Outside of their busy class schedules and extracurriculars, many M-A students work as a way to earn extra money and gain experience. However, things don’t always go as planned on the job.
Senior Kasey Prober works at Alys Grace, a boutique in downtown Menlo Park. “One day during the summer it was super busy and frantic in the store, and we were trying to get all of the clothes out of the fitting rooms quickly so we could put new people in,” she said. “We weren’t being very careful with where we were putting the clothes, and so one of my coworkers ended up accidentally putting a pair of jeans on top of the candle that we had lit. I was behind the counter and so I watched as the jeans lit up in flames.”
She continued, “I had no idea what to do and so I just tapped my manager’s shoulder very calmly and pointed at the fire. Then she started hitting it with another shirt to try and engulf the flames. It was pretty scary in the moment, but funny looking back.”
Senior Ian Odin used to work at a barber shop. He said, “One of my responsibilities was cleaning cloths in the laundry room upstairs, and one time when I was up there, someone came and closed the door because they thought that no one was inside. Somehow, the door got locked and so I wasn’t able to get out.”
He described, “I tried really hard to be loud and get someone’s attention but no one heard me. When I eventually got out and went downstairs, everyone just thought I was messing around for the past hour.”
Junior Shayla Carnerio shared a story from a stressful day when she worked at Bare Bowls, an açai store in downtown Palo Alto. “On one of my first shifts, it was just me and one other employee my age working when the UCLA men’s water polo team manager came in and asked us to make 45 bowls for the whole team, in only one hour,” she said. “It was super stressful and we barely made them all in time, but it was also kind of fun.”
Junior Matthew Jimenez works as a plumber at his parents’ plumbing company. He said, “Over the summer, me and a couple guys were digging a six to seven foot trench to get to a pipe. I took a break after a while because I was tired but the other guys continued and one of them accidentally hit the pipe and sewage water started spewing out.”
He continued, “We had to stop digging and fix the pipe, and we turned off the water in all the buildings. However, we realized far too late that we had forgotten to turn it off in one building, and so while we were finishing up our work, all of a sudden a rush of poop and pee came out. Everyone’s feet got soaked, and it was really disgusting. It taught me to be more careful and cautious when doing work like this.”
Sometimes students are scared to make mistakes or worry about how to handle stressful situations at work. However, oftentimes these experiences teach employees how to achieve more success in their jobs and provide life lessons to guide them in the future.
For some, these lessons are practical. “I learned to be more careful with candles in the store because it is easy for accidents to happen if we aren’t safe,” Proper said.
For others, these lessons are broader. Carnerio said, “Having to make so many bowls in a short amount of time taught me how to work fast under pressure, which is an important life skill.”
Not only do experiences like these help students learn, but they often become funny stories to look back on in the future.
