Our 14-year-old and 16-year-old both work casually for Harris Farm Markets. I love that our kids want to work while they’re at school and are learning some essential life skills in the process.
How to follow directions, how to take feedback, how to work with people within a diverse workforce and of course, how to interact with customers.
Our 14-year-old started working only a few months back and tends to be shy around people he doesn’t know. Before his first shift, I shared some advice that was given to me around the same age when I started working.
I told him that when you work in a customer service role, there’s every chance you could be the only conversation someone has today. You’ll never know who it might be, but you will probably serve at least one person today who doesn’t interact with another human all day besides you.
When you serve a customer, you have the opportunity to be the highlight of someone else’s day.
A smile, eye contact and striking up a short genuine conversation are all it takes. It costs you nothing – often not even any extra time.
I can’t remember who gave me this advice but whoever did, I’m very grateful. I worked at McDonald’s for 6 years. I worked in hospitality for 8 years. I owned gyms for 6 years and took this advice everywhere I went.
It’s easy to forget when you work in a service role that it’s a privilege to make someone else’s day. It’s easy to forget when you feel like everyone you serve is grumpy, in a rush or (worse still) is angry.
You never know what’s going on in a customer’s life. In my experience, it is the customers who are a little grumpy, in a rush or angry that need a little more “service love” than the others.
When I picked up our shy 14-year-old after his third shift, he got in the car full of energy and proceeded to tell me how he had asked every customer who bought tomatoes that day what they were planning to do with their tomatoes. We then had a fat chat about the versatility of tomatoes, all while I was beaming with pride on the inside.
Every time we drop one of our kids at work and pick them up later that day, I smile at the thought that there’s every chance they’ve made someone else’s day.
I love service. I genuinely see serving customers as a privilege. And I love that both our kids seem to have taken this onboard as well.
If our shy, un-skilled, unworldly 14-year-old can make someone’s day while working on registers at Harris Farm Markets, I’m certain that anyone can do it.
