My whole career has been spent serving peopleeither in restaurants or in retail environments. Decades in the service industry have done something to my brain. It’s altered its chemistry so much that even when I’m somewhere I don’t work, I feel a responsibility to help those who do work there.

I have empathy to a fault. When I’m in a clothing store, I can’t just toss a shirt back onto the pile after trying it on. It has to be folded as precisely as it was before I took it into the fitting room. I worked part time at a Gap for a total of 31 days in 1992 and to this day I can still fold a basic crew neck T-shirt with impeccable precision. The 11 months I spent working at a card and gift shop have trained me to always make sure items on shelves are facing front and are perfectly aligned with each other.

Everything needs to be lined up perfectly

When I worked at Black-eyed Pea in Houston, Texas, my manager Anthony was meticulous about table placement. Each day before the restaurant opened, he would squat down, one eye closed, surveying the tables, making sure each table leg was at the same point on the floor tile as the next table so that they were in a faultlessly straight line. The other servers would roll their eyes at his persnicketiness, but I admired it. I took that trait to heart and have carried it with me ever since.

There’s a restaurant in New York City I pass by frequently that has painted stencils on the sidewalk so when the outdoor dining is set up, it’s easy to know exactly where each table base goes. It warms my heart every time I see it, and I know myself well enough to understand that if I saw one of the tables wasn’t within its stenciled outline, I would have to adjust it.

I’m that person who will change the toilet paper roll

I am most guilty of this compulsive need for organization when I go out to a restaurant. If I see something that needs to be done, my assumption is a server hasn’t had time to do it yet. I have been known to change the toilet paper roll when I go to the restroom. Once, the C-fold paper towels were in the dispenser upside down, making it difficult to pull one out, so I fixed it. Surely it was someone’s side work to take care of that, but, hey — they were probably busy.

At a wine bar in my neighborhood one time, they were slammed. There were empty glasses on tables that needed to be bussed, but no one had time to do it. I couldn’t help myself. I grabbed a tray, did a sweep of the dining room, and asked someone where a bus tub was. My husband looked at me like I was unhinged, but the manager thanked me and bought me a glass of Chardonnay.

Tidying calms my brain

One restaurant I worked in had very specific expectations for the sugar caddies. All the packets had to face the same direction with a specific number of each one: 10 white sugars, five blue Equals, five pink Sweet’N Lows, five yellow Splendas, and five brown Sugar In The Raw. A perfectly filled sugar caddy was like a rainbow of sweetener. When I go into a restaurant and see a sugar caddy with packets crammed into it every which way, I feel my blood pressure rise and the only way to lower it is to reorganize.

This isn’t something that I necessarily want to stop doing when I’m at a store or restaurant, but I wish I could care just a tiny bit less. It’s not like I’m getting paid for it. Recently, I was having dinner at a restaurant, sitting at the bar. As I left, I pushed my barstool back in, making sure it faced the right way. Then I did the same thing to my husband’s barstool. And I did it for any other empty barstools that weren’t in the right place. I didn’t do it for a tip or for the recognition of the people who work there. I did it because it’s who I am. My manager Anthony would be proud.