A 20 year old man rolled into my bar yesterday and applied for a job. Normally, I steer clear of job interviews but for some reason, I sat down and talked to this guy. I guess he maybe reminded me of me (from a few years back.) He is tall, black, skinny, good looking…You know, just like me. haha. Anyway, he told me that he had never had a job before. WOW. At 20 years old he has never had a job. Ok, that part didn’t remind me of me at all. He went on to tell me that he had been in school but he kinda fell off the school band wagon after hanging out with the wrong group of people. After listening to his story, for some reason my feeling was that this dude was at a crucial point in his life. The point where he can get his stuff together and get on the straight and narrow. Or, he can continue the way he is going and find his way into more trouble. One thing was clear. Someone needed to give this young man a chance. So, I decided to hire him.
Maybe it was because he reminded me of me son. Maybe, it was a chance for me to do a few things for a young man after not being there for my son…I’m not sure why but I just wanted to do something to help this young man.
As you know, Cooking is one of those things that you CAN go to school for or at the very least take some classes to learn the craft. He has done neither. Sure, he could start off bussing tables or washing dishes. But he needs to learn how to DO something. Cooking is a trade. He can learn this, if he is WILLING to learn it. This could be something that he can learn and take with him in the future. Then I decided to do something else. I told him that I wanted to talk to his mother. He was like, WHAT? Yup. So, he called her and she came to meet with me. If the point here was to teach and make this more than just a JOB, then, we needed to be on the same page. We talked and I tried to get her perspective and I gave her mine. It was very different and she was wondering why I wanted to talk to her but after we chatted, we seemed to be on the same page.
Well, Good news…He will be training as a Cook Tonight.
