Everything I know about community engagement I learned from bartending … and other musings on transferable skills
My colleague Saki Mori wrote an article last month about how to define “workforce development,” which inspired some of my own thinking about my personal understanding of the term. “Workforce development” wasn’t a term I’d ever heard before until I started working at Perch seven years ago, and I honestly struggle to define it even now. And truthfully, most people who follow the classic upper middle-class path of graduating from high school, going to college and getting a degree, don’t experience the more traditional “workforce development system” – the network of job training programs often run by government agencies or community-based nonprofits. But as Saki articulated, there’s this “aha” moment when I realized that workforce development isn’t a “someone else” thing, it’s also everything that I’ve ever experienced in my own life trying to find employment and building my career. Not that we have to be defined by what we do, but it sure is a big part of our lives, isn’t it? To quote Wizard, Peter Boyle’s character in Taxi Driver: “A man takes a job, and that job… becomes what he is. You do a thing and that's what you are.”
So in a way, workforce development isn’t this esoteric, specific field of work, it’s kind of … everything (as a footnote, in comparing my own experience navigating the world of employment, I also have to step back and realize the moments when, beyond skills, privilege and connections played a role in getting me where I am.)
In workforce development, we talk a lot about “transferable skills” – talents and abilities that can be used in many different career pathways. Most of my colleagues in the economic development world have a masters degree in urban planning. Being under-educated is an insecurity of mine – I often experience imposter syndrome doing this type of work. However, recently I was thinking about my education and work background, and realized that there are actually a lot of these “transferable skills” hidden throughout my diverse patchwork of work experience, so much so that maybe it actually makes perfect sense that I ended up doing community and economic development consulting.
The fact is, I have arguably the most useless degree possible when it comes to seeking any type of employment, let alone employment in the field of economic development. I have a BFA in modern dance composition. And, what does one do when they graduate with that degree? Well often, they bartend.
I am of the era of the millennial generation that graduated from college and was looking for work in the years just following the 2008 recession, and it sure didn’t make it easy finding any type of job, let alone a job with an arts degree. I actually would have been thrilled to land a bartending job right out of college. In fact, I started out barbacking, bussing tables, and working as a bike delivery girl, the upside of which was getting to see into some really insane apartments in the financial district. And in truth, the whole reason I was able to get the restaurant gig in the first place was through family connections, so… nepotism. At the time it was nearly impossible to get a restaurant job in NYC if you didn’t have “NYC restaurant experience,” which is one of those conundrums of the working world that probably still exists and across many different fields, and is consistently frustrating. Anyway, I eventually did make my way up to bartending, which I’ve been doing for about 12 years now, switching to just Friday nights when I started working at Perch in 2017.
So many of the skills that I’ve developed bartending translate over to community engagement, and it’s not just knowing how to make a Rusty Nail. “Community engagement” is another term that’s difficult to define, and I’m sure there are firms who could give you a fancy toolkit on how to do it properly, but there’s also something very basic but challenging about it, which is learning to anticipate the needs of another person. Bartending is all about anticipating a person’s needs, reading social cues, and knowing how to accommodate others.
That girl sitting by herself looks a little grouchy, but if I ease my way in, she might warm up to me, and I can maybe even put her in a better mood. That couple making out in the corner clearly wants to be left alone, so I’m going to avoid them and wait for them to flag me down when they need something. That guy slams his drink and orders another one everytime I walk by, so maybe I’ll stay away from his corner of the bar for a bit. Those two odd ducks who always come in alone seem like they could use some company, maybe I should introduce them to one other.
Some say that working in the service industry for too long caused them to stereotype people by the way they present themselves, but I try very intentionally to fight that urge in myself. However, there is some element of needing to read people and cater what I’m offering to match what they’re likely seeking – of putting myself in their shoes. The guy wearing a construction vest and helmet popping in for a quick beer probably doesn’t need to hear me list all the ingredients in the dinner specials, whereas the tourist asking about the wine list might be more interested to know that we just started carrying a delicious beaujolais. It seems like common sense, but it requires a certain amount of attention – getting outside of my own desires and needs, and tuning in to what someone else is trying to tell me through their words and actions.
Another skill that transfers directly from being a bartender to being a consultant is knowing how to multitask; simultaneously focusing on the drink I’m making while taking someone else’s order, and waving at someone new who has just arrived.
Looking back even further, I can even start to see some connections between my dance background and the field of urban planning. I started college studying ballet, then modern dance, and eventually gravitated towards choreography because I loved orchestrating bodies moving through space. I was fascinated by how not just the individual gestures of a dancer but also her pattern of motion could somehow convey meaning. What is the effect of watching a dancer approach the audience from the diagonal, rather than launching herself directly forward from upstage? The impact, the message, is completely different.
It’s the same thing in urban planning, but there’s a psychological component to it, because people aren’t just moving on a particular trajectory because the choreographer told them to – there’s a very specific reason, and that reason helps us better understand how to plan cities that are engaging and bring joy to those who live in them. For example, I’ll often cross the street to avoid walking under scaffolding. Why? I’m not sure I can even explain – it makes me feel confined, claustrophobic? But likely there are others who feel the same way.
Skills take so many different shapes and forms. There are easily defined skills, like knowing how to speak a language, or knowing how to use calculus to solve an equation. There are less easily defined skills, sometimes called “soft skills,” like “communication skills,” “takes initiative,” “follows directions well.” And, all of this isn’t to say that there isn’t technical knowledge that needs to accompany these more mushy, hard-to-define-but-easy-to-pinpoint skills. For example, a huge part of leading a BID formation is community engagement – making sure everyone who is impacted has a voice in the process – but you also can’t lead a BID formation without having an intimate understanding of the technical steps of the BID formation process.
JobsFirst is doing a really interesting pilot using technology from SkyHive, which helps workers define their skills and understand how closely qualified they are for other types of jobs – and what they need to do to fill in the gaps. Of the four categories of where a person can exist cognitively, we often focus on what we know that we don’t know. But what about what we don’t know that we know? It took me a long time to figure out what I do know and how to define it; it’s all still a big work in progress, as I strive to feel more confident and comfortable calling myself an “economic development professional.”
Anyway, all of these ramblings aren’t intended to offer advice of any sort or tell anyone they shouldn’t go out and get an education. Go get that masters degree in urban planning! This piece is meant rather to serve as a testament to the barrage of hands-on, real-life learning that this crazy world constantly offers.
