A tough summer job teaches you what you want to avoid for the rest of your life. That’s useful.

A bad job hands you information that is hard to come by any other way. You can guess at what you would hate, but guessing is unreliable, and a few weeks of the real thing settles it permanently. Being on your feet for nine hours, or dealing with the public, or doing something endlessly repetitive: now you know, and not in theory. What to avoid is as valuable as what to pursue.

Before this job ends, write down the three specific things that made it hard. The hours, the noise, the lack of control over your own time. Keep that list.