Ever since the Chick-fil-A at SNU opened its doors to the campus, it has almost instantly become one of the most beloved places within the university. This is for a multitude of reasons, ranging from the quick service to the delicious food, courtesy of what is often considered by students to be one of the most popular fast food restaurants. However, one of the less well-known, but incredibly important aspects of this location’s success is the employees, who work tirelessly every day to provide food for those students who are looking for a switch-up from going to the cafeteria for lunch or dinner. One of these employees, Kelsey O’Rear, is an unsung hero on campus, taking this job in order to make time for things that are important, all the while having the ability to provide many students with satisfaction.
Even though she has only been working at SNU for six weeks, she has established herself to have a flair for the job of serving people. This very likely comes from her background and experience in the fast food industry, and customer service in general, an area in which she has worked for seventeen years. She ended up hearing about the job when looking for work opportunities that would allow her to take care of her kids when she needed to. In order to schedule this, she made the decision to work every day of the week, but only half of the day, so she would be able to pick her children up from school.
In my interview with Kelsey, she talked about how working at the Chick-fil-A at SNU has been an incredibly rewarding experience. Her boss even expressed how much positive energy she brings to the work environment, and that positivity has ended up spreading into her own joy to help people through the customer service process. In her free time, in addition to taking care of her kids, she also is a voracious reader, telling me through the interview that she has 3 to 5 books going at a time. This job has really opened a lot of doors for Kelsey and the opportunities that come with it, being able to hold steady work whilst being a mother to her children.
As a final note, one thing that Kelsey told me that a lot of people may not realize about the job is an understanding that, even though it is a customer service job, that does not mean that those who are being served can treat them poorly. Even though it is their job to provide us with something, we never know what kind of a day they are having and must remember to treat everyone respectfully, even with a smile if we can. Hopefully, through this interview, we can learn from Kelsey O’Rear the value of interacting with other people in these ways, through her experiences working as a cashier in Chick-fil-A at SNU.
Photo by Jacob Mash