The Road Not Taken: My Alternate Future as an Alcoholic

In this series of posts, Influencers explain how their career paths might have changed. Read all the stories here and write your own (please include the hashtag #RoadNotTaken in the body of your post).

I had held jobs as a dishwasher, busboy and waiter during high school, but it wasn’t until I lucked into a great job during the summer between my junior and senior years of college that I really considered a future in the food service industry. And then, it almost killed me.

A friend of my brother helped me land a summer job waiting tables at the Jones Beach Theater on the south shore of Long Island, 35 miles outside of New York City. I enjoyed the job because it paid well, gave me an opportunity to hear great performances, and allowed me to spend time with dozens of other waiters and waitresses my age. Each night after our shift ended around midnight, my colleagues and I would go out to a bar on the ocean and party until near dawn.

After every show, the theater’s assistant manager insisted we remove, stack and store more than 1,000 metal chairs. The task was time-consuming and dangerous, not to mention a waste of precious partying time. And the next day, we would spend another hour unstacking and setting up the very same chairs. I kept complaining to the assistant manager and, when that failed, I complained to the manager.

A few days later, I was shocked when the manager called me into his office and said, "Shapiro, you think you know how to run this place. You are now in charge. You are the assistant manager." They had made me, a college kid, responsible for more than 100 waiters, waitresses, busboys, chefs and bartenders.

The restaurant also expected me to figure out how to make customers happy. I learned how to do that on my first Saturday night on the job, when the restaurant ran out of meat. I didn't know what to do, so I improvised and gave everyone free drinks while we hustled food over from our sister restaurant across the street. A few days later, a family found a bandage in their food. I gave them a round of drinks, and they were happy. Alcohol became my solution for almost any problem.

For the first time in my life, barely of legal drinking age, I had an open bar at my discretion with no clear limits on its use. In addition to the drinks I handed out to customers, I took my fair share. Bartenders inevitably made mistakes, resulting in returned drinks. Rather than wasting the returned drinks by pouring them out, I took to consuming them.

In spite of my position as a supervisor, I continued partying with the waiters and waitresses. I was also a decent dancer and, often emboldened by alcohol, would dance with front-table guests (who tipped me well for the chance to sit nearest the stage). I am still scarred by the time Guy Lombardo pulled me aside after his performance and said, "You're a good dancer, but give it up on the three-step." He was right. I could not do the Beer Barrel Polka. Nonetheless, it was a tremendous summer, and I was disappointed to return for my final year of undergrad when it ended.

When I graduated college the next spring, I wasn't sure what to do. I applied to several graduate schools of business and law in a rather rushed fashion, and had been neither rejected nor accepted by most. I figured that while I waited for my life to unfold, I would accept an offer to return as assistant manager at the theater restaurant. That summer became a repeat of the prior summer: working hard, drinking too much and dating waitresses.

When I left work to party one night, I was driving too fast on a straightaway near Gilgo Beach. I missed my exit, swerved and went off the road. I hit a curb and my car's tire went flat. I was lucky. I wasn’t hurt and hadn’t hurt anyone else. But I realized that alcohol played a factor in coming close to what could've been a serious accident, and the experience made me think about whether a future in the food service industry would mean a future as an alcoholic for me.

Around the same time, my manager told me the corporation wanted to hire me full-time and send me to Hawaii in the fall for training. For a guy who had never been on an airplane, it sounded too good to be true. Food service can be a rewarding career, and it was an opportunity to make a major step forward in the industry at a very young age.

But then in mid-August, I received a letter from Georgetown University saying I had been accepted into their law school program, which started in just a few days. Concerned about continued exposure to alcohol and a party atmosphere, and relishing the opportunity to attend a prestigious law school, I decided to pursue my legal career.

Life is a linear path, and it’s impossible to go back in time and predict an alternate future with absolute certainty. But I’m confident I made the right decision to attend Georgetown. If I had not received that acceptance letter, I probably would have gone to Hawaii, continued drinking, and likely be sick or dead from alcohol by now.

I never would have met my first or second wife, or had the chance to raise four wonderful children. I wouldn’t have started out on a path that has given me a front seat to the digital revolution and the opportunity to serve at the head of the Consumer Electronics Association. I learned that in life you must choose what is best for our own long term. My success and happiness comes not from a bottle, but from hard work, meeting goals, making a difference and the love of my family.

Gary Shapiro is president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the U.S. trade association representing more than 2,000 consumer electronics companies, and author of the New York Times best-selling books, Ninja Innovation: The Ten Killer Strategies of the World's Most Successful Businesses and The Comeback: How Innovation Will Restore the American Dream. His views are his own. Connect with him on Twitter: @GaryShapiro.

Photo: Edward Olive - fine art photographer / Getty Images