Three Jobs Everyone Should Work

I started working for someone other than my parents when I was 14 years old and got a job doing whatever my neighbor’s dad was doing at the time. Since that time, I have probably worked for about ten different companies doing all sorts of things to ensure that I had the money to pay my bills and live comfortably.  Yesterday, I went to a job fair in Raleigh (a little bit of a bust unless I wanted to sell cell phones or insurance) and as I drove the three and a half hours home, I had time to reflect on what I have learned from each job that I’ve worked. As I reflected, I realized that there are three types of jobs in particular that have shaped how I interact with workers on a daily basis. I believe that if everyone at worked these jobs at some point in their lives, it would yield a much more calm and understanding community of people who are more genuine when they say “have a good one” before leaving a store.

1. Serving

The Job: I have served in environments ranging from high class restaurants to casual bars and have found one commonality in all my serving jobs: sometimes customers are jerks. In every place that I have worked, servers make just enough money on their paychecks to cover the taxes that have to be paid; if you aren’t making tips, then you aren’t actually making money. So many things can slow a server down, from the kitchen making a mistake on an order because they are overwhelmed to a hostess double (or triple) seating you; that is giving you multiple new tables at the same time. I have only ever worked in one restaurant that had strict “sections;” an area in which all your tables are sat so that they are conveniently located near each other. In the other places that I have worked, my tables could have been anywhere in the restaurant. If a table on one side of the restaurant needs ranch for their fries, a table on the other side of the restaurant just got sat and needs their drink order taken, and the food just dropped for the table upstairs, it is easy to find the weeds.

How to Fix Six Popular Sports

As a coach and sports enthusiast, I can say for certain that the world is seeing bigger, faster, and stronger athletes every year. However, the sports we love are often not changing at the same rate as the athletes; most sports are receiving only slight tweaks each year with the focus being primarily on safety. With the development of the ADHD generation (and the up-and-coming ADH-what’s-that-over-there-D generation), it’s time to make these sports more exciting for the casual and easily distracted viewer. To that end I present you my realistic (and way more awesome) proposals for how to fix six popular sports.

1. Baseball

The Problem: I have to start with baseball since I am a big time baseball hater. Watching baseball on TV is awesome when I want to take a nap. I will allow that a baseball game is much more entertaining in person, but still slightly less entertaining than watching paint dry with a hot dog and an $8 beer.

The Realistic Fix: While work is already being done to make the games shorter, something needs to be done about the length of the season. The regular season is 162 games. How in the world can games in the first half of the year feel meaningful if there is still 100 more coming? A lot of these games are broadcast while the masses are at work because they are borderline pointless. Between the insanely excessive regular season, the playoffs, and spring training (February is not spring, by the way), baseball is played almost year round. No sport should fill Sportscenter with highlights more than eight months. I won’t be greedy here; cut the season down to about half of the current length and games mean more, players rest longer during the offseason, and a larger percentage of the games will be seen live by the target audience.

The Way More Awesome Fix: Although Futurama took many of the best ideas with blernsball, major improvements could still be made to make baseball crazy awesome. Imagine baseball taking place with a ball that is more rubbery like a lacrosse ball and the field encased in a dome; there would be no more out of the park homeruns since the ball would be trapped in the field of play and the outfielders could catch the ball off the sides of the dome. Additionally, I say give all the basemen and the catcher an American Gladiators style blocking pad to knock the baserunner away from the base. No one makes fun of a player for packing on a little weight in the offseason when he trucks them on the way to first.

No one gets to first base safely. No one.