back I could have been nicer to her. I don't think I was ever really mean to her. At least I hope I wasn't. But she really was annoying. But the thing is, is you are gonna deal with annoying people in the world quite often in the workplace. Always be kind. You don't know what they're going through. People may think you're the weird one and you would want them to be kind to you. So always be kind. Finally, the best advice he ever gave me. I remember him saying, find yourself a handyman and marry him a hundred percent right? I did get myself a handyman. I did marry him, and it has paid off in dividends. But this was important too because, at the ice cream place, it was often something was broken, especially the waffle irons, those pieces of, they were down so often. He always fixed them. He was a fixer and I remember him saying, Kristen, just get yourself a handyman. And he was right. Much better advice than what my nana told me when she said, marry a man for love. You marry the man and love his money. Probably good advice for some not the route I went, but I did get a handyman and it's been wonderful. Those are the 16 things I learned from my first high school job. Most from my first boss, who had a huge impact on my life. Whether he knew it or not, there are things he taught me. That have stayed with me for 25 years. Things that he has taught me that I have passed on to other people. Looking back, when I think about all the leaders that I have had in my life to look for as examples, I really think he's one of the first and probably one of the best. So. That's what I have for you today, I hope it resonated with you on some level, let me know what you think. Are there lessons you learned in high school or from one of your first jobs that is still applicable now? Are there things that you learned that you are. Still using, are there things that you think other people should know you know how to get ahold of me? Reach out and I'll talk again soon. That's a wrap for this week's episode. Thanks so much for spending time with me. Until next time, be honest with yourself. Ask the hard questions, and remember, you are not alone on this journey.