I have had a lot of fun these last few years... I was also left with a lot of regret, and questions of why, where and what's next. I have had a few jobs I really liked, meet a lot of interesting people and was introduced more to the nightlife as well as my fare share of relationships. Lets just say I needed a lot of aspirin to get through it.
I decided to leave what I considered a great job and learning experience in 2007. I worked at the Castle on the Hudson in Tarrytown, NY. I worked weekends, nights, holidays, 14 days in row. You name it, whatever they asked of me, I complied.. My title there was First Assistant, I worked with the Banquet Chef, who I conceder an upstanding person and someone I really liked being around. Our workdays there were more like family time, we cooked together, we arrive at work the same time and after 12 hour shifts we left together. Maybe to go home or go back to someone's house or a bar for a drink.. Not to meet up with other friends, but with the work family.. Like we did not just get through of a whole day of what people might understand more if they ever saw the show HELLS KITCHEN. The fights, the fast paced kitchen, someone not showing up to work, something was overcooked and it set back the whole line..
Cooking was my life at the time, and I loved it. I liked knowing that our guests were pleased with the service and celebrities love coming hours away for our food, and the Clintons would call up and ask for VIP treatment. That means someone had to stay late so when their private jet flew into the Westchester airport they had a place to dine at. Life was good. We would even get the VIP treatment, a few of us there all tried to get the same days off, and eat out at other upscale restaurants. We would go into these other restaurants look over the place see what we liked, what we could add to our style of cooking and what did there restaurants have that we did not. We got to meet the owners, chefs, bartenders, wait staff we would let them know where we worked and they had empathy for us, and we would get to sample there menus, get free drinks or something nice to say "we care about you, cause we know you care."
I had a few days off after the Holiday season, and finally had time to think about me, my life and where do I see it going. I knew I had learned a lot, made the greatest friends ever, and had an experience of a lifetime. So I thought is this what I want to do? Do I want to take it to the next step and give another year of 120%? Could I stand any more burns from the hot pans, someone yelling at me for ten minutes for some dodgy reason, missing family holidays, weekends, nights out with friends? So I decided to toss in the rag, and gave a months notice. I lost a great friend that month. The banquet chef, who I worked under and learned from. He did not understand my reasons for leaving and did not talk to me that whole month or till this day. I had tears in my eyes when I left and took a month off before starting my new job in New York City.
I got a job at the Ambassador Yellow pages as an Account Executive. Nothing to exciting, but something new for me. I don't mean a chair and a desk it was different from standing up for the whole day. But a chance to leave the office, and go out meet clients, take lunch breaks and eat at restaurants or fast food joint while at work. This was great, when I make an appointment I would cross town, go downtown wherever, and would not have to return to the office for a few hours. That was OK with me.
The two weeks before starting at the Yellow pages, we had to go through training. Meet the other new hires learn the job and who your bosses were and there titles. For me it was kind of easy, cause I meet a lot of them already. But that’s what was interesting to me was that people actually feared these bosses, not all of the new hires. This was news to me? I thought why maybe if they had a boss that yelled and embarrassed the hell out of them no less then in front of their fellow workers, maybe they would think different about how they were. Well this is my definition of fear: "if you're scared of someone you hate them, so you can't stop thinking about them." I think what in the world is going on here this is only training we all got the job. For me it may have been a bit different, I have not gone to another job where I have not been recommended for that job. I was referred from another family member. My recommendation came for someone with years of great selling experience, an awesome track record, and his fellow peers respected him.
I had something else to worry about besides do they like me.. And to tell you the truth I really did not care if they did or did not.. I was there to do my job the best I could. So I did just that. I tried to making lasting impressions, create integrity, and meet goals and deadlines.. My fellow peers were great, they helped me finds leads, went with me to meet clients, and helped me understand how to be a good salesmen. We all were given incentives as well to sell as much as we could.. They would give away trips, money, days off, whatever it took for us to go out there and make a deal.
This was good, this was very good it gave us something to work towards.. But it was a different style of living, I would walk down the street on a Sunday and stop of at the local restaurant for breakfast, and I would find myself asking the wait staff who the manager was. This way I could cold call them or set up an appointment to make a new sale. There was no more free food, or laughing with the owners of the restaurants it was now a business deal to me.. The only way I was able to come to understand this was I believe in my product, I believe in me.. Since I was just getting into outside sales I would do this a lot. It would take years for me to learn to just enjoy a meal..
I was on my way back from an appointment one day, with a coworker.. It was an ok week. We were waiting for the elevator to pick us up and bring us to the 7th floor of our Chelsea office building. When the doors open to the elevator the VP of Strategy steps off. He says, David I have something good to discuss with you later. He was one of those bosses if someone had a question you would not think twice about asking, and he usually had an answer for you as well. It took me a few weeks to find out what he had in mind..
His plan was to introduce the Internet side of the Yellow pages with the print side. Which is what the print side was asking all along. The print reps thought we had it so good on the Internet side. My role was to create proposals for the print reps, help them to understand the Internet side and if needed to go out on appointments with them. There were at least 40 print reps and for the most part most of them complained. It was always about money and what am I going to get out of selling this.. A very few of them were the nicest people you could ever meet, and tried to understand the Internet side the best as they could. But like all things they come to an end.
At the time I was living with one of the Search Engine Managers in the East Village. We meet in the first few weeks I started there and it took no time before we were living together. She started working there three months before me and she was very attractive. We walked to work together and left together, made each other's lunch and it was a really nice setting. But there were rumors about us, about her and about me.
Already in the five months that I was working there, I saw at least three fights, peoples egos get so bad they had to let them go and layoffs. With all the rumors about me and how did I get to work with the print side so fast or about my relationship with one of the SEM's I was not about to loss my integrity or give it a second thought. Still even after the IT guy thought it would be funny to tell her what rumors were flying around the office about her. I was now in the ring of fire and I was left to salvage this relationship. These rumors where there way before I came into the picture, but I was not about to tell her that. There will always be rumors about her based on the ways she acts looks and what she thinks is cute on the rack would look cute at work. There was no reasoning with this and I found it cute as well. So now it became a work at it and save your relationship.
So between the print reps complaining, learning the constant changes to the Internet and thinking of new ways to keep my relationship a float. I felt like I was right at home again. What helped this relationship was I was not trying to do outside sales when we were together. I did care all of this was going on, but what I really wanted was to create and code websites. So I did some research on it and found local colleges in the area that offered this type of program. I got word the day I was going to approach the VP and ask him what he thought about my idea about coding sites. Instead my department was cut, as well as other layoffs. The company would do away with the whole Internet side a few months after we were let go.
We were all given the last two weeks salary as well an additional two week salary. I already new I would just go work with my brother doing HVAC again. So I took a few weeks to myself and started wearing construction boots again. I could now ride my bicycle 5 miles to work without worrying about breaking a sweat and how it would look. Everyday I would ride up 1st avenue from 10th street to the 59th street Bridge and into Queens. Every once in a while I would take the work truck home, but for the most part I would ride my bicycle back into Manhattan.
A month in to this job, I enrolled into Parsons website program and would take night classes. They had really great teachers, but crappy computers. There is always a good to a bad. I also really enjoyed working with my brother again, and some of the buildings we got to work on in NYC were just amazing. We had a boss the owner of the outfit where we worked, that stayed in the office most of the day. He dressed sharp ready to impress whoever walked in the office. You could see he had a sharp look and his short grin when he put on his coat at the end of the day that would say, “I worked really hard to get were I am at and I’m not about to let it go to waste.”
He would be one of the most understanding bosses I worked for. In the first few weeks that I started work, I ended up getting five Stitches in the palm of hand. He told me to take it easy on work habits, and gave me the day off to recover. I called the girl I was living with at the time and told her what happened I could her in her voice, it was like how am I supposed to walk around with someone with a bandage on their hand? I used to drive the work truck and in NYC where driving is the worst there was always a broken mirror or a dent in the Truck. My boss would look it over and just tell me don’t worry about it we can get it fixed. He would give us all whatever tool it would take to do the job right, so we were not running around looking for a quick fix. If anyone needed a check a week early you could just ask him and he new, he work as hard as we were and was going to help us achieve the same goals.
I worked there until the recession hit us all hard. I moved back home for a one month so I could find a place of my own. I ended up moving to Long Island City, Queens. I found an apartment on Craig’s List I moved in pretty much for the view of Manhattan. Two months after I Moved in I was laid off from my job HVAC job. I was not at a complete loss. I had made friends with a girl on Facebook, when I found out I was moving to Queen’s. I tried to connect with a few people on FB that lived in Queens, so when I moved there I had an idea about the area. We became FB friends and she told me about a place in Time Square I could help her out with and I went to meet her boss.
I knew I had something good going on so I transferred to The Fashion Institute of Technology to finish learning about website Design. I ended up making really good friend with one of the instructors who also worked in the IT department. I told him about a few websites that I could bring in and he decided to work with me on them. We have created a hand full of really cool websites already and what I have learned from him so far has been so great.
So now between working in Time Square, and this Website idea I was so well off. My work was mainly directed around tourism and international travelers. I was meeting and greeting people from all over the world and loving it. When I was not with these new friends I would spend most of my time running with Maria Cote who lived down the street from me in Queens. We used to work together at Ambassador, and when she left she handed me a few of her accounts she was working on. We used to run all over Queens, over the 59th Street Bridge and Manhattan. I also would go to Local bars or Cigar bars during the day and meet with VP’s, Executives, Celebrities and just all around good people. It took no time before we were on a first name bases. In a million years I would have never thought I would live like I was 25 years old again.
I remember working a late night and coming home early in the morning one day. I walked up the stairs to my apartment to find my roommates mother pacing outside my door. She was waiting for me so I could let her in her son’s apartment. She lived one floor below and knew something was wrong with her son, but not sure what. So we went in the apartment and his door was locked, and he was not answering the door. So I had to kick in his door and we discovered him half on the bed and half off dead. He must have of had a heart attack in the middle of the night. I figured his mother must have of been pacing outside the door since six or seven in the morning to find out this news.
I could not sleep in the apartment if I did it was for one night only. I looked for an apartment as fast as I could. I ended up finding an apartment in Jersey City, NJ. This place was great and I would have nine other roommates. Just what I needed after what I just witnessed. I was sad that I would not find a place in Queens closer to Maria Cote and her boy friend Frankie. But I was moving to a fabulous place, were I could laugh, live and make lasting friends. And sure enough after three months we had parties, gone out together, game nights, and just talked.
I meet a few girls from the time I left my apartment in Astor Place. But I was not looking for anything serious or to keep me tied down. When I got into the last relationship I did not think twice about it, but I knew before we meet I was feeling the same way I was feeling now. I just thought I could do it and it might workout if we tried hard to keep it.. It was one of the worst mistakes I would make in these last three years. I don’t think I would feel this way if maybe she could of kept one promise to me. I now avoid my fathers office were she still works, I don’t go back to the East Village unless it’s during the day and when she I probably at work and I really don’t like being called, “stupid or if we ever had kids they would be just the same.” So for now I have one girl on my mind and if she returns to the States I have time to think about getting back into a relationship. We meet over the summer and she is one of the sweetest and smartest girls I know. She’s also so cute.
As for my ten roommates that help me make decisions about my life. I don’t think I would want to be any were else right now. Over the last year and half I have just about paid off a $26,000 debt that I racked up in ten day vacations, three vacations a year, weekend getaways, cloth shopping, bars, night clubs, fancy restaurants, power tools, school material and fun. I have about two or three more payments to go and I will be free again. I have a chance to work in Europe but not sure if I will take it. I would also like to finish at the Fashion Institute so I am not really sure what to do next.
But in the last three years I have learned so much from friends, roommates, coworkers and family. Stay tuned to this Blog and see what happens next. Also where in New York City, New Jersey and were ever life takes me that is HOT..
