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The most intimidating task. Classifications of a motor skill: driving stick shift.

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The most intimidating task. Classifications of a motor skill: driving stick shift.

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From the moment that I sent in my summer application, I knew that to become a valet driver I was going to have to drive stick shift. This was to be expected in order to be an accomplished and well-rounded valet driver. However, I was terrified as the stakes were much higher than practicing on an empty street. The outcome of killing the engine of someone else's manual transmission could mean less tip money, ruining the car, getting yelled at, or even getting fired.

A couple years ago, a family friend of ours owned a car dealership let my dad take me to an abandoned parking lot with the intent of teaching me how to drive a manual transmission. Within the next couple days, I became pretty good and even felt comfortable enough to drive on the highway to and from the car dealership. Driving a stick shift is the perfect example of a serial skill as every small step you have to take in order to drastically change the speed of the car is important. From pressing down on the clutch, switching gears, easing off the clutch, and pressing down on the accelerator with the right amount of pressure, every step must be done perfectly in order to accomplish the task. Driving a manual transmission is also classified as a gross motor skill as one has to use almost their whole body in order to accomplish the task of operating the car. From both feet operating the clutch, brake, and accelerator, to both hands controlling the wheel and the changing of gears, one has to use their whole body and a lot of main muscles in order to successfully operate the car. These two characteristics are pretty stable in the nature of the skill. However, the main reason I was nervous when thinking about driving a stick shift as a job compared to practicing for fun is the same reason a basketball player isn't nervous when practicing their three-point shot in an empty gym compared to being nervous when shooting a contested three-pointer for the game-winning points. Driving a manual transmission in the empty parking lot with my dad compared to driving a manual transmission on the job shows the spectrum of the open-closed skill dimension. On the job, having to driver through heavy traffic (with time of the essence) is an example of an open skill as my environment was consistently changing and whenever I would drive to park another car, the traffic (environment) was always different, unpredictable, and unstable.

Below is an image representing my mental state when first driving stick shift as a valet driver.

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As a valet driver, I would compare the job to the same busy rushes/times as a bartender or waiter would. The hours of a valet are long but there is, in reality, only two major phases of each shift which is the beginning of the event/dinner and the end of the event/dinner. As you can imagine, these two phases are incredibly hectic as during the end of the event you can potentially have up to eight people demanding their cars fetched and it's up to you to run to the parking lot (which can be up to eight blocks away) and fetch their car while understanding that time is of the essence and tip money is on the line. Furthermore, and while sprinting, you have to mentally recall where the car is parked, what it looks like, and take mental notes on ways to be more efficient when fetching the next car.

The two busy phases of a valet's shift can be incredibly overwhelming and one must be on the top of their game in order to accomplish each customer's need, which is to quickly, safely, and efficiently park or retrieve their car. In Kahneman's central resource model of attention, he explains how everyone has a different and specific optimal level of arousal to be reached in order to best be able to simultaneously complete multiple tasks and to not extend over the limit of their resource capacity. I can personally remember multiple cases where I was exhausted and therefore had a low attention pool, low attention capacity and  therefore, low emotional arousal. It would be on these days where I would find myself forgetting (or not efficiently being able) to mark down where the car was parked, what color it was, what type of car it was, take mental notes about how to be more efficient when working the next car, and multiple other things that I take for granted in which I would usually have the attention capacity to perform. Furthermore, this is all at the same time I'm trying my best to safely and efficiently park the car!

Below is an image of how I felt when I was at the top of my game and within my optimal level of emotional arousal.

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As you became more experienced as a valet driver, you got the opportunity to work a lot more locations. The more locations you were allowed to work, the more you would be scheduled and the more potential tip money you could make was increased dramatically. A great example of practice variability came when my friend and I (we had applied to become valet drivers together) finally became experienced enough to be allowed to work the most wanted location together, Nicollet Mall.

Nicollet Mall is the central spot in downtown Minneapolis. It is called a "mall" but is honestly the most overwhelming corner in Minneapolis with multiple malls, restaurants, and skyscrapers surrounding you and multiple skyways over your head at any given time. The reason that Nicollet Mall is the most wanted spot on the job is because this is the spot on Friday and Saturday nights that you'll have the opportunity to make the most money because you're dealing with the most people. Because you're dealing with the most people, there are multiple, multiple parking spots and garages that you need to know of where you can potentially park a car and you have to be ready to act on the fly.

My friend and I, even though we signed up for the job at the same time, took very different routes once we were accepted as drivers. I chose to pick up as many shifts as I can, working anywhere I could in the Twin Cities on any given day. My friend on the other hand, choose to work consistently at the restaurant by his house. During the time before I started to work Nicollet Mall, I was experiencing the most variability of practice I could. The amount of times I struggled with figuring out where to park the car (on the hill, in the garage, on the street, behind the restaurant), how to park the car (parallel, 90 degree back in), and when to park the car (understanding the times available I could park in certain situations without getting a ticket) was uncountable; furthermore, it seemed like I had to practice all these skills in settings that were always changing. However, my friend was comfortable in whatever problem was presented at only his specific location and chose to keep it that way.

That first night at Nicollet Mall was the most overwhelmed I have ever been as a valet driver. However, after the first couple of cars were parked I started to get into a rhythm as I was comfortable being uncomfortable after all the other new settings I had worked in. My friend on the other hand struggled and didn't park nearly as many cars as I did as he was constantly running into problems he never had at his specific location such as trying to find a parking spot that no one had ever told him about or having to drive/run a farther distance in order to park/fetch a car.

Below is an image representing how I would've felt if I hadn't had to deal with practice variability in the beginning of my working as a valet driver. Even though my friend potentially looked more skilled than I did while he was working his one location and I worked a new one each week, one's transfer will always look better from one who has practice variability than none at all. Thank you Nicollet Mall.

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90 degree back-ins from outside of a driving test: Associative to Autonomous

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90 degree back-ins from outside of a driving test: Associative to Autonomous

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The biggest surprise I experienced when first working as a valet driver was that, in order to be the most efficient, all cars had to be parked via a "90 degree back-in". This made more sense as I started to understand how urgent it was to fetch the cars after the dinner/event and how important speed was. However, when I first started working, I could've safely said that I had not done a "90 degree back-in" since my drivers test when I had turned 16. Like most people, I would usually just pull on in and back out when leaving a location. That all changed as, after the first day, I parked more than 20 cars using this mechanism; furthermore, I probably parked close to a thousand cars using this mechanism.

When I was 15 years old and practicing for my drivers test, I did what any 15 year old did and practiced my parallel parking and back-ins with cones. I would say that, according to the Fitts and Posner three-stage model, I passed out of the "Cognitive Stage" within a couple weeks and was around the "Associative stage" of learning around the time I passed my drivers test. I knew that I was in the second stage of the model and not the first or third because I could tell when I was making an error while doing a "90 degree back-in". However, in the middle of creating the error, I knew that I could not correct the error midway through my action and had to reset the car before trying again. Again, this told me that I had yet to reach the 3rd stage of the Fitts and Posner three-stage model, the Autonomous stage.

Quickly, through multiple, multiple shifts of practice I was able to reach the third stage of the three-stage model as I could successfully navigate the backing-in of the car while thinking of stuff to write down about the cars information on one of the informative ticket stubs. Furthermore, if I had started the parking motion incorrectly, I had no problem detecting and correcting the error right away. When the skill of doing a "90 degree back-in" became mostly automatic, my effectiveness as a valet skyrocketed as I could focus and mentally run through what needed to be done in my next task as I was finishing up the task at hand.

Below is a picture of how I mentally felt about my valet skills at the peak of my parking confidence (Don't worry, I never tried this).

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Like any other job/skill, being a skilled, consistently good valet driver takes time. However, if one was to judge who was going to be a good valet on that person's first shift, it would be almost impossible. There are so many learning curves that one has to go through to understand the "ins and outs" of what it takes to become good at a skill and to be able to perform consistently at a high level. The remoteness effect explains this understanding as the effect explains how performance early in practice does not necessarily predict performance later in practice.

One of the very first shifts I had I remember very distinctly. A young couple got out of a BMW and as I took their keys, gave them a ticket stub, and got into the car, I realized the car was manual transmission. The big moment got to me as, without fail, I accidentally killed the engine and got yelled at by the couple. It's safe to say that I did not get a very good tip. If I was to get judged on my future effectiveness as a valet driver from that one experience, one would predict that I would be terrible in future performances working with valet. However, and as the remoteness effect backs up, that early performance in no way shaped the way the job turned out for me. As the summer went on, I climbed the ranks within the company and was able to work high class events, weddings, and was even offered a job the next summer as a valet captain (a supervisor of the valet drivers at a specific location)!

The gif below is an image I selected to remind other aspiring valets that one's early performance does not directly translate to one's later performance. While you might make mistakes here and there, you need to trust the process, keep learning, and trust the remoteness effect!