What pays the bills
About a month ago Jon, the head pastor out at Southland, preached about work during 608. 608 is the (for lack of a better word) hip service at Southland for a lot of the college kids in town to go to. Jon joked that he felt he should talk about work since we go to college so we can get educated and work...for the rest of our lives.
To be honest, I don't remember much of the sermon, but I do remember that he said people think of their work in one of three basic ways...
1. It's a job, meaning it's all about the paycheck with little to no emotional investment.
2. It's a career, meaning it's all about trying to advance and basing your self-worth on that advancement.
or
3. It's a calling, meaning your desire is to make someone's life better with your work.
When I left college, I didn't expect to hop into a job I really wanted. From the moment I picked which fields I would study (English and Theatre), I knew I had no real hope of finding a job that related to my degree in any way right after graduating. An English degree isn't very useful in a town that just fired half the staff of the local paper. My only goal was to find a job that I at least enjoyed on some level, something I didn't dread going to everyday.
For the past several months I've had two part-time jobs. I put in three days a week at Coffee Times and moonlight at Krispy Kreme two days a week. Neither one of these are necessarily highly respectable places to work for someone with a college education. My friend Allison says people who work at coffee shops carry the stigma of being artists and people who work at Krispy Kreme carry the stigma of being lazy. I think both are true for me on some level. Hopefully, I'm more the former than the latter.
On a side note, I find it pretty humorous that during my last semester in school I wrote a one act play about a guy who graduates with an English degree and ends up working in a coffee shop. I joked (or at least thought I was joking) that the play was my prediction of what would happen to me after leaving UC. My playwriting professor, Kim, says "life imitates art."
Anyway, I mention all this because I was thinking about what Jon said, about the way people think about their work, in the context of my co-workers at both of my jobs.
After working at Krispy Kreme on and off for almost a year, it's easy to see that most of the people there look at it as just a job. I don't want to group everyone together, because there are definitely employees there who desire for the customer to have a genuinely pleasant experience, but overall it feels like there's a I'll-put-on-a-happy-face-for-the-customer-but-really-I-wish-this-place-would-burn-to-the-ground kind of attitude, even up to the manager level. I think that's why I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with the place. When I'm working with people who seem to be really striving to make it more enjoyable for everyone, I like Krispy Kreme. Sometimes I like it so much, that around 3am, I start singing to people who come through the drive-thru, and that seems to create something really memorable out of a normally bland activity. But when I'm stuck with people who just seem apathetic and disinterest, I wanna give my two week's notice.
Then there's the coffee shop...
I don't think anyone at Coffee Times, besides Terri who started the place back in '83, really desires a future in coffee. Though many of us have worked in multiple coffee shops, I don't know of anyone whose goal is to climb the coffee ranks to manager or coffee shop owner one day. Sarah Jane wants to become a fashion designer, and she's applying to be on the next season of "Project Runway." Sidney wants to study and promote the idea of "green funerals" (which sounds fascinating to me when she tries to explain it), and this Fall she's moving across the country to go to school. Kelsey is enrolled in the local seminary; Trevor's passionate about computers; Liam is enrolling in NKU to study Art. Everyone wants to do something else, but I've noticed that everyone still takes a great deal of pride in pouring a good cup of coffee, grinding a delicious bag of beans, and generally creating a positive atmosphere for people to converse and study and read. In our down time, we smell and discuss the teas and the more experienced baristas work on their latte foam art. Liam jokes that if he messes up a customers espresso he has trouble sleeping at night.
It's a beautiful thing, really. At Coffee Times, we're not doing anything to improve society in some drastic way. We're simply providing people with something good to drink and offering them a warm place to sit. But, because so many of us look at the work as a calling (even if not our main calling), the place becomes a community bigger then us. It becomes a place where people feel welcomed and appreciated, not looked at as a hassle we have to deal with if we want to get paid.
Starbucks has this mission statement they live by simply called "third place," meaning they desire to be the third place in someone's life (besides home and work) where they are known and loved. I've always liked that idea, and even though it's not really an official slogan of Coffee Times, I think we're doing a good job promoting it.
Over the past few months, I've had the chance to perform at open mic at Comedy Off Broadway a couple times. That's the only thing I'm doing in Lexington right now that I think really relates to what I feel my main calling is in life. And I really enjoy it. But I also see the value of what I'm doing at Krispy Kreme and Coffee Times. No, I'm not providing third world countries with clean drinking water and I'm not curing any debilitating diseases, but I am putting a smile on peoples' faces by giving them a warm donut or making them their favorite drink.
And when those people smile, so does God.
(What a corny ending. But it's almost 4am and I'm feeling a little corny, so forgive me.)
To be honest, I don't remember much of the sermon, but I do remember that he said people think of their work in one of three basic ways...
1. It's a job, meaning it's all about the paycheck with little to no emotional investment.
2. It's a career, meaning it's all about trying to advance and basing your self-worth on that advancement.
or
3. It's a calling, meaning your desire is to make someone's life better with your work.
When I left college, I didn't expect to hop into a job I really wanted. From the moment I picked which fields I would study (English and Theatre), I knew I had no real hope of finding a job that related to my degree in any way right after graduating. An English degree isn't very useful in a town that just fired half the staff of the local paper. My only goal was to find a job that I at least enjoyed on some level, something I didn't dread going to everyday.
For the past several months I've had two part-time jobs. I put in three days a week at Coffee Times and moonlight at Krispy Kreme two days a week. Neither one of these are necessarily highly respectable places to work for someone with a college education. My friend Allison says people who work at coffee shops carry the stigma of being artists and people who work at Krispy Kreme carry the stigma of being lazy. I think both are true for me on some level. Hopefully, I'm more the former than the latter.
On a side note, I find it pretty humorous that during my last semester in school I wrote a one act play about a guy who graduates with an English degree and ends up working in a coffee shop. I joked (or at least thought I was joking) that the play was my prediction of what would happen to me after leaving UC. My playwriting professor, Kim, says "life imitates art."
Anyway, I mention all this because I was thinking about what Jon said, about the way people think about their work, in the context of my co-workers at both of my jobs.
After working at Krispy Kreme on and off for almost a year, it's easy to see that most of the people there look at it as just a job. I don't want to group everyone together, because there are definitely employees there who desire for the customer to have a genuinely pleasant experience, but overall it feels like there's a I'll-put-on-a-happy-face-for-the-customer-but-really-I-wish-this-place-would-burn-to-the-ground kind of attitude, even up to the manager level. I think that's why I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with the place. When I'm working with people who seem to be really striving to make it more enjoyable for everyone, I like Krispy Kreme. Sometimes I like it so much, that around 3am, I start singing to people who come through the drive-thru, and that seems to create something really memorable out of a normally bland activity. But when I'm stuck with people who just seem apathetic and disinterest, I wanna give my two week's notice.
Then there's the coffee shop...
I don't think anyone at Coffee Times, besides Terri who started the place back in '83, really desires a future in coffee. Though many of us have worked in multiple coffee shops, I don't know of anyone whose goal is to climb the coffee ranks to manager or coffee shop owner one day. Sarah Jane wants to become a fashion designer, and she's applying to be on the next season of "Project Runway." Sidney wants to study and promote the idea of "green funerals" (which sounds fascinating to me when she tries to explain it), and this Fall she's moving across the country to go to school. Kelsey is enrolled in the local seminary; Trevor's passionate about computers; Liam is enrolling in NKU to study Art. Everyone wants to do something else, but I've noticed that everyone still takes a great deal of pride in pouring a good cup of coffee, grinding a delicious bag of beans, and generally creating a positive atmosphere for people to converse and study and read. In our down time, we smell and discuss the teas and the more experienced baristas work on their latte foam art. Liam jokes that if he messes up a customers espresso he has trouble sleeping at night.
It's a beautiful thing, really. At Coffee Times, we're not doing anything to improve society in some drastic way. We're simply providing people with something good to drink and offering them a warm place to sit. But, because so many of us look at the work as a calling (even if not our main calling), the place becomes a community bigger then us. It becomes a place where people feel welcomed and appreciated, not looked at as a hassle we have to deal with if we want to get paid.
Starbucks has this mission statement they live by simply called "third place," meaning they desire to be the third place in someone's life (besides home and work) where they are known and loved. I've always liked that idea, and even though it's not really an official slogan of Coffee Times, I think we're doing a good job promoting it.
Over the past few months, I've had the chance to perform at open mic at Comedy Off Broadway a couple times. That's the only thing I'm doing in Lexington right now that I think really relates to what I feel my main calling is in life. And I really enjoy it. But I also see the value of what I'm doing at Krispy Kreme and Coffee Times. No, I'm not providing third world countries with clean drinking water and I'm not curing any debilitating diseases, but I am putting a smile on peoples' faces by giving them a warm donut or making them their favorite drink.
And when those people smile, so does God.
(What a corny ending. But it's almost 4am and I'm feeling a little corny, so forgive me.)