The difference between a job and a craft is the amount of yourself you are willing to leave behind in the work.

My first real job was washing dishes in the basement of a small restaurant in a college town. Twelve dollars an hour, no windows, a spray hose that soaked me by the end of every shift. I hated it. I told everyone I hated it. My resentment was so thick you could have plated it. Two weeks in, the head chef — a wiry, tired man named Emilio who almost never spoke to the dishwashers — came down the stairs, stood in front of my station, and watched me work a stack for about a minute.

Then he picked up a plate I had 'finished' and held it up to the fluorescent light. There was a faint smear I hadn't seen. He didn't yell. He said, quietly, 'If the plate isn't perfect, my food looks like scrap. Your station is the last thing between me and the guest. You're not washing dishes. You're finishing the meal.' He put the plate down and walked back upstairs.

I stood there in the fluorescent light for a long moment. The next stack, I worked differently. I started holding each plate to the light before I stacked it. I started treating the station like a small, private kingdom I was responsible for. Nothing about the job changed. The pay, the hours, the wet shirt. Everything about me in the job changed. I stayed for a year. I learned more about pride in that basement than I ever did in an office.