Quiet Time
It's the quiet time of the year now. The holiday rush is over, we have no banquets on the schedule for weeks and nights are weirdly slow. Sometimes I just don't know if I can make up my mind whether I want it to be mad busy or molasses slow. When it's busy, you're having fun, there's a big rush of adrenaline and you just kinda laugh and smile when the next ticket comes in, but deep down, part of you still wants to have a bit of a breather and get caught up. When it's slow, you're bored out of your mind, and even though part of you is pausing to relish the fact that it's slow, another part of you wants it to be mad busy.Of course, the other effect of it being slow is that you get to listen to all of those thoughts bouncing around in your head. I keep on going back to something that Stefan asked earlier in one of the comments - why am I still here? Why am I still working in a place that turns out mediocre food? Why am I not working at a place like my original stage?
Short answer? New York.
Longer answer? I remember seeing the Dali Lama in an interview once talking about happiness. When asked, he said that "happiness is helping others." It struck me that, until now, I haven't been ready to embrace that philosophy. Being a cook was something that I needed to do for myself. Before that, I was in a job that I didn't really like and it seemed like all I did was just different variations on trying to find some things to do, to enjoy myself. I couldn't even think about helping others because I needed to help myself. But the first real step to allowing myself to help others was becoming a cook. I didn't know exactly how long I would need to do this (I figured I might get myself up to sous chef, maybe even exec, before I went and made some sort of transition), but I knew that, eventually, something would change, and my path would take me out of the kitchen.
As time has passed since the Emerald City Blues Festival, I can't get over the joy I felt from helping people come together and experience something they all love. And when I focus on that, I realize that I am ready to help others.
Part of that comes from a willingness to become more humble. Though I am a proud and stubborn person, I'm coming to realize that I've never been the ideas man. Sure I could come up with a good idea here and there, but my mind has always been one focused on execution and planning, the mind of an ops man. Ops men hold organizations together but are usually not the ones leading organizations, and to me that's okay. I am excited by the idea of taking someone else's vision and making it reality. I've come to realize that it's not important that my idea come to life, but that the best idea come to life. I want to help someone who has an idea for a restaurant flesh it out, refine it, create new variations and eventually find the best fit for the space, the budget and the people involved. I want to help make them a success. I want to build restaurants.
Which is why I need to be in NYC, which has the most vibrant (and concentrated) restaurant scene in the country. I want to work as an assistant project manager for a restaurant consulting company or a restaurant group. I want to take someone's vision and make it reality. I want to mold an idea into something that gets a rave review in the Times. I want to create places where people will go and appreciate good food.
I've got the know-how and skills to do the project management aspects right (Emerald City Blues Festival, my years in business consulting and IT) but I really needed to be a cook to understand some of the other things - the need for soft skills and how to apply them, a better understanding of how the physical spaces inside a restaurant work, etc. Not to say that I've learned everything I've needed to know about restaurants, but with time in the kitchen comes a certain amount of credibility and empathy that will help make the job easier.
Now all I need to do is get a job.
It's not like I'm abandoning the Pacific NW. My heart of hearts loves being surrounded by the Olympics and the Cascades, looking around and seeing a snowcapped Mt. Rainier in the distance. More than likely I'll be back after cutting my teeth in the restaurant scene in NYC. But in the present, my mind has already shifted from finding a new place to work in Seattle and to finding a new place to work in NYC.
And this is what happens during the quiet times. You get an idea that yet again changes your life. Theater and marketing major. Consultant. IT Guru. Cook. Now, project manager. Career number four, here I come.
