26 Celebrating Failure

Although I have failed a few times this semester a more prominent failure of mine occurred a couple of years ago and I felt it was more relevant for this topic. My junior year of high school I started working at a smoothie bar in a L.A. fitness. One of my best friends Uncles had owned it at the time so it was an easy job to get. I was a fairly good employee, I always made my customers smile and feel special and I remembered my regular customers orders. I made lots of tips and counted the receipts correctly everytime and cleaned up after myself after every shift. My one flaw. My friends. It was my local neighborhood gym so my friends already had memberships there. My friend Emily, who's Uncle owned the smoothie bar would always let me in the back to hangout with her during her shifts before I started working there so I thought that it was okay. I think deep down I knew that it was not acceptable but I rationalized it by thinking, if she could do it so could I. Forgetting, that I am not actually apart of their family. Essentially, I had let my friends go in the backroom and the boss (Emily's Uncle) had watched the cameras and told me not to do it again. All was well until a couple months later my boyfriend came to visit my at work and I let him into the backroom to hangout with me, thinking that my boss wouldn't watch the tapes. I was wrong. He called me to tell me that I was going to be let go because of inability to do as he had asked. It was embarrassing. I had never been fired from anything before, and had always been a good student / daughter, so I rarely ever got in to trouble. 

From the experience I learned that I needed to take my job seriously, even if I did work for a close friend's family member. I also learned the vital lesson of keeping my personal and professional life separate form each other. 

This class has changed my perspective on failure a great amount. I have always envisioned my life going as planned, graduating college and getting a good job, being in a city that I loved surrounded by tons of friends and family. I am grateful for this class because it has reminded me that life rarely ever goes as planned, and that I have to be ready to adapt. I am more likely to take risks as a result of this class because what I and all of my classmates can accomplish is immeasurable if we would just go out of our comfort zones and try.