I have been unemployed for almost five months now.
When I first lost my job I was bitter and confused, disoriented by this seeming bolt from the blue… The reasons given for my dismissal made no sense to me, and they still don’t. When I filed for unemployment, the person who was responsible for determining if I was eligible even said that the reasons for my dismissal seemed “Really lame.” However I live in a right to work state, which means companies are free to take away my right to work whenever they feel like it.
So here I am, forced to look for a job in a job market that my education and skill set leave me completely unprepared for. I knew I should have been an undertaker.
I am 42 years old and I have been a Chef my entire life.
I became an emancipated minor at fourteen years old. I got a job in a restaurant and when the line was short one day a month after I started as a dishwasher, the chef pulled me onto the line and told me to just do what he told me to do, shut up, and don’t cut myself. What followed was ten hours of him constantly screaming at me, occasionally throwing a few things, and a few muttered lines of faint praise. During closing, while I was helping to mop the floor I was told to go see the chef in his office. I was convinced I was about to lose my very first job.
When I entered the office, the chef was sitting at his desk, a copy of the schedule in front of him and a beer in his hand. “I have a proposition for you. Have you been propositioned lately?”
“No, I’m only fourteen, I don’t think I’m allowed to get propositioned.”
Chef laughed and asked, “You are emancipated, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well then, I can make you this proposition. Ron’s no call no show, so I need a new saute cook. Vince is too good on grill to move him, and you’re young enough to not think you know it all, so if you’re willing to come in early every day and leave late every night I will train you to work saute. If you can handle it, and if I think you’re good at it, I’ll give you a dollar raise and you’ll never have to wash dishes again. Or at least not until the next time a dishwasher no shows.”
That’s what started me on this road, and I love being a chef. I’ve gotten to work all over the US and Europe, had a few restaurants of my own, and generally done pretty well for myself. I managed, almost in spite of myself to get a college education and a fairly useless history degree. I also managed to gain over twenty years experience and training in a field that has left me…..
Utterly unqualified to do anything else.
In this economy, with this many people out of work I am apparently not even worth considering for a job, entry level or beyond, in any field other than the Restaurant industry. And people looking to hire within the restaurant industry look at my resume and decide they either can’t afford me, or that I’m too old…
And I am completely fried with the food life… I want to be able to go home from work when most other people do, work a forty hour week instead of seventy hour week, be able to walk my dog during daylight hours.
So I have been forced to ‘fallback to a secondary position’ so to speak. I’ve been making leather goods, such as knife rolls, binders, pouches, etcetera for years now, and I’ve started to make my own kitchen knives as well, I’ve even found a gallery to sell them, since apparently they’re pretty spiff looking. (I’ll have to take and upload some pictures of my work soon.)
I’ve been writing as well, I’m working on a novel, and apparently porn still sells because I’ve managed to sell a few short stories of erotica. Who knew that a story about having sex in a restaurant freezer and getting my ass stuck to a frozen metal shelf like an idiot kid’s tongue on a flagpole could make money??
(The part about getting my ass frozen to a shelf really happened, by the way. I do not recommend having sex in a freezer- but it was her idea and who am I to say no??)
So that’s what life looks like right now, between now and then…
till next time.