Work, work, work

Work is either fun or drudgery. It depends on your attitude. I like fun.

~Colleen C. Bassett

Work is something that everyone has to do. It is talked about as a nuisance and a pain. I would like to show you some of the ways work is fun. It all has to do with your attitude.

I work at a restaurant. I will admit that it is a pain at times, but then again, what can't be? Dealing with customers, dealing with coworkers and managers, figuring out work scheduling with school, and dealing with the inevitable stress that comes along with it. Sounds awful right? If that's the way of thinking about it, yes it would be horrible. But, if you think of it as an opportunity to better your social skills, your teamworking skills, time management skills, and coping with life pressures, then you will enjoy work.

In order to enjoy work, you need to be flexible. Your coworkers will disappoint and not get the job done. Your manager will handle situations wrong. Customers will be downright rude and annoying. You will feel tired of doing it. It is so important to look past nonperfection. I'm not saying to be a doormat. I'm saying you have to allow for the bad things.

Another thing that is important is your work relationships. You have to have fun. My coworkers and I do so many fun things throughout the week. We try to lock each other in the cooler, we try to sneak up from behind scare each other.

One of my favorite times I had at work was Christmas Eve. We were closing early so the same team that opened the store was closing it. As the work day was winding down, we all started to get a little silly. Ice was the weapon. I had several pieces of ice shoved in the back of my shirt. The bad part about that was that my shirt was tucked in. So the piece of ice was stuck in my shirts and melted there. This caused a big wet spot on my pants... and you can guess what it looked like. I was later on sprayed by our pre-wash sprayer. It wasn't a big spray, though. I quickly grabbed the other sprayer and hosed down my coworker. He stood there for awhile, thinking I was just going to quickly spray him. But, revenge is so sweet and I couldn't help but keep spraying him... for a long time. Eventually he got the fact that I wasn't going to stop until he moved. he ended up being soaked. It was highly entertaining.

At another restaurant I worked at, we had fun with our headsets. We would press our buttons to talk to each other when the customers weren't in the drive thru. We would sing songs back and forth. One night I started quoting lines from Forrest Gump. It was also useful to talk smack to people when they were in the back rooms.

It is very important to make sure you are treating the customer well. I have always tried to greet the customer with a smile and try to make them smile. The ultimate challenge is to make them laugh. The regular customers are fun to joke around with. And the customer always

appreciates feeling important.

Work can be a good or bad experience. Hopefully, some of these stories have helped you gain an insight into how you can make work fun. By smiling, or playing pranks on other coworkers, you can make your day go better.