When you are young and working on your education, you will often have to take a job that doesn’t have anything to do with your career goals just to pay the bills.

When the young man in this story was working at a grocery store, he had the opportunity to do school work while on the clock, as long as he could also help customers.

When his manager ‘caught’ him doing that and talking to someone in his future career field, the manager called him into the office, but not for the reason you would think.

A manager wanted to talk to me…

I work at the customer service desk at a grocery store.

Not a bad job. And that is a great perk.

While I do have to deal with insane customers and annoying lottery people on a daily basis, it does have some perks; there’s a computer there and I can do my homework when work is slow.

Currently I’m in school for aquatic science and fisheries. I want to do aquaculture for my career and I’ve had to add more school because of changing my majors. It’s worth it though.

You meet interesting people in this role.

Yesterday, I was working on a paper about environmental policy and one of my regular customers came up to me.

He wished me good luck on my test and then I explained that I was working on this environmental policy paper.

Wow, that is someone he could learn from.

We then had a long conversation and he told me that he works for the EPA; he would love to see me apply for an internship and he’ll put in a good word since he sees me every day.

For anyone that isn’t into environmental science, this is how you get your career started. We said our goodbyes and I went back to my paper.

Yikes, does his manager know he is working on school assignments?

I hear coughing and to my surprise it’s my manager.

Manager: “So your dream is to do aquaculture? Sounds interesting. Do me one thing; you need to follow that dream. That guy sounds like your ticket out of here and I won’t have you working at a grocery store your entire life.”

Now that is a great manager.

Words have never inspired me to work harder for something. While it will be a happy day to leave a store that has caused me so much stress, I’ll never forget the people that supported and pushed me to be the best.

Today is not that day though. I just spent half an hour telling a lady that she can’t return meat because she let it spoil.

It is wonderful to work for someone who truly wants what is best for you, even if that means leaving the company.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about it.

I was expecting that as well.

He is a great manager, clearly.

You better take that job.

Here is someone else wanting to go into the same field.

This sounds like a difficult major.

Life is filled with opportunities if you are willing to take them.

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.