Means to an end

I feel like a loser on a day-to-day basis. There is always someone who puts me in my place and makes me feel like I’m just not quite good enough. I walk away smiling, though, because I know the truth. I know who I am, and who I love, and that’s good enough for me.
As a waitress, I am ‘the help.’ Regardless of my hairstyle or make-up for the evening, I am still the one who cleans your child’s chicken strips up off the floor, and also the one who responds to snapping fingers, and raised eyebrows
Until recently, I cursed my job the entire time I was there. Whether you were part of the five-o–clock elderly rush, or part of the posh couple that dines at nine, I hated you. Please forgive me though, because I didn’t know any better. Until recently.
Sad to say, but I have been serving for five years, and I didn’t pay attention closely enough to realize exactly how enjoyable my job really is.
A person named Kelly came to my restaurant looking for a job a few months back. I saw the application, and actually felt sorry for him. In my eyes, this was a middle-aged man who’d had to resort to working in a kitchen once again (a job I was sure he thought he was too old/good for.) When I met Kelly though, I was surprised. This person came into work the first day wearing a Grateful Dead t-shirt and whistling a uplifting Otis Redding tune (not ‘Dock of the Bay’ but ‘Try a Little Tenderness’.) Now, humming and work are synonymous for most, but the thing about Kelly’s humming is that it didn’t cease when the dinner rush came; it amplified. The humming soon turned into singing, and the singing into dancing.
I felt an instant gravitation to this person’s happiness, because I didn’t have much within myself. Work was work, and play was play, and never the two shall meet. Right? Wrong.
I have been working with this person for a few months now, and the genuine excitement has not faded a bit. This person truly enjoys his job. Why, you might ask? Well, you are not alone; I have asked the same.
“Because I have worked a truly shit-job, and this is nowhere near a truly shit-job,” Kelly responded when asked how he sports a grin at all times. “I know what it is like to have to provide for a family, and compromise your beliefs to do so; this job is nowhere near that.”
I have not had a bad day at work since. His words to me were simple, but his actions were incredibly difficult. To genuinely enjoy work seems so foreign to most, but to this person, it seems almost natural.
It is easy to fabricate reasons as to why a job sucks, and it is even easier to justify those reasons, but to truly find joy in a mundane job is a gift that must be recognized.
Thank you Kelly. You make my nights more enjoyable on so many levels. From the playlists and CD’s you make, to the excitement and care that you put into even the most mundane task, it is appreciated.
Although my serving days are numbered, there are always people I wish I could work with throughout my life, and Kelly is definitely one of those people. We all know when a job is only a means to an end, but we also know the people at these jobs who make us realize that life is much bigger than a restaurant.