During my trip to the Bay Area, I drove by my 2 jobs as a restaurant manager: Spenger’s Fish Grotto in Berkeley (which eventually shut down later that year) and Chart house in San Francisco. I quit Spenger’s to eventually join Chart House, which is a fine-dining seafood restaurant. The goal was to train in SF and transfer to Portland afterwards. This was an 8 week program: The first 4 weeks of training were in the kitchen: prepping food, inventory, cooking during rush hours in each station. You name it, I had to do it. During my 5th week and my first week in FOH ( Front of House) training, I got called in to the office and was fired.

After a long talk with Farrah, the General Manager, she gave me much needed criticism: Areas that I needed improvement on, how my job interview went behind closed doors and why they took a chance in hiring me. Most of the conversation, however, was words of encouragement. Things like that I’m still young and that I still have my whole life ahead of me. She even suggested me going back home to SoCal and pursue photography. One memory that stuck with me as she was holding back tears is that she’s never tried so hard for an MIT that she hardly even knew to want to see succeed.

The day I got fired was the last day I saw Chart House- which inspired me to take these night shots before heading back home. This restaurant in SF has been temporarily closed due to the pandemic.

It has now been 2 years since this happened….Although I would have gained work experience and living somewhere new and fun, there’s a high chance that I would be unemployed because of COVID-19 and/or would be stressing about where my next paycheck would be coming from. I would eventually have to move to Chino Hills- which is exactly where I am, present day. During my 2 years down here, I have been able to gain stability- financially, mentally, and physically. I have been able catch up with friends and family, as well as gain mental clarity with what my next moves in my career will be. In all, I basically saved myself 2 years by going home faster and taking care of myself internally and externally-which is something I needed to do inevitably.

The rest of 2020 and all of next year will be huge for me. I have had my eyes on the prize since being back home and look forward to adding more pieces to my life puzzle. Stay tuned.

Thank you for reading! I appreciate you.

-JT