As a young ice skater, I had flown pretty high, pretty quickly. My partner and I won the Canadian junior pairs championship when I was 14 and I was thrilled, as a 6-year-old, to be picked to skate in the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway. But then everything came crashing down.
We finished 12th at the Games. I soon quit doubles skating and tried to continue in singles. But I wasn’t good enough I didn’t even compete in the nest two national championships. I felt like I was a somebody who had become a nobody.
I was 18 and had just graduated from high school when my mom told me: ”You can’t just count on skating to make a living. You better find a job.” I knew she was right. But what could I do? I’d been an athlete, skating since I waited tables, cleaned, stocked the shop, took inventory; I did everything. In fact, I worked so hard that I never got the chance to even have a break or get off my feet for entire shifts. No one cared that I had been an Olympic skater; I was judged only by how hard I worked. It was exactly what I needed.
That job taught me to so many things. I learned, for example, how to deal with people. As an athlete, I’d lived in something of a cocoon growing up, so this was new to me. One day a man loudly called me. One day a man loudly called me over to his table and, with a scowl on his face, complained: “This milk is soul. I’m not drinking this junk! I want my money back!” It was near the end of my shift and I was tempted to tell him how rude I thought he was. But I had learned that “the customer is always right’ and a smile can go a long way.
“I’m really sorry, sir—I’ll get you a free cup,” I said with a wide grin. When I brought him his coffee his whole disposition had changed. And he left me a tip!
My first job taught me that it is important to do the best at anything you try, in school, at work or sport. I knew nothing about being a waitress when I started my job but by the time I left—when I decided to return to skating and to team p with David—I had earned a raise and my boss’s praisse. The meant so much to me.
