Job Reflection

Rao Khan

People tend to ignore what they feel is unimportant. They walk by situations and even other people that they feel have no value in their lives. Personally, I struggled with identifying myself as well as my surroundings for most of my life. I never looked at the people who pass me by and thought of their stories. I interviewed Mr.Khan, a CITGO gas station owner. The reason I found this job shadow to be the most impacting was, not because of the job itself, but the person behind it. Rao Khan immigrated to the United States from Pakistan. He came with little to nothing, only dreams to support his family. In Pakistan there's a significant amount of homelessness and poverty. There wasn't going to be a chance for his daughter to do great things there. So he packed up his family of three and traveled to Connecticut. When you look at Mr.Khan you see a man behind a counter and think nothing of it. What you don't see is a man with hardships, achievements, and his own story. When I sat down with Mr. Khan he expressed how it was never his dream to own a gas station, as a matter of fact he had no idea what he wanted to do, but he knew that he wanted to run his life his own way. The achievements of him range from having his daughter go to college to owning his dream car. The struggles he encountered fall as low as struggling with the bills to almost losing his business entirely. We never look at the people passing by. We don't have a second thought about the man behind the counter. If we did, we'd see that Mr. Khan is his own boss. He runs a store and manages employees. But he is also an immigrant, a father, and worth having his story heard.