Who doesn’t dream of working in an ice cream shop when you’re a kid?

Well, shortly after graduating from high school, I applied for a job at the local ice cream parlor, Dairy Queen (DQ), and accomplished my childhood dream.

On my hire date, the manager – at the time – hired me as a crew member.

Little did I know that in the following months, I would become the manager – at only 17 years of age!

Being the manager of one the highest grossing DQ’s in the state of Illinois further helped supplement my education by providing me with real world experience … all before my first day of college.

Although I thought my employment with DQ would just be for the summer, I decided to stay with DQ while going to college full time.

It certainly wasn’t easy.

When not in class, the average work day for me started at nine o’clock in the morning and ended at midnight. At the start of each morning, I would count yesterday’s earnings and make trips to the bank.

After finishing my financial and inventory order duties, a process that took about two hours, I had to make sure that the store was operating smoothly.

In the afternoon, kids coming from the school across the street would come in for a local treat. This time, in addition to any time after 7PM, required my undivided attention; I had to make sure that products were stocked, the store was clean, appropriate amount of staff was available and the products for the customers were being made at a quick pace.

If something went wrong, and on average something did, I maintained full responsibility.

What could possibly happen?

Well, for starters, the vanilla soft serve machine started smoking because of being used too much and too quickly during our peak times.

And after running to the machine to turn it off, the smoke alarm would go on. While I was fanning the smoke away from the alarm, I would tell the customers not to worry and tell the staff to keep working.

Even after the doors were closed for the night, the crew and I would have to clean the store and set everything up for the next day, a process that took a long hour or two.

Once I dropped the money in the safe and turned the security alarm on, myself and the employees would leave.

Still, it was a wonderful learning experience for me and supplemented by college education by giving me real world experience of how to run all aspects of a business.