English 3063
8 September 2013
The Value of Tenacity
Throughout my entire life, I have lived with purpose. I have always had a desire to succeed, and along with that desire, I have had the confidence to persevere. This is not to say that I have not had my downfalls or failures in this lifetime, but it is rather to say that I have used those losses as a tool to learn how to better myself. As far as working extremely hard to reach a goal, there is one example that sticks out among the rest. When I was first employed at Saltgrass Steak House, I was hired for the new concept in Oklahoma City. I had never opened a new restaurant before; it brings about a multitude of opportunities that one wouldn’t get the chance to have from a place that is already established. Saltgrass is the kind of restaurant that believes in and achieves superior service. It was extremely important to me that I did well here, and I made it my top priority and goal to become the top trainer at this particular location. Saltgrass has a rankings system based off of merit rather than seniority. As all of those hired were brand new to this restaurant, everyone had an equal chance to become trainers. Because of my hard work and commitment to Saltgrass, I was a part of the first training team at that location; however, I was not the leader of the training team. Looking back, I think that putting me in the middle of the pack gave me the greatest motivation I had ever experienced in my life. I wanted to lead the team to create a working environment in which the servers were well-taught and well-prepared for anything that came their way. I wanted to be the one who conducted trainer meetings to ensure that everyone was on the same page and training employees in the correct manner. In order to achieve this goal, I had to work my way up by helping out the restaurant as a whole. I had to make sure that when a trainee went through training, I was giving them all the