At thirteen, Joshua was washing glasses behind the bar at his dad's restaurant — and already learning the lesson that would shape everything: do the work in front of you, then make it better.
The place was Green Gables, in Green, Ohio. He started as the dishwasher and didn't stay one for long. He tapped kegs and helped throw the parties, ran fish fries and set up for the bands, drifted onto the line to build salad bars and sandwiches, breaded the chicken, cut the fries, and made the coleslaw. When something on the building broke, he fixed it. When it snowed, he salted the walks. He mowed the grass. He was thirteen.
His parents were divorced, so the work doubled. At his mom's he picked up a second restaurant job next door, at the Town Crier in Norton — more dishwashing, more prep, more catering. By seventeen he'd graduated to the kitchens of Silver Lake Country Club: prep cook and breakfast cook, carving stations in a coat and tie, hundred-plate weddings, walk-in coolers, and yes, climbing into the dumpster to compact the trash. At eighteen he was out on his own and paying rent. Nothing about the work was glamorous. All of it taught him how to show up, figure it out, and finish.