I remember the feeling of receiving my first pay check.

Except it wasn’t a pay check. It was an envelope filled with cash. And I’m pretty sure I wasn’t legally hired at the shop I was working at at the time.

Income, let’s call it income.

I swear it wasn’t as shady as it sounds. My first job was at a coffee shop during my university years. Think of the coolest, most rustic café, slightly hidden off a side street that served the most premium artisanal coffee. Now think the exact opposite.

This coffee shop was located at a train station, more specifically between two platforms of a train station. And it was less of a “shop”, more of a shack that had sprung up to serve half-awake train passengers who would take the train into London at 7 in the morning. I wouldn’t have been able to make you any swan-shaped latte art, let alone tell you the difference between robusta and arabica beans. All I knew was how to make coffee – fast. I would get a little rush of adrenaline whenever I saw a customer sprinting towards the counter just as the train was arriving into the platform, and a hint of satisfaction when I watched them juggling their cappuccino and sandwich onto the train right as the doors closed behind them.

I never made the coffee I drank. Which probably says more about my coffee-making abilities than the quality of the actual coffee itself. I was lucky my customers were tired, heavy-eyed commuters who probably appreciated a scalding hot cappuccino to set their nerve endings on fire and jolt them awake.

What I lacked in coffee-making skills, I made up for in my ability to make a killer sandwich. By the time I left that job, I was able to make and pack a sandwich in under 30 seconds flat. Tuna sweetcorn was my favourite – both to make and to eat.

I often took the opening and closing shifts in between classes, which meant waking up to open the shop before any trace of daylight, and walking home long after the sun had set. Winters were the worst. I developed some of my worst sleeping habits during this time – there were days where I’d stay up late studying, head straight to work at 5am, and trudge back to campus for a lecture at 9am. In hindsight, this was probably why I failed my one of my exams that year. I’d stupidly thought of myself as superhuman, pulling all-nighters regularly thinking it wouldn’t affect my health or mental wellbeing.

Despite all this, I’m glad I took the job. It taught me a lot about patience, responsibility and the importance of mental math (thanks, Kumon). Working in the service industry opens your eyes to the best and worst of humanity, and I’m glad to have had the chance to experience it in all its glory.