Barback

It’s a Sunday evening in 2010.

I’m a barback about to experience the lowest point in my life.

The alleyway is full of trash from the weekend’s revelry.

I squeeze myself past the 55 gallon drum of spent fryer oil next to the trash bins.

It’s 8:34 pm and I'm on my last bag of trash.

This bag is stuck DEEP in the can as if Oscar The Grouch himself is holding tightly to its prized contents.

I pull and pull. Nothing.

Gritting my teeth, I squat down to work the bag free. With a fervent and persistent tug, the bag dislodges.

VICTORY!

I think, cursing the bag.

Suddenly, I’m consumed with abject fear as a bottle of liquor in the trash bag clips the edge of the oil barrel at the absolute perfect angle, so perfect in fact that it causes the barrel to wobble and the lid to pop off.

The barrel leans.

My breathing stops.

The sound of trash bag dripping on my foot, falls away.

A white heat in my forehead.

BOOM.

I'm covered in oil.

And the spill is spreading quickly inside the bar towards the the basement.

Dropping the trash bag, I attempt to stop the spill with my shoes, my sweatshirt… a broom.

No dice.

Fuck! I’m gonna tell the bartender then I’m gonna quit and walk out.

Wiping the oil off of my forehead with my clean forearm, it hits me. I can’t quit.

I don’t have anywhere else to go. I don't have anyone I can call and I have a student loan payment due next week and need this job to pay for it.

I have absolutely, positively. Fucking. Nothing.

I'm overcome with the perfect mix of anger, sadness and powerlessness. The kind that you keep close to you. The kind you realize that it’s better to never forget. The kind that either breaks you or becomes your first building block.

I didn’t know how. I didn't know what. But I fucking knew that no matter what it took… I was going to have something. I’d win somehow and that this moment would be the first brick in my wall of ambition.

That ambition that led me to a career in sales because I know that if I can help others achieve their goals, I’ll always be able to achieve mine.

Have you had an experience that drove you to where you are now? Why do you do what you do?

Comment below or send me an email: s@stephensteers.com or a message @stephensteers_ !