News Editor Ben Townsend shares the story of how he almost lost his job and what he learned from it.

Spoiler alert: I am about to tell you how I almost got fired at my job. I’m actually tremendously proud of this story and I’m wondering why it took me this long to share it to more than my mother.

I started working at Jersey Mike’s Subs when I was 16 years old back in Sept. 2014. I started as a “crew member” on minimum wage. I treated the job just like a 16 year old making minimum wage would; I worked slowly, checked my phone anytime I had free time and just tried to get by.

My first week I had 20 hours and it stayed that way for a few months until slowly my hours started trickling away. Being the ignorant 16 year old I was I wondered, “I’m finally getting the hang of things and am doing good, why would they be cutting my hours?” Week after week the hours would slowly shrink. 20, 18, 15, 10, 8, 6 and eventually I hit rock bottom. Zero hours. Surely it was a mistake.

I went and talked to my General Manager at the time and asked, “Hey man, what’s up with my hours? I thought I was doing really well.” Up until that moment, I really thought I was doing really well. It wasn’t until that moment that my GM gave me the honest truth.

“Me and the other managers have been talking about you quite a bit,” he said. “We aren’t really sure you are going to work out here.”

I sat in the booth at Jersey Mike’s across from my GM, frazzled. I had no clue what he was talking about. How could I, Ben Townsend, not be the perfect employee? I thought I did everything I was asked. I had a choice to make, should I walk away from what I had worked for for three months or admit my faults and try to get better? That moment I learned one of the most important lessons in my life and the reason why I’m writing this very blog. You aren’t perfect and claiming yourself to be otherwise would be doing yourself a disservice.

I took the latter route. I asked my boss what I could do to get better. “You just got to work harder, man.” It felt like a slap in the face, to simply suggest that I work harder. But I chose to do exactly that. I modeled myself after the people above me, copying tricks from coworkers to get faster and asked plenty of questions. By dropping the idea of myself being perfect it allowed me to seek perfection and get better.

My passion for my job has afforded me the opportunity to transfer to a Jersey Mikes in Eugene, Oregon, where I plan to move in July 2016. I never thought sandwich-making would take me anywhere but it’s going to help me transition from a high school student to a grown adult providing for myself. I’m extremely grateful for the four general managers, 13 managers, countless crew members and my owner for helping me grow into who I am today.

The point of the story is that when you are faced with a choice to give up or work harder, always take the hard route. Later in your life you’ll never tell people about that time you laid in bed and watched Netflix, they won’t care. The best stories are the ones of determination and perseverance; the things that opened doors for the rest of your life so everything else could fall into place.