Thread by @rachelnabors

I used to wait tables as a teenager to save money for college (I didn’t have enough to go to college, but I did use the money to buy a laptop, which was the best investment f my life).

I was a terrible waitress.

I wasn’t a terrible waitress because I didn’t care about the customer—I cared deeply. But I didn’t understand what they wanted. You see, I never ate out. I was too dang poor to pay other people to bring me food! So I didn’t know what it was like to be served.

Example: when a group of hikers came in after a long day, I would give them the standard issue waters. But it didn’t occur to me that they might like an actual pitcher of water. I’d just refill their glasses when I saw them empty. If things got busy, that refill would be slow.

I simply didn’t have the empathy, the experience of being served, to understand my customers as a waitress. I did my job. But I could’ve done it even better if I’d had customer experience.

Fast forward to giving workshops and hosting courses: I make a point of taking other people’s courses and trainings because then I have that customer experience: gosh, a cheat sheet handout would help me here; if only there was a post that expanded on this.

Being on the other side of the table is invaluable, not because you are your own customer but because you need to be reminded that your customers need things you might be completely blindsided by. You have to seek out ways to oblige them.

Whatever your job is, ask yourself, “who is my customer?” Is your customer a manager? A team? Thousands of users?

Now ask yourself, “what can I do to gain experience of being that customer?” Can you manage a small side project? Join a team? Be a user of a competitor’s product?

Once again, you do this to see better with your customer’s eyes, not to try to be your own customer. You are NOT your customer. Please don’t project yourself onto them. That’s not cool.

I wish I had had the experience of waiting patiently for water while thirsty so I could’ve understood the needs of those hikers better, felt their pain when their glasses ran dry, and thought ahead for ways to prevent that pain (procure a pitcher of water for their table).

So invest time to find out who your customer is (it’s not always who you think!), and spend time being that customer yourself. It is the best investment you can make!

Do you write specs? BUILD something with those specs—with some people who would use them!

Do you draw comics? READ comics! (True story, cartoonists are huge supporters of each other’s works.)

Do you organize conferences? ATTEND other conferences!

And here’s one for all you men in tech organizing events: attend @BlogHer. It’s the only Conf I’ve been to where the men’s bathrooms were converted to women’s. Yes, men attend and speak. But they are the minority.

The experience might help you find more ways to kick ass :)

Thus concludes today’s edition of Career Thoughts from the Woods (it’s a tea house now, actually).

You know, I still want to give waitressing a shot again some day. I just know I can knock it out of the park now!