Eons ago, I was employed by Gallup as a telephone surveyor. Part of the Gallup hiring process includes taking the StrengthsFinder assessment, which is used to create a personality profile. The profile identifies traits that define a person in order of prevalence, and those traits are used to determine that person’s likelihood of thriving in a particular position. I do not recall my exact profile, but I do recall that my primary personality trait was that of ‘Learner’. This is consistent with my academic pursuits in philosophy (literally ‘love of knowledge’). It is also consistent with what I love about being a bartender: the opportunity to learn new things every day. Essentially, the learning curve is endless, and occasionally I am reminded of exactly how wrong I can be, even after 16 years of experience.

Until recently, I have opined that hiring experienced help is always preferred. My current ‘apprentice’, however, has admittedly changed my perspective. We recently opened a capacity-25, pre-prohibition influenced, craft cocktail bar. The concept is incredibly progressive for our market, and due to the narrow scope of our target demographic, it was imperative to find exactly the right help to pull it off. The scheduling logistics are such that there is only room for one full-time bartender (me), and a part-time bartender/door person. Trained craft bartenders in our market, if they are seeking work at all, are generally seeking full-time positions. This left us with the option of hiring for personality, and training the skill-set. Enter Keith.

Keith has been training for just six weeks, but his passion for learning is relentless. He absorbs and retains information at an impressive level, studies appropriately, preps and assists intuitively, and has, at very least, mastered mimicking my customer interaction antics. I have even gone so far as to admit that some of his technical habits are better than mine, as I have come from over a decade of volume service, where necessary, logistical corner-cutting resulted in sloppy technique. He is not having to ‘unlearn’ anything. Quite frankly, my mind is blown.

The moral of this story is that the learning curve of service is never-ending. There is always a chance that a new venture or a new service environment will force you to see the elements of service in a new light. Gallup was right: As a ‘Learner’, I need an environment where I am presented with constant opportunity to grow. As a bartender, the opportunity to grow the service and management skill-set through experience is endless. That is why I love my job.

For my fellow veterans…please share points in your service career when you had a change of opinion as a result of experience. Thanks, and cheers!