Ive got strong feelings about this. My daughter is finishing her last semester at Mizzou, she has worked in bars her whole 4 years there, mainly to cover food and partying as I had tuition and housing covered. Her whole sorority worked there (Kappa) so it was also a place for them to bond and politic with other houses and frats. When her mother found out she was going to be working at campus bar and grill (formerly and colloquially known as Big12) she was mortified and ashamed, how dare her daughter go from being Miss Tennessee to working in a bar like some. . .barfly! I told her I was over the moon extatic, because it was going to give her the best education about human nature in quick order. She's graduating from the honors program in the J school Magna Cum Laude in May, and will be highly sought after in strategic communications circles like creative agencies, but her real education is knowing how to connect with people and stay away from train wrecks. A new place she works at had whole fraternities come in for brunch and drink specials and under tip while staying all day watching football. 2 weekends ago when they arrived she met them on the sidewalk outside and told them to scram, that they were costing her and the staff money and weren't welcome anymore unless they started acting like adults and tipped 25% and everybody had to order an entre. She really bitched them up and down and her fellow waitresses actually clapped for her at closing. They formally apologized for their shitty behavior, begged to be allowed their usual corner of the place, and tipped her $400 and have subsequently been better about tips. They've thanked her for being assertive. She's told them they're lucky that they didn't get blacklisted all over Greek town as cheapskates and fucktards. Because her current bar is more adult oriented she's gotten to know loyal clientele in Mizzou administration, the football head coaching staff, and even SEC commissioners and executives. Shes interning with Fox Sports this year and mixes that work into conversations with AD staff and picks their brains about sports. When I toast her on graduation night I'm going to thank Mizzou Journalism for the cutting edge strat comm education and thank Big12/The Quarry for helping her spot trouble and for giving her a finely tuned bullshit detector. I've taken calls from her about how to deal with coworkers strung out on blow, ODing on Xanax, projectile vomiting drunks, all kinds of unsavory situations, and I'm happy as hell she learned a lot of street psychology and human behavior. Her rationale is "My dad is a clean and sober drunk, he's seen this before and will give no shit judgment free realistic advice." She had an internship at HLK in St Louis last summer and was working with a creative team on a F100 company campaign (Kitchmaid? Bayer?) and when she saw the client wasn't being forthright she called her out on it, telling her "maybe you shouldn't waste your money on this engagement if you're not going to share accurate datasets which will maximize our work product" and the firm associate, whole account team, even the managing partner were shocked that she would challenge a client so directly. The client agreed with her and shared the data and complimented her for her directness. She could had easily been fired instead but told her team that the corporate world is nothing compared to managing a bar. Other academically strong kids that has never had real world interactions were resigning from the internship, saying they couldn't take the pressure. My mother is a wannabe stepford wife who always tells my daughter that she is too brash and outspoken and needs to temper her personality. I tell her no, don't change a thing, the world doesn't remember wallflowers, you get in there and make noise and ignore your grandmother, who spent most of her life in risk avoidance and fear. Tl;dr service industry work gave my daughter big dick energy, shes going places.