Motivation

Short story time here (edited slightly for ease of reading, and maybe to make me appear to be as awesome as I am): So I was riding in a car with a few people after a longish night out, when the conversation turned somewhat to dating (it often seems to be a theme among young single adults for some reason…). It was pointed out that one of the individuals in the car had many more opportunities to date and perhaps meet someone of quality since they were attending a church school. The comment was then brought up by me to one of the females in the car “What was it you said before? All the guys in our ward are either creepy, weird and/or lacking social skills, gay, or not dating?” The return to my question/statement was that was the case (I had hoped so, since I was quoting her), and in addition the qualifier that the guys that are dating aren’t motivated, or something to that extent.

At this point there was little else I could do but feel that was at least partly directed at me, having taken that young lady out just a few weeks before and my attempt to ask her out again, while not seamlessly pulled off on my part by any means, appeared to have been rebuffed. So I got to thinking, what about me might give off the fact that I lacked motivation?

At first glance I realized that I hadn’t exactly been smart with some of my conversations with her. At one point or another (and actually a good portion of our date conversation revolved around this one way or another) we talked about school. If you don’t know the story, I guess now is a good a time as any to share it.

I don’t like school. Don’t get me wrong, I’m great at it for the most part, but the whole format just doesn’t really work for me. I love to learn things, but the whole manner by which knowledge is presented and accounted for at school confounds me to no end. I consider myself to be a very smart individual, and on the whole I can learn most things very quickly. I also love to learn, and spend large quantities of my free time studying something or other, just to know more. But school is so filled with busy work, essays, needless tests, and other giant wastes of time that it just drains all the fun out of learning for me.

I’ve managed to choose a career field where school isn’t really important. In the culinary world, a degree is just a piece of paper that may or may not get your foot in the door, and after that it is all about skill. I’ve managed through hard work and what I consider to be considerable talent to rise pretty far in my field for someone my age, degree or no. Both my aunt and uncle (they’re married and even met while working for the same restaurant chain) have been Executive Chefs (Head Chefs) at one point or another; however my aunt got there first. She started out as a hostess at Red Robin at a very young age and worked her way to the top, with talent and drive. My uncle went to culinary school, and while he started at a higher position, he also took longer to get his foot in the door, waiting to finish school to enter the field.

Bear with me a bit while I expound upon my virtues, and go over my employment history. At the ripe old age of 8 I started working for Intel as an unofficial tester. I would get paid in gift certificates that I would then use to buy new computer games which certainly seemed like an amazing deal at the time. That continued for a few good years, until I turned 16 and was finally able to get a real job there. I became a “Lab Technologies Administrator.” Basically I was in charge of a giant room full of computers and had to configure them to run all kinds of tests and simulations. It sounded like my dream job at first, and a good way to start out at a company I hoped to work for the rest of my life. As a child, my dream was to become “President of Intel.” Soon after I realized that I just wasn’t cut out for office work. I would arrive at work at around 8 in the morning. I would do some work and then check the clock. 8:01. Do some more work, check the clock. 8:03. After six months I just couldn’t handle it anymore, and chose not to renew my contract.

Being unemployed for a bit, I had to start thinking about what I was going to do; seeing as president of Intel didn’t seem like it was going to work out anymore. Somehow and for some reason, I ended up on food. At first I think it just seemed like the only other option, like it was the only other thing I was any kind of good at (I was way better at being self-disparaging back then) so I started looking for a job in the kitchen. Remember how my aunt and uncle were executive chefs? That one ended up working out real well for me in the form of a job at Gustav’s. It was a great job doing night prep and desserts (which I now know to be the work no one else wants to do) and the time I was there flew by. Instead of looking at the clock to see when I could leave, I would sometimes get in trouble for getting my job done too early, volunteering to help with other things, and then staying too long.

The biggest problem with the job was that it was out in Clackamas and I didn’t have a car; which meant a two and a half hour bus and max ride each way. That was ok during the summer, but when school started back up, it was a nightmare. I was promised to be transferred to a new location time and time again, but when those promises fell through there was little I could do but quit.

A friend of mine in the culinary program at school had just gotten a job at a local pizza place just down the road from my house. Somehow he ended up getting me one too, and so began my illustrious life in the pizza industry.

I worked that job until I left on my mission (and I mean right until I left too, I was there until the day I got set apart), and after I got back and everything was still up in the air (I suppose I’ll save that story for another time) I got my job back. A few short months after that I became the assistant manager just shy of my 20th birthday. When things became more clear on whether I was going back out into the field or not (short answer: no), I decided to look for a job elsewhere. Somewhere along the way I ended up with a job at Stanford’s.

Of course it couldn’t be quite that easy as I turned in my two weeks’ notice about as soon as I was told I had a job, but seeing as I was currently mentoring Westview High School’s culinary team, and one of the sous chefs from Stanford’s was a judge, I couldn’t start yet until the competition was over (to avoid some sort of conflict of interest or some such nonsense). As it turned out, over half the staff at the pizza place had quit or turned in notice soon after I had given mine, so I wasn’t quite welcome to stay until I could start my new job. Eventually it all worked out though I promised never to work pizza again.

Soon after I started at Stanford’s I was promoted to, and was generally working “Point.” I was basically responsible for everything that came from the cold side of the kitchen and the fryers, making sure it was of the proper quality to serve, and also to co-ordinate my department with the hot side to ensure that an entire table’s food was ready at the same time. I was directly supervising eight people, and had a fair amount of say on how things were run (while I wasn’t considered a manager, I was invited to the manager meetings). 6 of the people who were under me had graduated from, or were currently in culinary school. All of them were older than me. I was their boss.

Later, to supplement my income (and get out of doing morning prep…) I got a second job at another pizza place delivering (so much for not working pizza again huh?). Not too terribly long after that, my family decided for some reason that it was time to open up a business (my dad had pretty much always wanted to) and so we opened a pizza place, and bought another already open one.

For a couple years I was in charge of the family pizza business. At one point we had two stores, and I was in charge of both of them. For a good long time, we had the number 4 or 5 store in the system, and were consistently the number one store in Oregon. Not an easy feat considering I was by far the youngest District Manager in companywide. Over 100 people worked for me one way or another during that time, and in the end, I was responsible for everything.

There is an incredibly long story associated with how that all worked out (or rather didn’t), but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t my fault so much as the people trying to steal from us every time we turned around (between the franchisor and the employees, it was hard to make any money, much less pay the lawyers…) so we sold both locations leaving me more or less out of a job. I promised never to work in pizza again.

So I went on unemployment and started looking for a job. It turns out I had really bad timing and there were very few places looking to hire. Most of the time I was doing that, I just got a feeling that what I needed in life right then was to not have a job. A couple months later a really great opportunity to work with a non-profit one of my former employees had started, so I took it. While I was still relying on unemployment for income, I was putting most of my effort into raising money for kids, so I felt like it was probably an even trade. I was still looking for a job, and managed to get a few interviews here and there, but nothing ended up working out, so I spent most of my free time either studying one subject or another or trying to raise money for kids.

Later this year me and another guy in the non-profit plan to become nationaly certified climbing guides so that we can take groups out and really raise some money. I've also been looking at it as a profession, and it's really not that bad. If I found a way to pull it off, I could work really really hard for 6-8 months of climbing season and I could then afford to take the rest of the year off. It's kind of like being a teacher but instead of having the summer off, I'd have the rainy season(s) off instead, and I'd be doing something (else) I love.

Once summer had passed, and most everything that could be done for the non-profit was over, I returned to my job search full time. Not a whole lot ended up panning out, so I did what I thought I might never do again, look for a job in pizza, because at this point, a job is a job (promises promises...). I think it took me about a whole week to get a new job driving, and I think two weeks after that for me to be offered a management position. As tempting as that may be, between work and my unemployment, I actually make more than my boss. So for now I deliver pizzas and look for something a little more secure (and hopefully not in pizza). If it came down to it though, there is certainly a living to be had in the pizza industry, and apparently I might be a little bit good at it.

So there you go, a giant story about how great I am (it was bound to happen). Most of it is probably even true-ish. I may be a bit biased, but I’m of the opinion that I may be a little more motivated than I am given credit for sometimes, and though this past year has thrown me through a few loops, I feel grateful for where I am, and I feel that it is more or less exactly where I should be. I think I have accomplished a lot in an often very tough career field, especially for someone of my age.

Maybe I just need to get better at selling my virtues instead of concentrating on my pitfalls. Maybe we all do.