Consider this, if you would, the return of the prodigal son. Except I’m nobody’s son and a dear wish of mine is to not to be described as prodigal. But I digress. So, as you come to the end of another semester, you have plans, if not concrete ones, that include a “real” job or grad school for your own post-graduate life, so you’re not really concerned with what last year’s seniors are up to.

A few of us are in grad school, and a few of us are “really” employed, but some of us are just trying to get our heads together. And you know what that doesn’t do? Give you something to do during the day, or a way to feed yourself while you do whatever you need to do to get it together, be it a job hunt or grad school applications. So here I am. Returned, to tell you what might come next.

I am currently employed in my fifth restaurant job in the city of New Orleans. I have worked in the Central Business District, the French Quarter, St. Charles Avenue and (briefly) on Bourbon Street. I have met (and forgotten) some horrifying people; I have met some incredible people. Mostly, however, I have met New Orleans, and that is everything good people say about New Orleans, and everything bad people say about New Orleans. That goes double for my fellow human beings.

Firstly, as a city with a thriving tourist economy, one of the biggest industries in the city is the service industry -tending bar, waiting tables, bussing tables, cashiering, hosting, delivery driving, cooking and dishwashing. Some would say that tourism is New Orleans’s only burgeoning economy, and so you have a lot of people in the service industry, and from all over, with different backgrounds.

I’ve worked with people who didn’t finish high school and have waited tables for the past forty-odd years of their lives, but I’ve also worked with college students, college graduates, masters’ students and Ph.D. candidates. So while it feels a little embarrassing to have graduated cum laude and be serving food and answering phones, I am at least in good diverse company. It is also a little galling to be told that I wouldn’t and do not make a good server because of my personality – blunt, impatient, demanding and a little abrupt. What do you mean I can’t do something that looks so easy, something that all of my friends are doing?

However, I will never think that the service industry is easy again. If you’ve never been in the front of the house dealing with guests and/or customers, I would recommend you do it immediately, because as difficult as it is, it makes you a person. You start to really see the people around you, co-workers and not, and not just when you’re at work.

It is something strange and oddly personal to be standing on the other side of the cashier, looking at the person doing the same thing you were doing yesterday. On a busy day, we can all be sharp and sad and tired. You will start to forgive people for the little things because they might be having a bad day, too. You will start to consider what you can do for them, just to make their day go a little bit smoother. You will start to appreciate the people around you doing things for you you don’t think twice about.

Most importantly, you will learn to tip your barista, and the person bringing you your takeout order, because, hey, $7.25 an hour is not worth it to go get more ketchup for fifteen different people and smile while you’re doing it like you don’t, like them, have somewhere more important to be.You might also want to never speak to another human being again, but we all have bad days.

So getting your head together after college might not mean you’re learning the things you would in grad school, or making the money you would be in a “real” job, but you might be learning more about courtesy, which is something we forget about sometimes. I think that’s worth having, at least in the long run.