When I was in high school, I worked at a fish-n-chips restaurant in Seattle called The Fish Bowl. It was a mom-n-pop restaurant that had been around for about fifty years. Something above Long John Silvers, but not quite Applebees.

I started when I was fourteen, which was below the legal working age in the state of Washington. When I requested an application, the manager asked “when do you turn sixteen?”. My response was “July”. I wasn’t lying. I just held back the fact that I wouldn’t turn sixteen for a full fourteen months.

I bent time.

I ended up working there for two years. I started with one shift during the week, and one on the weekend. It wasn’t exciting work - tumbling and cutting potatoes, washing dishes, cleaning tables in the dining room - but it was a paycheck, which I loved.

Eventually, I worked my way up to being a fry cook and a shift lead; the highest I could climb without being a manager which couldn’t happen because I was still in school.

Being a shift lead meant shutting down all the fryers, cleaning the restaurant, closing out the register, depositing the money in our safe, and locking up the restaurant for the evening. That’s a lot of responsibility for a sixteen year old kid, let alone one that weighs 120 pounds wet. But I had confidence. This was my world. I knew the place like the back of my hand.

I knew that Ash Wednesday and Good Friday were the busiest nights of the year. I knew that the best day to get a meal there was Thursday, when the fry oil had been seasoned by a day’s worth of use. Not too clean, not too dirty. I knew the regular customers by name. I knew that Mr. Morgan came in, smelling like whiskey, and always ordered his combo platter - 3 prawns, 2 fish - well done.

One Saturday night, after the dinner rush had died down and it was just myself and another worker, I was freaking out. The reason had nothing to do with Lent.

On this particular night my parents were out of town which meant that, according to the bylaws of adolescence, my friends were headed to my house and they were gonna destroy the place.

At about 9pm, I called my house to find out if anybody was there. Sure enough, one of my friends answered my home phone. The shouts of mayhem in the background fueled my anxiety.

I did the mental math. The restaurant didn’t close until 11pm. If I was lucky I would get home by 11:30. According to my calculations, my house would be trashed by 11:15. I would be too late. I had to do something.

If only I could bend time.

And then it hit me. That night happened to be the last night of Pacific Standard Time, which meant that after everyone went to bed at 2AM we would all “spring forward” to 3AM for Pacific Daylight Time. Well that’s an arbitrary time, isn’t it? I mean, nobody stays up to 2AM just so that they can set their clock forward. No, they go to be at 10, 11, or 12, and set it ahead then. Some just wait until they wake up the next morning. Its the one time of the year when everyone bends time.

I told my corworker the plan, which she agreed to as long as I signed off on the extra hour on the timecard. Big man of responsibility, I agreed. So we rushed through our closing procedures, we set the clock to forward, turned out the lights, locked the doors and drove away by 11:15, which was of course 10:15.

I raced home as fast as I could in my beat up VW Rabbit, listening to Big Daddy Kane, knowing for sure that I was going to arrive to find cars parked on the lawn, streams of toilet paper hanging from the trees, and a kid trapped under the glass coffee table. But when I pulled up to my house, the only people there were my two friends. Nobody else had shown up. Turns out my friends and I weren’t cool enough to throw a house party. With the crisis averted, we sat down to have some pizza and watch “Heathers” on VHS.

The next day, I had to be at work at 11am for the Sunday shift. I arrived at 10:45, walked into the break room to get my apron and work shirt, and my boss handed me my paycheck and said:

“This will be your last paycheck.”

He was firing me. I couldn’t figure out how how knew. I knew that my coworker wouldn’t have ratted us out, so when I acted surprised (“What? Why”? ) he explained.

“Mr. Morgan came in at 10:15 last night, wanting to get his Combo Platter.”

Damn you Mr. Morgan.

My boss explained how my I had risked the reputation of the restaurant, and betrayed his trust in me as an employee, and lectured me about about “responsibility”. I didn’t push back. I took it on the chin.

I told my mom that I had gotten fired for showing up late too many time. I couldn’t tell her the truth or else she’d know that I had had friends over.

Looking back, I realize that this was my first experience with work-life balance. Of course, that’s a concept didn’t exist back then.

But now, whenever a recruiter or hiring manager, asks me about my philosophy of work-life balance, I just tell them:

“Well, I promise I won’t close your business an hour early, but nights and weekend or for the family.”

Always.