I never thought I’d be the person who drags herself out of bed every morning, pops a couple of painkillers, and spends a solid ten minutes mentally negotiating with the day ahead. For years I listened to Amma do exactly that. Poor thing would say it almost every morning while she was still in service: “It takes time to gather my strength and get up from bed.” I used to roll my eyes. Now I get it. Completely. The body aches, the mind resists, and somehow you still show up with a smile that looks real enough for the first few hours. That’s the thing about working in passenger service, and before that, retail.

You collect a decade’s worth of stories, random observations, and quiet life lessons whether you plan to or not. I’ve dealt with every kind of human imaginable, and somewhere along the way I stopped resenting the chaos and started actually relishing it. That word my grandfather drilled into me long before I ever punched a time clock.

When we were kids, my brothers and I used to study at my Nana’s library in the house. Quiet, calm, shelves full of books, the kind of place where exams didn’t feel like a personal attack. Papa, my Nana, had one simple rule: love what you are doing while you do it. When you feel exhausted and words don’t make sense, take a break. Savour the process. Don’t let stress swallow you. I applied that formula to everything that came after. First job, the overwhelming workload, the migration to a new country, the relationships that didn’t work out, the career switches. Whenever things got heavy, I stepped back, went outside, talked to people, made a few novice mistakes, and still rewarded myself at the end of a hectic day.

I learned to find delight in every struggle, every challenge. Papa wasn’t just my best friend. He was the mentor who taught me that stress is optional if you refuse to carry it permanently. Now I’m in what feels like the second phase of life. Studies are done, work is more or less settled, but new avenues keep opening and health has started throwing its own curveballs. I’m not giving up. I have always found my spark in it and I always will.

Working with the public will teach you things no classroom ever could. One of the first hard lessons: never announce that you dislike someone at work. I don’t know if it’s karma or just the universe having a particularly twisted sense of humour, but the moment you say it out loud you somehow end up rostered with that exact person every single day. The universe hears you and decides to test your patience thoroughly. So, keep those opinions locked. Smile. Survive. Move on.

And since we are being honest, let me get my favourite rants off my chest. Because if you have ever worked a till or an airport counter, you know. Nothing tests your inner peace like a person who takes a full lifetime to move forward in a queue. The line has moved, their turn has come, their stuff is right there, and they are still scrolling, still digging, still deciding. At retail they will stand at checkout and unpack their life story one coupon at a time. At the airport they will stare at the belt like it owes them money. And then comes the classic excuse, “Sorry, I had such a long day” or “It’s too early to be awake.” Come on, dude. I have been on my feet for eight hours, sometimes ten, sometimes more, smiling through it all. If I can be awake and courteous, you can manage to take two steps forward.

And while we are at it, if you just bought half the store worth more than my rent, please do not fight me over the five cent bag. You know who you are. Cart full of things you absolutely did not need, total flashing like a phone number, and then a full moral crisis over a nickel for a bag. I judge. Hard. I judge silently with my customer service smile on, but I am judging. Another one. Take your belongings with you. Your passport, your water bottle, your headphones, your child’s toy, your dignity, whatever you left on the counter or at the security tray, please take it. It is not in my job description to sprint after you like an overenthusiastic puppy dog to return it. When we do run after you, and we do, that is kindness, not entitlement. That is us choosing to be decent humans, not fulfilling a clause in your ticket.

And my personal favourite, the holy trinity of rudeness. If you are talking to a cashier or to airport staff, take off the headphones. Take off the sunglasses indoors. And for the love of God, get off your damn phone call. You cannot be on a full gossip session about aunty’s rishta while I am trying to check your ID or scan your milk. It is hell rude. I am a person, not a self-checkout voice. Look at me, acknowledge me, we will both be out of this interaction faster.

Okay. Rant over. Other practical tips for anyone in public-facing jobs: for the love of all that is holy use mouthwash. Actually, use it anyway. You are dealing with humans at close range for hours. Fresh breath is a small kindness you can offer both them and yourself. I have also perfected the art of the strategic washroom break. When the noise gets too much and you need five minutes of pure nothing, the washroom becomes your temporary sanctuary. Phone out, quick game, deep breath, back into the arena. It’s not glamorous, but it works.

Somewhere along the way I started loving the fake-enthusiastic greetings. “Heyyyy, how are yaaa?” “I am great, great, great, thank you for asking, my love. Have a lovely lunch. Enjoy your break. Take care of yourself.” We all know the script. We all perform it. And yet there is something weirdly comforting about the performance. It creates a thin layer of shared humanity in a place that can otherwise feel transactional. I’ve started leaning into it with genuine warmth. The more I give it, the less fake it feels.

I’m a people’s person at heart. I live for the interaction. Thousands of different faces, different colours, different languages, different lifestyles swirling through the same space every single day. The pure hustle of it is addictive. As someone who writes, I look at the crowd and see characters. Stories waiting to be noticed. One day I might actually compile all those workplace observations into a book. The material is endless.

Little acts of kindness cost nothing and change the temperature of a moment. Tell someone they look nice or they have a nice smile or mention that they smell good.

Remember a regular passenger’s name or a colleague’s name. I don’t know if this is purely a North American thing, but people visibly soften when you call them by name. They become more attentive, more pleasant. A smile plus a genuine compliment is basically free social magic. I’ve watched it work hundreds of times. That said, never make the mistake of thinking your work friends are your real-life friends. Work relationships have a different operating system. They can be warm, helpful, even fun, but they live inside the building. Outside those walls the rules change. Protect your energy accordingly.

Why do I walk around with almost zero regrets? Simple. I give 200% to whatever I’m doing, personal, educational, professional. If it still doesn’t work out, I don’t sit there fretting. It wasn’t meant to be. That mindset, combined with Papa’s “savour the process” has carried me through rejection, field switches, and the general idiocies of mankind that customer service throws at you daily. The diversity alone is the real perk. Every shift is a reminder that the world is bigger, stranger and more colourful than whatever mood I woke up with.

Getting to turn real faces into fictional characters, that is a writer’s quiet privilege. Getting to make someone’s day lighter with one sentence, that is a human one. So, the formula stays. Health might be acting up, new challenges might be lining up at the gate, but I am not rewriting the rulebook. Take the break when you need it. Reward yourself after the hard bits. Speak kindly. Remember names. Keep the mouthwash handy. And above all, stay amused by it all.

That little mantra I hear when things get heavy, to find the lightness in it, it was never about life being easy. It was about not making it heavier than it needs to be. I carried it through school, through first jobs, through migration, through heartbreak, and through ten years of grinning at strangers who sometimes grin back and sometimes stare right through you. Still carrying it. If these random thoughts ever become a book, it will not be a complaint log. It will be a survival guide with decent eyeliner. About laughing at the roster from hell, about finding weird comfort in the scripted hellos, and about the quiet flex of choosing to stay warm in a job that could easily make you cynical. Once you crack that, the bed gets easier to leave, painkillers go back to being what they are, occasional helpers not daily essentials, and the crowd stops looking like an obstacle course and starts looking like exactly what it is: an endless, beautifully messy source material. Ten years in, still learning. Still watching. Still giving 200%. And still finding reasons to cackle at it all.