First Day (file under AWESOME)

Shakespeare once wrote; “To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.” I awoke early, before the alarm (which is happening more and more often these days) and I was excited at the prospect of starting a new job. One which would allow me to my own self to be true.

The plan had been for me to rollerblade to work. Of course Mother Nature had a different plan. I have to admit that it is much easier to wake up when it is warm out as opposed to when it is cold. But nonetheless, waking up, I strolled to the shower and took a nice long shower. While in the shower I became aware of a change that had happened in me sometime in the past few months. For some reason a sense of personal urgency had developed with regard to my direction, where I was going and how I was getting there. This thought stayed with me as I grabbed my Tim’s and waited for the bus.

Usually I would have a soundtrack for my life playing on my Ipod but alas I left it in my brothers’ car and haven’t had it for a couple of weeks. Instead I played a game with myself while reading the paper, imagining what that soundtrack might be on this day. A new day. A new job. A new beginning.

The trip was short to the club. Maybe twenty five minutes in total. Including a walk which lasted four or five minutes as I walked at a good clip due to the freezing rain that was trying to come down on my parade. To no avail though as I arrived at around 6:16 am to start anew. FRESH!

My colleague was waiting for me at the Front entrance to walk me through a “training day.” We were the only ones in the kitchen at this early hour. He walked me through the various start up requirements and how to frame the day before starting in on work.

Fill the blanching pots. Light the stoves, start the fryers, the grill, the convection ovens and the flat top. Fill the hot line water and the cool line with ice. Utensils on station and then check the stock of each of the station fridges to ensure that we were ready to go. Make sure to remember to put the muffins, bacon and sausages in the convection. The whole start up ritual took perhaps twenty minutes. Then off to the walk ins to figure out what prep needed to get done.

Monday is a pretty quiet day at The Club. With most of the prep trying to stay at least a day ahead. My coworker asked if I felt like doing any specials for today. Sure I said and proceeded to do the mise en place for a Pesto Margarita Pizza and a Sun Dried Tomato Ravioli with a Sun Dried Tomato Pesto. They were the first things to come to mind and I didn’t want to rock the boat.

The ability to create specials from the finest ingredients that can be found is relatively easy with a bit of knowledge and creativity. But it did cause me to think that I need to get a new notebook to start recording both my ideas and the realities of the specials I will help to create each day.

It was a slow day. I think total we had about twenty orders. But there were other things I could do; walk around and get my bearings. Get a feel for what was in the walk ins, dry stores, etc. To figure out what the work ethic was, what was expected, etc.

My day finished around 2:30 pm. I was home by 3:10 and started thinking about the day that had just passed.

What I realized is that I am being given an opportunity to start fresh. To become part of a team. To work on the things that I know personally I need to. I am joining a team that cares about what they do, for the most part, and are happy to come to work every day.

This job means a lot to me. First off, though there is a lot of work in a kitchen, I feel it important to say, that I don’t really look at it like it’s a job. For me it is a passion which burns bright and deeply. At The Club, I will have the opportunity to grow and learn. To work my way up from the “bottom” and bear witness to my own progression each day.

I don’t want to write too much on an abstract level about yesterday. But for me, a lot of it was abstract. I could see the commitment that I had made was a good one and that this is exactly the environment that I need to be in right now. And that feels good.

Naturally there are a slew of operational things that I realized during my day yesterday. None of which I will bore you with here. But it is a completely different environment than any I have been in to date. Excited, I know that the coming days, weeks, months are going to be filled with purpose, joy and meaning. I am grateful for the opportunity and plan to incorporate all of the things that I have learned so far in a meaningful way to my own progression.

I purposely did not write over the weekend because I wanted this to be my 300th post. How Spartan of me? And yet in my mind, it made sense, that my 300th post would be this one, which heralded a new day, a great opportunity and my souls smile.

Goethe once said; “The day is committed to error and floundering; success and achievement are matters of long range”

Are you dreaming big and inspired?

A la prochaine

SDM