Back on Top

So the day after that last post, I got my crap together and found a couple places to try for employment, typed up some cover letters and printed out everything I needed to head out.  I was feeling pretty good and optimistic about the whole situation.  It didn't really matter where I ended up because I would make the best out of it no matter what, plus no preconceived notion I had about any where would match reality.

I was ready.  I'd learned my lesson about the whole situation and was about to implement it.  All that was left to do was get cleaned up and go.

Then my phone rang.  It was a surprise because while I'd saved the number, it was one I'd not expected to hear from.

The restaurant I'd mentioned in my previous post hadn't had an opening a month prior, but here was the chef calling to ask me if I was still looking for a job.  "Why, yes, yes I am," I told him.

An hour later I was down there for a second/review interview and the next morning I was at work.

I really like it, but my endurance has been slowed by being out of the game for so long, so I'm having to build back up.  My first day, everyone told me I was already doing better than my predecessor.  I hadn't gone to aikido for six weeks on top of that so it was tough at first and I went home exhausted.

I have a lot of thoughts about this new phase in my life but I also have so much to catch up on that's happened in the past month I've been away.

I met two great people from Tassajara, one of them the tenzo with whom I talked shop for several hours on what it means to be tenzo on a further level than I've discussed here before.  I got a tattoo as a constant reminder of my practice and turned 30 (in that order...)  There have also been many developments in my practice and in how I experience the world through them, so I hope to get back in the habit of writing now that I have a little more structure to lay habits on top of for the foreseeable future.

When You Hit Bottom, You Bounce

So I'm still struggling to find a job since my last one was so rudely taken from me.  It's not so much that I'm out there everyday getting rejected.  I've actually only made it to one place and they wanted to hire me but didn't have a position available.  The struggle is with myself, and until this morning (more like afternoon) when I was finally pulling myself together for the day, I realized what my big issue was.

I knew I'd been making excuses like I usually do.  I want to say that I've brought this up before but in scanning through my posts, nothing rings a bell.  The first big insight my practice brought me was how easy it is for me to fall for my own excuses, that I just accept them sometimes without even realizing I'm making them up.  I see them as reality and that that's just the way it is.

The problem is, until I find the root of these excuses, it doesn't really do me much good.  Sure I know that I shouldn't be falling for them, but I still do.

What I realized today is that I'm still upset over the loss of my job, even more so than I'd realized.  On a deeper level, the owners of that restaurant kicked me out of my home; not the one where I went to every night and slept, but the one where I spent my days.  My coworkers were in a sense a new family and I'd been cut off from them.  On the surface I'd just seen it as a job and another one would come along to take it's place.  I hadn't dealt with this aspect that lurked so far below.

So I was still angry and holding on to something I know intellectually was passing and impermanent.  It wasn't until today that that understanding went a bit deeper into realizing the impermanence.

What's causing me trouble now is that deep down, I'm scared of that happening again.  I mean, I really hate looking for a job.  I've stayed at places that were really bad for me longer than I should have because it seemed better than looking for a new place.  But this fear comes from an investment in a possible future that I know may not come true.  So instead I hold on to the dream rather than march in to a place and apply.

So many of us do this in so many different situations.  We let our attachment to how we want things (or think they should be) to turn out cripple us from taking the chance.  Looking for jobs, pursuing a romance, making a purchase or any other choice for that matter.

Is there some magic spell we can use to make this anxiety go away, some short cut around the suffering?  No, we just have to accept that this is what life is.  Our practice may help in that if we settle our minds enough, that iron grip on the dream may soften, but just because you have a light grip doesn't make that desire any less sticky.

A little after Christmas I was in a funk, didn't feel myself, slept too late, wasn't motivated to do anything.  It took me a while to realize that I was a little depressed.  It'd been a long time since I'd been to that place so it wasn't easily recognizable.  Once I'd identified it, it lost a lot of it's power, I'd slapped some boundaries on it and defined its previously ambiguous powers.

For a long time I'd been doing really well, riding the wheel to the top.  But once I hit bottom back then, I was able to recognize that it was a wheel and that I wouldn't be there forever.  It had been a nice ride up and the top felt great, but then I was at the bottom and knowing I'd be going back up eventually was kind of what turned it around.

So today I realized the same thing and it had the same effect.  I'm really bummed about not having a job and it should be enough motivation to go out and get one, but something has been in the way.  Now that I've identified it, given it some definition, I know its power's not infinite.  I'm still moving forward and looking up, not down.

It was a long fall down, and I know it's cliche, but before you can bounce back up, you have to hit the bottom.

Waking Up from My Dream and Being Angry About It

So after a few short weeks, I woke up from my dream job.  I should remember to never get a job working for owners who either aren't silent or aren't restaurant people.  It doesn't matter how great your crew is or how wonderfully they're led by the management, if the owners won't let go their ego in favor of the success of the business, it's doomed to fail. 

So here I find myself with two paths.

1 - Be pissed off, and for good reason.  This really was a dream opportunity.  I was coming into a restaurant that needed my particular skills.  It was a delightful atmosphere, very casual yet mature enough that things still got done.  The management was sincerely invested in every employees success and saw the greater picture.  After just long enough to start making plans for the future, like committing to cook three meals a day for my sangha for 45 days, around my work schedule, the chef that doesn't even work there told me my next scheduled day, I wouldn't be on the kitchen schedule. 

Not "we have to let you go, sorry," but, some lame story about how business is slow and they want to keep me around because I'm a quality employee but due to loyalty to other (less skilled or motivated) employees who don't know they should have asked for a raise because they deserve it, that I should talk to the front of the house manager about serving or bartending.  Other gems concerning the owners and a whole mess of trouble arose after that, but that's what I had to deal with then.

== OR ==

2. I see it for how it's benefited me.  I did make some new friends and had some fun in a cool environment.  I learned some new skills and recipes since I'd never worked as a prep cook before.  My interest in returning to the kitchen was renewed, whereas before I was dreading it as an obstacle to my graduation.  I also rekindled that spark from my first job of "the people in charge are irresponsible and/or stupid, I can do this better. What's stopping me?"  After taking it easy for so long I feel that assertiveness again.  This time I can taste the ability to actually help a restaurant prosper and grow, not just survive.

It also held time for me in a way.  I was able to get at least 3 weeks into the practice period before really having to get another job.  I could have gotten a different one that wouldn't have afforded me that option.  Being tenzo for Ango is more valuable to me in experience than any job I've had so far.  I really am behaving and working as a chef, not like a chef, but as a chef.  I'm planning daily menus once a week, putting together shopping lists and purchasing ingredients.  I'm also learning to delegate responsibility to make sure things get done when I'm not around, and have had to deal with the consequences of it not getting done.  I'm actually cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner Saturday through Thursday with the exception of two dinners.  I've had to pay attention to dietary needs as I haven't before since what I cook is essentially the diet for 8+ people for nearly two months.

So take a guess at which path I've chosen.

Both actually, and it's been an interesting experience.  Being angry is just as legitimately a Buddhist experience as sending love to my tormentors and wishing all beings happiness.  The Ninth Grave Precept is a prohibition against harboring ill will, not ever feeling it.  Allowing myself to feel what I feel is in accord with the teachings.  I can feel angry all I want as long as I'm mindful of why I'm angry.  Harboring ill will is holding on to and giving it shelter.  Once the emotion has done what  it needs, it should be let go.

The anger still comes up about the whole thing, as well as the joy in what may most likely happen to the whole operation.  But that dream I had about what my future path would hold in that life really is just that, a dream.  There was never any guarantee that that's how my life would turn out, and it definitely wouldn't be everything I imagined, it never is.

So now I return to the moment, take the bad as bad and the good as good.  I have other hopes of employment lined up, ones that may be infinitely better and that wouldn't have been available to me in the same way two months ago.

How can anyone argue with that?

On the Clock Again, Finally

After nearly a year, I finally clocked into work today.  For the last two weeks I've been working on nailing down this job that I was told was a sure thing halfway through my first interview.  It's been a little bit of a rollercoaster to get it finalized as the management has been super busy, but today it was official.

My varied experience in the several jobs that I've more or less suffered through over the last 12 years will serve me well as versatility in this small kitchen is desired.  I couldn't have imagined a better fit for me.  Just to begin with the schedule is perfect, weekdays 10a-3/4p.  I'll still have time for Aikido and weekends for any obligations or activities at the Zen Center as well as weekends to spend with my girlfriend.  I have the option of picking up other shifts, but this is what they hired me for.

What I'm most excited about is seeing what effect my practice will have on job performance.  I'd just barely begun my adventure in sitting when I'd quit my last job and I'd seen a difference in how I dealt with other people and different situations but now I've been practicing intensely without the backdrop of the professional setting save the few lab classes at school and my cooking as tenzo which are a little different than "real life" kitchen work.

I'm excited to learn new things at this job and the management is excited to teach me.  It will be different than school though since I'm used to knowing more than my fellow classmates and am usually ahead of the curve.  Here I'm the only student so the pace will be faster and much more hands on.  There will be no time to fall behind.

The management is interested in food in the same ways that I am.  Learning new cuisines, techniques and ingredients isn't about knowing more than others or being cutting edge, they want to absorb the information because it's there, they want to experiment because they can.  Their explorations of vegetarian and vegan cooking is not to exclude meat but to see the things that pop up out of necessity in meatless cooking to share it with people who would otherwise shrug away from vegetarian meals.

Cooking in the Zen setting is different than professionally cooking as everyone is at least trying to keep their egos in check.  In the professional kitchen, the ego serves to get you noticed and is how you advance.  From what I've learned of this kitchen, that shouldn't be an issue as the crew is small and the management is most interested in team building so this should be a friendlier work environment.

Another thing I noticed while cleaning today is how long it's been since I spoke freely while doing kitchen work.  Zen kitchens are like zendos in that right speech functions not in total silence, but only on what is at hand.  It should be interesting to at least have the option of idle chatter to pass the time.

It's so odd, after nine months of off and on job hunting to be getting settled, that pressure is no longer there but I'm still squished from it sitting on my shoulders for so long.

Let's see what happens.