When risk meets opportunity

Well, it has taken 3 months since my move out here but I have landed my dream job. It is still sinking in at just how remarkable this opportunity is. I came out here, with no plan. Maybe a 5 year plan to work towards a dream job that would include wine education, sales or sommelier, and in just 3 short months I have obtained all of these in one. Unbelievable. So in my interview, I was asked "so tell us your 5 year plan" and I couldn't know, perhaps wine writing as a side venture for the future or independant consulting on the side, the avenues are limitless now. I am humbled by this.
Since making the decision to move here, life has made things very difficult, almost as if its testing my worthiness. First my car had cost me $1000 to fix before driving out here, that in itself could have prevented me, because my savings took a hard hit, but I prevailed and kept going (with the help of someone I am very thankful for). Secondly, when I arrived I thought I would get a serving job no problem. Little did I know that the town, no CITY, of Abbotsford is insufficient, borderline useless in its provision for fine dining restaurants. I spent 3 weeks looking for a job; many resume's, meetings with managers who promised to call me back but never did, and pretty much no one was hiring. Finally, and it was a chance happening, I had put my resume into a place called "Wings" the day before, and my bro and I went there for dinner the night after and I overheard a girl quitting, and I said to him "how much do you want to bet that I get hired tomorrow'. Sure enough, I got the phone call the next morning offering me a job. I was elated. SOOO relieved! This was a place I didn't want to apply to originally because its not fine dining, but I was beyond being able to pick and choose.

This place wasn't what you would call upscale. The thing that bothered me most was what we had to wear; a tight black tshirt and a short black skirt. Ugh. Combine that with muscle freaks dining at regular intervals for "cheap wings", a prominent church crowd every sunday wanting coffee and tea service ( I loathe tea service), and a certain ethnic group (Which I will call CEG) who is known for poor tipping, or complete lack thereof. My own personal nightmare.

To top it off, the only time we were really busy was after 8pm when the wings went cheap. So we would easily get double, and still easily triple amount of people, sometimes I had 7 tables on the go (completely insane when you don't have food runners, bussers and you have to do your own payments). All of this craziness and people are just gorging their face holes with a disgusting amount of chicken wings ( I saw a family of 4 consume 150 wings, and fries, and appetizers), AND we have free pop refills, (SHUT THE EFF UP!!!), so I am quite literally running around the restaurant trying to manage all of this, and their bill goes from $227 to $100, or $80 to $35. THEY DON'T TIP ON ALL THE WORK YOU"VE DONE, they only tip on the total of their new bill!! How ignorant of you!!

There were regulars too, that didn't leave a penny, CEG's and a few others, if I happened to get stuck with them, I certainly wouldn't give them attention to detail. If their pop was empty, tough shit, you shouldn't have drank it so fast, If they needed more napkins from their gorging, use your shirt. Of course at first I gave them the best service I could, until it was the 2nd time they came in and didn't tip at all, after that, I dont' care who you are, don't waste my time. I once did a $200 bill, complete with appetizers, wings, mains, drinks, shots (CEG's) and they didn't tip me a dime! How is that possible?? This is western culture! ADAPT and RESPECT it.

So after all of that, and It may sound like I am just ranting, which I totally am, but trust me, it was a bad place to work.... I think I deserve where I am now. My poor brother, I couldn't give him rent last month because I didn't make any money at Wings.
But he knows I will take care of him in the next few months, he has helped me out astronomically since I've moved here. If it wasn't for him I wouldn't have been able to take this risk and move out west. I also want to give a big huge shout out to MY KIA !!! I LOVE YOU! If it wasn't for this car, I wouldn't have gotten to where I am today, literally, because she made it here in one piece. I had a lot of haters back home and here, taking bets on whether it would make it or not, laughing at my possible misfortune of being stuck in the praries somewhere. But she did it!
Back to my new job.....

So basically, the restaurant is called OrU, which is Japanese for "to fold" we had a master "Origamist" fold a light fixture that is over 100 feet long. We are Pan-Asian cusine; Indian, Thai, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, etc. which is fused into pacific fare, so internationally inspired but locally prepared. Somewhat of a challenging menu to pair with wines (we also have an extensive Sake list --- which I know next to nothing about, so another big challenge is to learn it and experiement with Sake/ food pairings--- probably one of the best parts of the job....trying AMAZING food and wine together and making note of what works and what doesn't).
It is everything I wanted; wine education ( I am responsible for training all of the staff. I am making a syllabus of all of our wines -- we have about 300-- and I am doing weekly and monthly tastings with them, and how wine and food pairings interact), Wine sales (I am also responisble to get our wine sales revenue up, by upselling to guests when they come into dine -- and let me tell you, the calibre of these people are like royalty -- literally, we had royalty in to dine the other night-- compared to the, ahem, others, at wings) .
They have told me quite a few times, and I am fully aware, just how amazing this opportunity is for me. My job, wasn't in their budget, but they needed someone to train the staff and ultimately create more revenue through wine sales. Everything I have done in the past 5 years, all my decisions I've made that has brought me to this moment, its almost as if this job was created specifically for me. Humbling.
The ONLY downside, is my commute. I drive 40 minutes (without traffic) to the Skytrain Station in Surrey. Then its a 40 minute Skytrain ride to Burrard station in Downtown Vancouver. But trust me, its worth it. However, it does make my days long, an 8 hour workday, becomes 12 hours with the commute, the other day I worked a 10 hour shift, so it was a 14 hour day. Exhausting? Yes. Will I continue to do it? Yes. Until I can afford to move and hopefully not much longer!


Learn it; Live it; Love it.