One of the glistening opportunities that individuals face as they reach the golden ages of 16 and 18 is their ability to apply to their first job. Having been pressured by my wage-earning friends into joining the tax-payers of America, I decided to apply to Starbucks, and two very confusing months later, I found myself behind the coffee bar in a very large apron and making a lot of mistakes. Naturally, I figured I would share my personal embarrassment on the internet.

The wonderful thing about hiring teenagers is that we all do enough awkward and embarrassing things that for the first two weeks of any job we decide to take on, we are essentially working two jobs: completing our actual job (and we don’t even know what that means yet) and also serving as the night’s entertainment for our fellow employees and customers.

The first day that I worked the coffee bar, the person who was training me—whom I have taken to calling Coffee God behind his back—was berated by entirely too many questions as I tried to learn exactly how many pumps of syrup and how many shots of espresso each drink was supposed to get. Do macchiatos get shots on top? How do I make a chai latte?

For about 5 drinks in a row, I accidentally used skim milk instead of 2% and, in one instance, almost used skim milk for a latte that needed soy. Thankfully, Coffee God made a quick save on that one and saved some blissfully ignorant customer from anaphylactic shock.

It was extremely relieving that Coffee God and all of my other fellow employees were patient and willing to help with anything. Working the bar got easier with practice, and it’s extremely rewarding to be able to answer questions that the other new employees have about making drinks.

Things got a little tricky when I started working the register. About my third customer in, Coffee God started laughing and declared that working the register would yank me out of my quiet shell in no time. This has proven to be true, but the register still can’t fix the amount of awkward things I do on a regular basis. At one point, I ran out of quarters. I was able to find another packaged cylinder of them just fine and banged it on the counter in my efforts to open it, effectively scattering them across the expanse of the floor. Nice.

Surprisingly, working the register has been able to teach me a wide array of skills besides marking cups and utilizing customer service skills. For example, I have learned how to be an improvised sign language wizard whenever a customer doesn’t speak English. Can I put this skill on my resume?

I’m only about three weeks into the job now, but working at Starbucks is definitely more rewarding than I thought it would be—especially because the perks include free Spotify premium, but not just because of that. I haven’t just learned how to make coffee and carry four gallons of milk at once; I’ve also learned what it means to work in a professional environment and all that that entails. Essentially, if you’re looking for an opportunity to learn new things and entertain others by the absurd amount of embarrassing things you do, applying for your first job will be a rewarding experience.