In which we go job hunting part I

I’ve heard it said anyone can be a server. Know what adjective is missing from that sentence? Good. The truth is good servers are hard to find, especially here in Gainesville. Or maybe my expectations are just crazy high after growing up with a waitress-mom. Who knows? Either way, being a good server is hard work. What’s the difference between an average server and a good one? Aside from the obvious five to ten percent, another important difference involves sitting with an empty cup versus a having a never ending supply of the yummy corn-syrupy goodness known as coke. And the answer is yes, those of us who appreciate the deliciousness of a good fountain coke can completely understand why it shares a name with a highly-addictive drug.

Anyway, moving on. In addition to having not-so-good servers, all restaurants share another common trait – the workers like to complain. As previously mentioned, my mom was a waitress, so that allowed me to get my foot in the door and start working in the restaurant biz well before I was legally allowed to do so. I alternated between busing tables and making salads when I was about twelve. Long before that I would go to work with mom and sit in the break room rolling silverware. While this may sound like child abuse, I assure you it was not. As a kid I understood an important difference -- being home meant maybe talking to mom for thirty seconds on the phone (I still have her work number memorized fyi) and being at work with her meant catching quick glimpses of her much more frequently. I honestly cherished my time with mom at work and I was also able to observe great waitresses in the midst of their craft, which I think really helped me out when I started serving myself. Back on topic now -- I like to think I didn’t complain as much as the other people. Sure, I would complain every now and again, but for the most part I stayed positive. After all, with one notable exception, I always thought the Biscuit was a great place to work, as the side work wasn’t unreasonable and they had huge cups which made it much easier to keep drinks at the table. The only downside of the job involved having to polish the silverware prior to rolling it and even though I hated doing it, I take the whole “treat people the way you want to be treated” thing to heart and I know I don’t want to open my silverware and find old food stuck to the forks. Knifes, maybe. Forks, no.

The Biscuit also had good food – probably the best grits in the world. Whoever had the idea to cook grits in heavy whipping cream and add white cheddar cheese is a genius. Thanks in part to the grits, there was a high turnover rate and I rarely had sales under 500, sometimes upward of 1000, so you can do the math and see the money was pretty good for working 7 – 3. The hours varied, obviously. Some days I went in earlier and some days I was there much later. That’s probably one of the worst things about working in the food industry – you can’t leave until all your tables are gone and side work is done. The Biscuit actually started implementing a rule you couldn’t even start your side work until you were cut, so if you weren’t cut until 2, just had been sat at 1:55 with a table that decided to make camp at the restaurant, you could easily be stuck there until after four. Luckily the air conditioner worked great, so I didn’t mind being stuck there. I enjoyed my coworkers, so the conversation was usually good and they have coke. I guess that’s all I need to be happy – good conversation, air condition, and coke.

After working at the Biscuit, I would come home, shower, and then religiously get online and check the Alachua County School Board website for new job postings. I applied to literally every single job I was qualified to teach and probably some I wasn’t qualified for. Did I get any call backs? Nope. Was I worried? Nope, I can honestly say I never worried. I always had faith God would put me where he wanted me, something he had proven time and time again, most recently with the Biscuit and prior to that by placing me at Irby for my internship. I wasn’t dishonest earlier when explaining my heartbreak at being placed at Irby for the internship instead of Glen Springs – I just left out a few details, like calling my mom during my hours of crying to inform her I was going to drop out of school because God hated me, something he had demonstrated by placing me out in the boon docks. If I had flipped out for being placed in at what came to be a wonderful environment, I knew I would get a job. I actually came to terms that maybe I wouldn’t get a teaching job my first year out of school, but I wasn’t too worried about it. I wagered I would make more money for less hours at the Biscuit, the only drawback being I didn’t have health insurance, but I had never had any health problems, so the insurance wasn’t something to concern myself with. Plus the Biscuit could offer me something no school could: coke. Eventually I did include Levy County School Board into my daily job opening checking, so maybe I wasn't completely at ease with not having a job that Fall. However, I figured if I landed a job in Levy County, I could move in with my mom. She’s an awesome mom, so I wouldn’t mind that.

You know, I now say I only check the websites for job openings daily and that is definitely an understatement. Sometimes I checked more than four times a day. In hindsight it’s silly to expect job openings to suddenly appear at 9:00PM that weren’t there at 8:30, but it became such a habit to go to the website that I found myself checking it as frequently as my email.

Finally in August I got not one, but two interviews! One was in Levy county, but it was only about a thirty minute drive from the apartment I lived in at the time. The other interview was in Alachua County and was actually about the same distance time-wise from my apartment. The first interview was the one in Alachua county at Archer Elementary. It was raining the day of the interview and I had a hard time finding the school. The principal was also very late to the interview, something I chalked up to the rain but when he wasn’t wet when I set down I figured he either had a really great umbrella or my assumption was wrong. I don’t remember any questions he asked and I got the vibe he wasn’t interested in me. However, the interview was very important, as he informed me the district had done something wrong with my application online and that even if he was interested in hiring me, he wouldn’t be able to because of the glitch. I immediately realized the purpose of the interview wasn’t for me to get a job, but to enable me to contact the district to fix the glitch so that my future place of employee would run into no hassles when they tried to hire me.

The next interview was in Williston. I got there a little early and was talking to the woman who had an interview before me and was kind of surprised to learn her interview was scheduled for 15 minutes prior to mine. That didn’t seem like enough time to really get to know us, but what do I know about interviews? Anyway, I liked her a lot and found myself feeling bad because I wanted the job myself, but at the same time she was so nice that I wanted her to have the job. It’s a catch-22 and something that always gets me. For example, I obviously always want the Gators to win all their games, but anytime we do, I’m left feeling disappointed for the other team. Especially at the beginning of the year when we pay crap teams to come feel the crushing blow of defeat at our hands. It would be such a huge deal for them if they upset us, but they don’t. And I’m glad they don’t, I’m just kind of sad at the same time. Anyway, as you can see/read, I’m bad with tangents. The Williston interview was a group interview – I think around five current teachers at the school and the principal. I could tell right away they weren’t interested in me, because they weren’t even listening to what I said. I walked away from that interview glad I had the experience of interviewing in front of so many people. I felt my end went well on my part– I had good answers for all the questions. I was a little disappointed they couldn’t even show me the decency of listening but honestly felt they were people I wouldn’t want to work with anyway.

Meanwhile, while all this is going on, I’ve become very involved in the church, First Assembly of God, and have been hanging out with Gale and his friends. One night while we were playing games, I was introduced to perhaps one of the best looking men I’ve ever laid eyes on – Geo. He wasn’t particularly tall – maybe 5’10? Very athletic/muscular and so handsome. I liked him instantly and not because I was so attracted to him – he was such a nice guy. Now, just so you don’t go drawing the wrong conclusion I was never into Geo – I was just very physically attracted to him. I don’t know if I’ve ever met a guy that I was that physically attracted to. I never wanted to date him and, as discussed in the first post, I was very interested in Gale. To this day, I still get a twitch in my stomach when I think of him. To be clear, this is not a love story, so don’t get your hopes up. However, I didn’t want to confuse you and make you think my affections are flexible.

Anyway, I met Geo on a Saturday night. The next morning was church and am really loving the praise and worship only to discover the one leading it is none other than Geo himself. Come to find out he’s a pastor at the church. I had never met such a young pastor before and had mixed feelings about knowing I had been hanging out with one the night before. I had always viewed pastors as being above myself, so to know I had spent the previous night hanging out with one disturbed my equilibrium.

They were not having a traditional sermon at church that morning. Instead guests were just seemingly randomly standing up and talking about an event that had been held at the church that weekend. It was called Breakthrough and from what I could gather it was a sleep-in at the church beginning on Friday and ending Sunday morning. Everyone was raving about how close they felt to God and what a wonderful experience it was, but they weren’t really saying exactly what happened. It was hard not to get really excited about it, though. Maybe it was the pack mentality – everyone else was excited, so it gets to you, too. In hindsight I see how strange it that they didn’t provide any details about the weekend and when I directly asked Gale he had never gone, and his good friend, Sarah, just smiled and said she couldn’t talk about it, but it was a wonderful experience. I didn’t know Sarah well, so I didn’t press her for details. I already could tell she had a thing for Gale and didn’t like having me around, so I didn’t want to make matters worse.

I was loving my life, church on Sundays and working at the Biscuit on other days and although it was now less than three weeks before the school year started, I still wasn’t concerned about my future. Then on the same day I landed two more job interviews. The first one was actually in my hometown – Cedar Key. How exciting! I thought for sure I would get it, as the principal had been my high school math teacher and the opening was in first grade – the same grade I did my internship in. I went to the interview with utmost confidence I was going to get this job – I even had already begun daydreaming about the 2/2 condo I wanted to buy on the water. (This should’ve been a hint something was amiss – what teacher can afford a waterfront condo?) The interview went well although I thought it was a little weird that she had never heard of Kagan, as I had been Kagan’d out. If you’re not a teacher, you’re likely wondering who/what Kagan is. The short version is Kagan did a lot of research regarding cooperative learning and the positive benefits. Although Mrs. Ice is obviously an educator, she had never heard of Kagan, so perhaps that’s why she didn’t hire me. Either way, when I never got a call back I was quite disappointed. At the time I thought it would be the most shocking blow during my job search. I was wrong.