Today I was picking raspberries in my
parents garden with my daughter.
It was pretty much like heaven.
Just a little back story leading up to today:
I was part of management team at Cafe
Zupas for a little over two years. It was a pretty cool job. I liked
it for the most part. Running a restaurant day to day can be a pretty
involved process. According to my job description, it required at
minimum, a fifty-two hour a week commitment. Pretty wild stuff. In my
most recent store, I had a management team of five people, and about
forty people that made up the rest of my crew. It was a tricky job,
and did not leave a whole of room for other things in my life. Don't
get me wrong, I don't mind work, I appreciate the consistent direct
cause and effect relationship working has with my life in general. I
just know that I was missing out on other things in my life. It was a
fair trade in my opinion. When I would get home, I often times would
not want to do anything except hang out and read a book or watch TV
or something very passive, isolated, and low effort. I felt bad
because I know that my wife and daughter would want to spend time
with me. I also know that I had a list of stuff that I personally
wanted to do or achieve that never even got looked at. I was just too
tired or keyed up or focused on work to really be there. I don't
know. I kind of feel like I lived my life through the filter of
Zupas. Everything else was kind of secondary.
Last month they let me go. My
relationship with the company was terminated. I was informed that I
hadn't been happy there for that last couple months, and as a result
was being let go. That was that. I spent the rest of the day applying
for jobs at retail stores and sending my resume in to other
restaurants. I decided the next morning that I was not going to apply
for any restaurant positions for at least a month.
Something that my wife, and others
whose council I keep, told me is that I could do anything I wanted.
That I should take this opportunity to do just that. I thought about
it for a couple days. What do I want to do? I just turned thirty... I
should know this by now right? Right. It took a couple days of fierce
meditation, building things in my garage with my hands and research
on what jobs are really out there to kind of put together an outline
for what I would do. I registered for school. That is something that
I knew I wanted. I actually started an online degree not to long
after starting at Zupas. Totally failed and put it on the back
burner. I am registered for classes this fall. I plan on doing a
couple semesters at Salt Lake Community College to bring my GPA back
up... I took some classes there in 2003, and dropped out with a GPA
of 1.7 or something like that. That averaged with my Grossmont GPA is
not quite enough to make it into University of Utah. I hope to be
enrolled in the Psychology program at the U by next fall. Should be
good for me.
After I decided that school was pretty
high on the list of things that I wanted to do, and had the full
support of my wife, I crossed a few jobs of my list of jobs that I
would be willing do. These included: Manager, anything where I would
be “on call,” anything that I would not be able to control my
schedule, anything asking over forty hours a week, pretty much
everything that I had documented experience doing. What job did I
get? I have been working as the “Image Guy” for SunMart... a gas station company. I am in charge of making sure when
people drive by, they think “Man, that lawn looks nice.” Yep. I
am the grounds keeper guy. In the winter I will be the plow guy. I am
also the random job guy. Last week I mowed lawns, repaired
sprinklers, inspected car washes, and broke down a bunch old shelves
and racks in an old store. Too much fun. I don't work more than forty
hours a week unless I choose to, and the job truly justifies it. I go
to work sometime in the morning... as early as I want to get there,
and will be able to make it so I am off in time for school. I am a
one person work crew. I manage only myself. I do not have to deal
with any customers. I do have to deal with jerky drivers occasionally
while traveling store to store. Overall though, I am having too much
fun. I did take a substantial pay cut, but if time is money, I
definitely feel like it was a fair trade.
This last week I spent time with my
family. I got home from work and hung out. I hung out with Clover
while Kristin went to the store one night after work. I didn't lose
my patience. We had fun. It is going to take a little bit of time to
get used to this. Having time after work, and not being completely
done with the day during such time. Pretty cool stuff.
I also get to hang out with my two
ladies on the weekends. Today is Saturday. I woke up, got dressed,
and went for a walk with my family. Clover and I played tag. After
that we went to my parents house. I watched Clover help Grandma make
lunch. I took her to the hardware store with my dad. I made dinner
with my wife. After fixing some sprinklers with my dad, (because I am
a professional now :P) I went down the row of raspberries with
Clover. We picked about a pint. I think she gave me one for every two
she ate. Today was the funnest day off in longer than I can remember.
I feel like I am learning how to really enjoy the reasons that I go
to work. I love my wife. I love my daughter. I hate having to spend
time away from them. I work because I need to, but I live for days
like today. I think that today was the first one that I have had in a
little over two years. It was nice.
Yep. Pretty pumped about the future. So
glad I got fired. Not gonna lie, super bummed at first. I still
daydream about breaking all the glass in my old restaurant. As much
as I didn't want to believe it though, I think they were right. I
wasn't happy there. Especially after days like today. I cant argue
with that. Pretty pumped.