Dream Into Reality

First job in gastronomy.

I remember how a friend of mine asked me if I wanted to work with him — we could get food from there and spend more time together. It was a job at McDonald’s. It was a beautiful moment in my life. I was slowly figuring out what I wanted — and what I didn’t want — from life. It was human relations, connection, learning how to talk to people. So I thought maybe it would be a good idea.

I never shared a shift with my friend. I was working during the day, and he at night, and they put me on the grill. That was the first disappointment in my dream — nothing went as planned. From a bigger perspective, years later, it’s good that it didn’t. Even though it’s hard to admit, it’s sometimes better not to get everything you planned. There needs to be something like “reality loading.” The best things in life came to me when I didn’t expect them — and the way they came was completely unexpected, too.

At least I was talking to the people I worked with — like a guy who made burgers really fast and really well. It was impressive to watch. I remember how he said that he just tries to do his job as well as he can. Even if that seemed funny to me, he liked it. It was interesting to hear stories people shared, and everything was new to me. But of course — how many burgers can you flip and expect to be happy when what you really want is to talk to people?

Turning Fear Into Laughter

One day when I came in, my manager told me I would be working the cashier. It was one of the most stressful days of my life. I didn’t want to follow my dream anymore — I was okay with the grill after two weeks. It always seems scarier than it really is. In this case, it was just pushing some buttons and asking the guests if they wanted extra fries or something.

After crossing that fear — which may seem ridiculous now, being afraid of standing at a McDonald’s cashier — it became normal.

In fact, it became so normal that it got very boring at some point. The next day they put me on the cashier again. I was punching buttons and thinking to myself, This can’t be it — there has to be more to life than this.

I remembered I had been learning how to talk. After a few years of effort, it didn’t seem so scary anymore to just start talking with more enthusiasm. So I used what I had. I greeted people with excitement, asked what we could do for them with joy.

It was one of the most transformative moments of my life. I was laughing, guests were laughing, people I worked with were laughing. It became so light. It was just funny instead of depressing.

I started to feel good and experiment with how to approach people — to make them feel comfortable, and how to do things fast, like pressing the buttons for orders with extra speed, calling numbers of the orders like it was a lottery machine. It was so outside the box that I started to receive business cards with job offers. Really. It looked like overnight success, like something just switched and I became confident.

But it was really the result of the effort I had been putting in — those walks with my dog, trying to squeeze out my voice between the lines while talking with friends.

There’s something freeing in overcoming fear. It no longer has control over you once you go through it.
To be fair, most of the business cards were from life insurance agents — but the mental shift I had after this was like leveling up in some game of life.

Dreams Come to Life

There was a day when I offered some guy extra cream sauce for his fries — because I had just discovered it and I was eating it every day. By pure luck, it turned out that this guy came back later with his sister. They were opening a coffee shop, and he was so impressed that they came back specifically to offer me a job.

It didn’t matter that I didn’t know how to make coffee. They didn’t even ask questions, except one:
“Would you like to work for us?”

I felt like a character in a movie. It was so unrealistic that I considered not taking the offer. It took me a week to decide whether a coffee shop would be the right place for me.

Luckily, I called and said I would like to work for them. It was pre-opening, so I had to wait a little bit, but it was kind of certain that I would work there.

Thanks to my attitude, lack of experience or knowledge didn’t matter at all. They wanted me.

This was a very empowering moment. They wanted me to be me. I had space to find my own approach. It aligned with my values — and I could learn how to talk to people. I didn’t have to sell them something they didn’t want, but rather find out what they specifically liked.

Because usually, if someone comes to a coffee shop, it’s either for a drink or something to eat.

Like at age of 20 ... how cool is that?