I have not worked part time since my days as an undergraduate (World Market, Campus Bookstore, Campus Bus Driver, Special Collections Library, GLBT Resource Center) but it has become a need to do so with the job hunt going not swimmingly here in Boston. With uncertainty of how long this unemployment will last, I definitely needed something to help fill the financial gap for the near future.
Enter JP Licks, a Boston local ice cream shop that began in 1981, and creates it’s own homemade ice cream and flavors and roasts its own coffee. I started there this last Saturday, and have sincerely enjoyed working there since.
See, it’s not about the two huge bags of free ice cream I took home on my first day because I had to make all the ice cream items on the menu to ensure that I got a feel for 5oz, 8oz, and 11oz of yummy goodness. No, it’s the colleagues at the job that make it good to be there. I have felt nothing but welcome at JP Licks since starting, with anyone and everyone offering me tips, shortcuts, sage advice, and stories of hilarious JP Licks lore (and a common dislike of kids climbing all over our counters). It makes 8hour shifts on your feet and hands in cold freezers into something different, and to be honest, time often ticks by when I’m at work.
There is power in having good colleagues. It can make an unbearable job or leadership bearable, because you have confidants and collaborators, and it makes a great job even better, into something you love and want to continue. I have been blessed by good colleagues in my jobs, relationships that have formed into something that I will take with me all the way through my career. I don’t think I do them justice, but I hope that I can show them my appreciation at some point, so they get how much they mean to me.
I am enjoying my time at JP Licks, because of these colleagues, but the time will come (hopefully, sooner rather than later) when I’ll need to leave because someone finally gives me a job. I hope I can show my fellow crew at JP Licks my appreciation for them taking me under their scoops and showing me the yummy caramel ropes that run through the creamy goodness of vanilla-do-your-job-right ice cream.
Polar Bears and Coffee 