E. Lexi Abbott

Once when I was waitressing, a customer was adamant that we sold “fresh squeezed” lemonade. I explained several times that it came from concentrate and we added water to it but they insisted. So, to be helpful and try to make them happy, I offered to squeeze some fresh. They happily accepted. I set off on my quest!

I proceeded to warm up 5 lemons and painstakingly roll and squeeze them to get as much juice out of them as possible. I was doing this with a full heart of good intentions and wanted the customer to be happy.

I proceeded to give them their freshly squeezed lemonade, full of pride at my dedication and was subsequently very hurt when they did not drink it and left it on their table.

It wasn’t until much later I realized why. I had not put any additional ingredients in. I had handed them a glass of straight lemon juice.

To make matters worse, they probably thought I meant to do it out of vindictiveness for them arguing with me AND my manager had a talk with me about wasting produce and explained that while my intentions were fantastic, please don’t do that again and just agree with the customer that the lemonade was freshly squeezed.

Sometimes you will do things with the absolute best intentions in the world and you will still miss. All you can do is keep moving forward and trying the best you can. As long as you know your intentions, that’s all that matters. Learn from situations as they crop up and move forward.

And if you were wondering: YES. I have since learned how to properly make fresh squeezed lemonade.