I have held an odd assortment of random jobs ranging from portrait photography to work at an engineering firm. What I find really interesting is that there are certain strange things that I remember from each of these past jobs.

For example, I remember that the guy who owned the engineering firm always sent flowers to his wife on Wednesdays. (I know this because I did secretarial work and placed the orders for him.) This has nothing to do with engineering but it stuck out in my mind and became something that I did at times for special people in my life.

Another example is that I remember when a restaurant that I worked for started using customer satisfaction surveys to get feedback from people dining at the restaurant. The employees complained that they wished the restaurant owner would focus less on customer surveys and give out an employee satisfaction survey instead. This encouraged me later to consider employee feedback to be as important as customer feedback.

The things that I took away from each job that I had were not the things that I would have thought I’d learn at those places but they were the things that turned out to be most useful in the long run!

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