Fifty hours a week, no sleep and an empty stomach became my new normal.

But it wasn’t always this way.

I started at Tijuana Flats when I was just a freshman in college as a full-time student. It was a way to make a few extra dollars but I treated it like it was the one-way ticket to my dream job. 

Instead of enjoying my time as a college student, I was canceling plans to work. I kept clocking-in when I should have clocked out from this nightmare. 

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Being just decent at this job wouldn’t suffice for me. That’s when I found myself picking up extra shifts and putting my all into every close. Being new, I failed to recognize this as a mistake. 

So it’s no surprise I was crushed when my manager told me I had done “the worst close she had ever seen.”

Slowly, I found myself staying extra late despite my early morning classes. 

It got to the point where I wouldn’t clock out until I had checked under each table for every crumb and dust using the flashlight on my phone.

Sleep became an option, even if I got home at a good time, my anxiety would cause me to wake up from a deep sleep for fear I didn’t sweep well enough.

I knew it was coming to a head when I had missed my mom’s birthday, my brother’s band performance and even skipped my family’s birthday celebration they planned for me.

My timesheet may have said I clocked out, but mentally I hadn’t. 

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Three days a week, I was working from 9 a.m. to sometimes midnight. Not to mention the occasional closing shift in between those three days.

I had become a mindless robot stuck on the idea of tacos, good grades and a large paycheck.

I was on this rollercoaster of praise to criticism and truly, I didn’t plan on getting off anytime soon. 

But I was forced to step off the ride after almost a year. It wasn’t until a bright Thursday morning that I was hit with the hard hitting news that our Tijuana Flats “had been shut down.”

All that time, sweat, blood, and tears had been for… nothing.

In one semester, I had been brainwashed to the point where I had placed this job that meant nothing to my future on a pedestal.

Having a part-time job in college will bring you money, but I can guarantee it won’t bring you success or happiness.