employablog

In a little over two weeks, I’m going to be wearing business casual.  We all do it, we all do it plenty whether or not we’re going to a job, but this instance will be for a job.

After finishing all my interviews for this job, I felt pretty good about myself, I took a black and tan up on the roof of my new place, looked across the East River and took stock, looking across at all of Manhattan splayed out in front of me.

I used to watch the cars drive by across Lake Calhoun at night.  Now I do the same, looking across the river at the cars speeding up and down the FDR.  And now, I am in a different place.  Coming to New York can make you feel like an immigrant even if you are from this country, and even if you’ve spent a fair chunk of time there.  And if you spend about half of each work day speaking in Spanish rather than English, well, that doesn’t make you feel any less foreign.

But I made my dent in this city.  Each day, furiously flailing toward progress or some semblance there of, my arms have been sore, but I never stopped.  And now, in just over two weeks, I start writing Kaplan’s MCAT review content.  And who better to do it than me?  I’m going to be a surgeon, it’s set, my deposit for med school is literally in the mail, and going back to my roof, it feels pretty good.

In college I’d freaked.  What now, what after?

Financial independence, har har.

But now I’m there.  When people on the street ask me for money, I’m no longer inches away from breaking down and showing them just how poor I am.

Hell, now I can even afford to the gym I just joined.

Tomorrow, I have an interview for a real person job, and these people actually know that I am not available for a two-year engagement.  Hell, they even know that I am not available for even one year.  The company I am interviewing with happens to know quite a bit about me, because I already work for them, in fact, they have a paycheck with my name on it, I am interviewing tomorrow to write content for Kaplan.

This is one of those things where if I get hired, I have to take it.  This job is just too happy and too professional a marriage of my skills and interests (science, writing) to ignore.  That said, it would force me to leave La Focaccia the job of my current three that takes the most hours and gives me the most money.

But though a newbie to the food biz, I’m getting really, really good, and cool things are happening.  Customers love me.  People in the neighborhood know me, and know what I’m about.  And since I’ve started working there, more people have started coming during lunch.  I mean, I’ll call a shoe a shoe when I see it, and perhaps …

My coworkers are wonderful, they care about me, and tend to not let me leave without more free food to go.  And I’m finally fluent in epañol.  Oh, yo hablo.  Todos veces, cada día.  I don’t really want to leave, but at the same time, this restaurant manager job has been and would be a sort of professional honeymoon.  Either way, I’m wearing a suit tomorrrow, and shiny black shoes.

Job interview number 11 (but who’s counting) here I come

I think congratulations are in order, for getting in to medical school is no small feat. Back in our childhood, around this time Employee Too (or more correctly, probably, his mom) would host a big Halloween party. There was candy and scary movies and a half dozen wired young boys including one particularly goofy, lanky kid who we now know as Employee Too. If you knew him then, you’re probably be feeling like me: amazed, apprehensive and proud.

Luckily, school doesn’t start for another ten months, so before we hang up the cleats here at employablog, Employee Too’s got a lot of rent to pay. Also, I hear some big career decisions may be on the horizon. Will he continue his meteoric rise in the food services industry? Or take a risk on an entirely new industry? Stay tuned to EMPLOYABLOG…

What do you do?

In college it was: What’s your major?

Now, it’s:

What do you do?

Well, in a country that values people based on their utility (generalization, but, true), this question comes up a lot.  And whether or not you try to, you (that’s right, you) make value judgments based on what people do to pay the rent.  Accounts, musicians, painters, pole-dancers, all these professions carry certain stereotypes.

Me, I’ve avoided that by juggling three jobs, and in true juggling fashion, one of those jobs is always changing, always up in the air.  But they have always been grounded in the hope that I will go to medical school next fall, 2007.  But grounding something in a hope is dangerous.  I can say, “I want to be a doctor,” or “I applied to study to be a doctor, I know that I’m not into two medical schools, but it’s still early in …” and so on.

And just as those are not impressive things to say, they also make me nervous, what if?  One of the questions that medical school interviewers ask is: “What would you do if you do not get into medical school?”

And I say something like, “be a nurse, a researcher, something in healthcare.”  And have a nice packaged answer, that is a fine career, but not the career that I chose.

But today, I tried on the Daddy Pants, and they fit nicely.

I got accepted into medical school.  Everything that I have slaved for, yearned for, nearly given myself an ulcer for and most certainly a few anxiety and sleep disorders for, is in my possession.  So now, without a doubt or white lie, I can say, that I am going to be a surgeon, probably thoracic, but it’s a little early for me to figure out a specialty.

Yeah, these Daddy Pants feel pretty good.

Employee One, let me know when you want to finish that wine, I’m always ready.

Moving to New York took a lot of time — a lot. So much time, in fact, that days were full and still I had yet to have an interview for any job, but then, suddenly I was in demand. And I felt good, no, great. This is what is supposed to happen when you graduate an expensive college, and did well, and did interesting things with interesting people.

I had interviews, some great ones in fact. I spoke to the New York Firefighter’s Skin Bank, I would essentially be a plastic surgeon on dead people. Cutting off skin tissue and brining it in a cooler to whichever hospital needed it. I would check the charts of patients to make sure they were compatible, and check the cadavers for signs of infection. It was exactly what I wanted.

I had another interview to do research for Sloan Kettering, an amazing center focusing on cancer.

I had one day, a twofer, to be:

a) A medical assistant doing blood draws, EKGs and a number of other cool things for a colorectal surgeon. Butts don’t gross me out, I am going to be a surgeon.

b) A health insurance claims investigator. I would actually understand how HMOs work, and in working for one, try and force it to do good from the inside out.

Sitting pretty behind my desk responding to emails, drinking cheap coffee and wearing my headset and a pair of boxers (it was still very, very hot), I had taken New York City by storm.

But then honesty got in the way.

Toward the end of each interview after bushels of good vibrations, they would pop the question:

“When are you going to medical school?”

This question is awkward. It’s like the STD question to a prospective partner.

If everything goes right, I’ll go to medical school next fall. That leaves less than a year for jobs that all have a substantial training investment.

“I’m a quick train,” I’d throw in, or something like that, but always to no avail.

“You sound great, BUT …

We’re looking for a two-year commitment.”

Click. Goodbye. Don’t pass go.

Suddenly I was Charlie Brown.

A number of strange things have happened.  Most recently, today I yelled at the actor who played Van Wilder not to lock Jesus in the cellar.  Really.

Here is how this happened, I’m going to fast forward today before I rewind to some of the random steps I took falling into this job.

With my journalism degree, prehealth studies, and research and minor in Jewish Studies and Civilization, I am a restaurant manger (amongst other thing *cough* teacher, public health researcher).

But a restaurant manager, it’s unique in two aspects, one that it is my main income, and two, that I am in no way qualified to manage a restaurant.  I am not qualified to wait, or even bus.  But during lunch shifts, I am the busser, waiter, host, manager, and so far — so good.  A friend recommened me to this job, and I got it.  Bussing.  Two, three days later, I was serving, and now I have the keys to the safe, blah blah, etc, and all that would be exciting were it not for the fact that something just really doesn’t make sense.

And, that this job, aside from the fact that I get free food, and am good at flirting and placating *cough* getting tips, is entirely irrelevant to, well, anything I plan to do with my life.  So today, things got a little intense, and forced me to evaluate all that has happened in the brief and insane period since I returned to New York City.
Back to today, I yelled at Van Wilder not to lock Jesus in the cellar.  All day, a huge production crew was filming Definitely, Maybe (due out: 2008) on the block, in front of the restaurant and next door.  And it was crazy.  Rich people, actors, directors, all that stuff and they all came to eat.  One actress really liked me, tipped me for ‘to go,’ explaining,

“I’m in service too, you’re an actor too huh?”

I told her, this may sound crazy, but I’m actually going to be a doctor.  Huh.

But back to Jesus, and Ryan Reynolds (the actor who played Van Wilder, and that guy in a fat suit in that stupid movie).  They wanted to close our basement door, those metal doors that open out of the sidewalk for a shoot.  I said, “No, Jesus is downstairs, I’ll go check on him.”

Van Wilder was wearing a hoodie, and looking sheepish for some reason.  Maybe because I dropped the ‘J’ bomb.  A production monkey asked if they could shut the door once I was down, I said “No.  Then we’ll have two people trapped in the cellar, me and Jesus.”

So I went downstairs to talk to Jesus (pronounced, “Hey-Soos”), “Van a cerrar la puerta para uno o dos minutos para la pelicula.”

Jesus said that’d be cool (”Está bien”).  I went back up, and told it how it was.  But after the scene, I had to remind them to let Jesus out, which they did.  Anyways, the day was ridiculous.  I spent the entire day translating from the film crew to my workers (English to Spanish) so that everyone knew what was going on, and making adjustments, writing checks, taking orders, signing things and managing people, answering phones, taking orders, blah blah.  Irrelevant or not, I am learning something, and even if it is limited to sore feet and English-Spanish translation, and well, shmoozing, those are all very, very relevant.  And certainly, how to flirt with old euortrash women and gay people to make money.  Give free bread, smirk.  It works — table eight said that I was adorable.
To close, Van Wilder nearly trapped Jesus in a cellar in the West Village, oh, and now I am officially an MCAT teacher, and I got a phat tip for helping a stumbling tutor to teach a physics lesson at my restaurant.

Yeah, New York, NY, it’s a hell of a town.

I auditioned to work for Kaplan, and got the job. I had an interview coming up for a medical school. I had proposititions to drum for multiple bands. So far the New York City job experiment was going well. But when I really broke it down, it was a facade. Fine from the outside but shoddy, poorly insulated with sloping floors on the inside, much like my apartment.

Kaplan trains their teachers in five low-paid four-hour sessions, coming once every week or two. Beyond that, it is essentially a 20-hour interview. No wonder I have indigestion. Though getting into a medical school would be great, and in fact is all I really want in life right now, it does nothing to solve my current paying-the-rent problem. And drumming offers — well, on my Craigslist posting, I neglected to say that I don’t have a drumset, just sticks. And heart.

Sticks and heart, it’s just how I’m pasting together a life. So, more needs to happen, because $28 per week don’t pay the rent, and grandma needs a new pair of pants. Beyond that, I wake up each day, may some coffee and bang out cover letter after cover letter. I have a folder for each kind of job containing a customizable template. Teaching, researching, writing, labbing, really, anything, plus there is a misc. folder for the misfits.

I feel like the 1950s private eye, sleeves rolled up, tie loosened, sweaty, irritable and hot on the case. Except that the private dick has a job, detecting, while I voluntarily shake out job opportunities. And download music at the same time.