It always comes down to money

I kind of hate that… it makes it so that nothing ever really feels like a fair contest. The outcome is never really in doubt if you know who has more money behind them. That was pretty much the case with my job hunt. At the end of the day, I just couldn’t turn down the bigger paycheck, so I went with the 6 day, 60 hour a week gig. It wasn’t a great feeling explaining to the Chef at the other place that he lost out because he was outbid… nothing makes you feel dirtier than admitting you have a price, especially admitting it to someone you admire. I wish I could have said it was about principles, or food, or even the fucking commute, but I can’t. No, I had to explain that I could be bought… for the low price of $600 a week… of course I gave him a chance to make a bid of his own… no dice. His hands are tied… I understand.

It’s funny… or maybe it isn’t… that for years workers have fought for the 40 hour week…

the right to make a living wage without sacrificing an unreasonable amount of their life.. and here we are generations later, eagerly selling out our ancestors. For what? I suppose you could call it greed… but is it really? Am I being greedy? Is it reasonable to expect someone to be able to live on 40 hours a week when they only make $10 an hour?… Sometimes less…? The greedy ones are the ones in the capital taking 20% of those meager earnings… Taxation is greed in it’s most unadulterated form. What else can you call it when someone who did nothing whatsoever do earn a share of your pay demands a cut? If it was a fat Italian doing it, they’d call it extortion, but when it’s your Uncle Sam, they call it taxes… I digress… this isn’t about the government really… it’s about us. So given the circumstances, what else can I do? I’m already selling my labor… all I have left to sell are my rights. For a little something extra, why not? 60 hours?… 6 days?… Why not! No need to offer me benefits, I won’t fight for them. Health care would be nice, but first I have to eat… who can think of sick pay when you can barely make rent? I can’t afford to be sick!… they see to that. And vacation!… a luxury reserved for those with white collars. Maybe I’ll be able to afford cable… take a trip on my couch when I knock off after the 12 hour day.

Maybe it’s my fault… after all I chose to work in this industry… one of the last dinosaurs. It’s better a lot of other places. I used to work in a nice air conditioned office… 40 hours, insurance, vacation… no one asked me to surrender any rights… just my soul.

Decisions, Decisions

As I mentioned, job offers are kinda pouring in for me… I’ve pretty much narrowed it down to two places, but I’m having a helluva time choosing. I wish I had more time to check out more places, but I’m going to have decide and start brining in some money ASAP.

On one hand, I’ve got a place that is part of a huge empire headed by a very well regarded chef… I’m not so much in love with the food at this particular outpost, but if I did some time there I can almost certainly move to another restaurant of his that may suit me better. The place is in a great location in Midtown, I wouldn’t have to work lunch (which I hate so, so much) and it has a Michelin Star. That said, there are definitely some hacks working there, and not everything is being done quite as properly as I expected from a place this well regarded. It might be nice to be the best cook in my kitchen again, but honestly, I was hoping to take a step back and learn something new. The pay if pretty standard for entry level in my line of work, and I’d get full time, 5 days, 40 hours.

On the other hand, I have a place headed by a only slightly less famous chef… still has a very good pedigree… some big time people have come out from this kitchen. He has two Michelin Stars, and an immaculate dining room. The kitchen is much more to my liking here, as is the food. There are still a couple hacks, but there are also a couple badasses. I don’t really know if I’m going to learn anything new here either, but I at least will have some very strong cooks surrounding me. The catch here is they want 6 days a week, 10-12 hours a day ( I still wouldn’t have to work lunch, but I’d have to be there early enough that it’ll feel like I am) and they aren’t offering overtime or anything like that… just flat out shift pay… X dollars per shift. It does work out to be almost twice as much a week as the other spot is offering, but it’s almost twice as many hours.

So I’m torn… do I go to the stronger kitchen and make better food?… or do I go to the kitchen where I can shine bright, being that I’d be the only cook who doesn’t have his head completely up his ass? I’ve worked 6 days, 60 hours (or more) for the past two years… I know I can do it, but do I still really want to? On the other hand, can I really afford to not take the job that offers me the most money… I’ll be looking for a new apartment soon, and I know that isn’t going to be cheap… I mean I am living in the most expensive town in the whole fucking country. But is it worth sacrificing every other aspect of my life to be working in the better place? I mean it isn’t like I’ve got boatloads of friends out here or anything, but it would be nice to see my girlfriend once in a while… and there is plenty to see and do while I’m living here… if I work 6 nights a week, I’m never going to do anything… my lone day off will be spent doing laundry, grocery shopping, sleeping, hopefully slipping one into the wife… you get the idea. I came here for the sole purpose of advancing my career… and both of these restaurants can help me do that…but at what cost?

1st week in NYC

I moved here because I had too. Truth be told, I hate New York…. always have. Maybe it’s that whole East Coast West Coast rivalry thing that’s been ingrained in me from the time I was old enough to love the Dodgers and hate the Mets or listen to rap music.

Maybe it’s because a good 90% of the New York transplants I’ve met have been complete fucking assholes. All I ever heard about was how great NYC was, and how Los Angeles wasn’t even really a big city… It’s the 2nd biggest city in the fucking country you goddman moron!… and you’re the one who moved all the way out here!… I don’t hear you complaining about it being warm and sunny for a change… go the fuck back if you miss the snow so goddamn much!…sorry, I digress… that’s one of my hot button issues.

Whatever the case, I wasn’t exactly thrilled about moving all the way across the country and paying twice the rent for half the space… for $1400 a month (which I guess is kind of a steal here, even in Brooklyn) in Oakland (where I’d lived the last year) I could have a fucking washer and dryer in my apartment… not too mention a shower that actually drains. And don’t even get me started on the weather…

Still, before you right me off as the reverse of those prick NY transplants, let me say I’m starting to warm up to this town. My apartment may be kind of a shit hole, but it’s only a sublet… in two months it reverts back to the jackass I’m renting from and he can deal with the splinters from the floor, the fucked up plumbing, and the light bulbs that burn out every other day… and he deserves it. My dick head landlord (?) aside, everyone I’ve met out here has been pretty nice. I mean, it’s not as if everyone has gone out of their way to roll out the goddman red carpet to welcome me or anything, but on the whole if I’ve needed directions or anything, people have been helpful. Even the bums here aren’t as pushy as I’d remembered them.

I’m living in Brooklyn, and I really like it here. I think I’m going to try and find an apartment here when it comes time to find something permanent… as permanent as a rental gets at least. Not that I could afford to live in Manhattan even if I wanted to, which I don’t. It’s so damn crowded and noisy and dirty, I can’t understand why anyone would pay out the ass to live there. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t mind some penthouse overlooking Central Park and all, but how realistic is that?… and if I had that kind of dough, you better believe I’d be out of here so quick it would make your head spin. Again, I don’t mean to be a jerk, but if I’m spending millions of dollars on some property I’d want to own some PROPERTY… you know, like a yard or something… have a little bbq, maybe a pool and a garage… not have to be living right on top of my goddamn neighbors and having to ride elevators with them, and have them know when I’m coming and going and all… that kind of cash should by privacy if nothing else. But for now, Brooklyn is nice, and I don’t mind living here at all, especially since the weather should start getting warmer any time now.

As I mentioned I was forced to move here… kinda. No one put a gun to my head… I wasn’t on the run or anything… not really. I had moved from Los Angeles to Oakland last year because my girlfriend hates L.A. She thought living in the Bay Area would suit her better… so much more culture… though if you ask me I never noticed her taking an interest in anything too cultural… and she works in the fashion industry, so she thought San Francisco would have all these big name fashion companies. Really she wanted to move to NYC back then, but I wouldn’t do it. We couldn’t afford it, I said. I wasn’t ready to move that far from my family… Id lived in L.A. for 27 years after all… we should take a test run of sorts and just move up the coast. She seemed pretty happy with that arrangement, so off we went. She found some job before we even moved, but it wasn’t even close to San Francisco… it was in the damn suburbs, about an hour from the city… most of the people she worked with never even went to San Fran, it was just too damn far.

I refused to live all the way out in the sticks, and with the city being to far for her to commute, and to damn expensive really, we settled on Oakland. I cook, so I managed to find a job right away… the very first night in town as a matter of fact… theres always restaurants that need someone who knows what they’re doing. Lot’s of guys cook, but most of these guys are degenerates who also drink too much and do lots of blow and never shower… plus if they were all that smart they wouldn’t be cooking in the first place, they’d have gone to real college and been a fucking doctor or something… it’s pretty easy to beat those guys out for a job. Not that everyone who cooks is like that, but a lot of them are.

The restaurant I was at was really good…

I got promoted right away and was making really beautiful food.

I met a lot of people and got to go out and have a lot of fun… the weed was outstanding…

I was happy. My girlfriend, on the other hand, was not so happy. Like I said, her job was out in the middle of nowhere, and her co-workers we’re all lame. They thought that Oakland was just about the most dangerous place in the whole goddamn world, and they thought San Francisco was too far away… they all loved about 5 minutes from their job… so she never got to hang out with anyone really. These peoples idea of a wild night was closing down the T.G.I. Fridays. Anyhow, she had to work at 6am everyday, so it was probably just as well. I myself was working 6 days a week, from around 11am until about midnight… even later on the weekends. And of course, I’d go out after work and have a few drinks or whatever since my girlfriend was asleep anyways and wouldn’t get home until 2am sometimes… I didn’t see too much of the wife for a while.

Finally, I had enough of the long hours and shitty pay. I still really liked the food I was cooking, and other people liked it too because the restaurant was really busy and we kept getting written up in the paper and things like that, but the owner was pretty much a bastard. He was a nice enough guy and all, just so long as you never asked him to spend any money. And I mean any money… he had to fix the refrigerator once and it damn near killed him… he insisted on doing it himself, so it took about ten times longer than it should have and was just a pain in everyone’s ass all the way around, but he acted like he was doing us the biggest favor. He was that kind of guy that would always hold it over your head whenever he did anything. He once refused in a plumber for us, when every drain in the damn place was backed up and we were working in about six inches of standing water because he “couldn’t afford to just be having stuff fixed all the time”. So you can imagine how that got old in a hurry, and finally one day we all just quit. I mean everyone… right down to the dishwashers… we gave one months notice, but this owner was such a hard-ass he said he only needed us for two weeks.

So after that was over, I figured if I was going to be broke and have to find a new job and all, I may as well do it here and at least make the wife happy. She got her job transferred out here, and we found this ratty sublet from that jack off on Craigslist and we were set. I sold off all my furniture and stuff and used that with the last paycheck I got to pay for the 2 months rent up front. I packed up my books and mailed them, and moved to NYC with 2 suitcases and about $300. It all sounds very cliche I know… or very stupid. I didn’t even have a job lined up, but like I mentioned it’s usually pretty easy to find work in a kitchen. I’ve had about 10 places offer me jobs so far… all very big deals… Michelin Stars and all that.I figured if I was going to move all the way out here, I was at least going to work somewhere nice. I mean, I could work in a Denny’s or something anywhere and be paying a lot less rent. One thing this town has going for it is a lot of good restaurants. It took me almost two whole days just to apply to all of them.

Now that I know I’m going to work somewhere really nice I’m feeling a little better about moving here. It hasn’t been too cold… it isn’t snowing or anything… so that’s not bad. One of my friends sent me a carton of cigarettes, and another send me some of that good California weed, so I haven’t had to pay the exorbitant New York prices on any of that yet… you people sure make it expensive to smoke anything here. It seems like everyone smokes too… I’ve never seen so many people smoking… on the sidewalk… at bars… everywhere. The subway seems pretty convenient and I haven’t gotten mugged or anything… I haven’t been too drunk yet either, so we’ll how long that lasts… I did almost get arrested already, but that was just because I didn’t know the laws yet… I have to go to court in May, but the cop said it would just be like a $25 fine… you can’t ever trust the police though, so who knows? Unless I end up going to jail over that one little run-in, I’d say the 1st week has been pretty good. Maybe New York isn’t so bad after all.

D