Andrea Godin
Growing as an Individual
Within my first year working, I was always busing, which I was positioned to serve chips and salsa, clean off tables, and help out the servers with anything they needed. Sometimes I would work as a hostess during the week. Personally working with people and having to socialize with customers allowed me to grow more as a person, socially and adapting to having good customer service but I was never good as a hostess most of the time. Throughout the year I got to experience my first actual Cinco de Mayo, learn how to clean and close a restaurant by myself, make guacamole, pick up some Spanish, etc. I’ve now been working at Mexicali for a year and a half just finally recently training as a server to let me expand myself to when I left for college.
While working at Mexicali it allowed me as to meet a lot of new people and start new relationships.
Honestly when I first started off I was scared to talk to customers or even some of my coworkers due to my social anxiety of others. This was a big step for me as a person to talk in random conversation with a stranger. A lot of the time I would shudder my words, become this shy person, or have an anxiety attack in the employee’s bathroom. I was always anxious to mess up an order or make one of my other employees mad (they
were imitating since they were older). As time went by I started to become comfortable with everyone even the chiefs that spoke barley any English themselves. I was invited out to dinner or even over to hang out with my coworkers. I can now say that I have someone always whenever I need. Even my customers I’ve
grown pretty strong relationships that I saw weekly on weekends or Taco Tuesday’s.
One waitress that has had a grand impact on my life is Brittney. She’s only a few years older than I am but I look up to her as a mother figure because she’d always look after me, give me advice when I needed, and guided me to be a better worker. Her boyfriend, Tapate also worked at the restaurant as a server and bartender. They both grew on me allowing me come into their family. One time last year when my car broke down, they let me borrow their car for a week. I gone out with my coworkers frequently, even on holidays. Overall I’ve come to develop some strong relationships with the people around me, being able to call them my second family.
Spending my time at Mexicali has allowed me to grow out of my shell, helping my anxiety. While I can’t work at Mexicali anymore expect on breaks I hope within other future jobs I can find people that care for my well being, grow more as individual, and as fun to work at as my first job. I’m grateful to be able to experience of having a job at that point in my life to be able to work and pay for luxuries I wanted or even things I needed. Over all I think having a job at a young age to develop from dependent on their parents to independent to themselves.