Jack of all trades, master of none is oftentimes better than a master of one.

I am now a master of one – Career Change.

The saying has been shortened, and thereby altered in meaning from its original intent. When used now to describe someone, it‘s usually a pejorative. Believe me, as a 50-something white man with no college degree yet leadership experience in at least six separate and distinct industries over my professional lifetime, it has been applied to me. Always as a less than flattering backhanded compliment. Or in other words, a disguised insult.

I am now at a crossroads, again, of my life. On furlough for over nine months from a very well-paying catering sales manager role for a large global organization, another industry has collapsed beneath my feet. Let’s do a little checklist of the various industries I have been fortunate to have worked in and gained valuable experience from: construction; real estate; finance; food service; hospitality; Presidential Library; and eventually sales.

My first real career was as a Real Estate Appraiser for giant Bank of America. This was from 1987 until the market crash of 1997. Armed with a generous severance check, I enrolled in cooking school. I excelled in this profession, due to my passion for food and my culinary upbringing. I rose rapidly to leadership roles, becoming a chef in two years. I started teaching courses alongside my chef-instructors. Between the years of 1997 and 2001, I collected more than 100 IRS 1099 forms.

I was super fortunate to land a position at a Pasadena Bistro Pub with a regionally famous chef, who in turn had learned at the stove of an international superstar chef with 3-Michellan Stars. He finally relented and hired me, because I was bugging him daily. He told me to come in Friday at 3 pm. He told me to wear my best chef outfit.  My dreams featured me in a starring role: crisp white coat, cockily tipped toque, gladly leaving the line to a standing ovation!

Reality hit me at 3:05 pm that Friday. Chef and crew welcomed me to the kitchen, and then chef introduced me to my new boss: Jose, the dishwasher with a gold tooth and an amazing work ethic. He was probably 19 or 20 years old. I was 35 at this time. Kinda awkward, huh? Well, I learned so much from Jose, and we worked together to completely re-organize dishland. I worked nights and we were doing 300-500 covers a night. I lasted there about a year, and went to school and worked side-hustles during the day.

I chased every dollar I could find. I did in-store Velveeta cheese cooking demos for Kraft cheese. Cooking lessons at Serfa’s and Bloomingdales. Private chef gigs for celebrity A-Listers and professional athletes. Private chef for multiple families, including a Scientologist family that was quite an adventure. Go Thetan!

After working a really cool gig in food styling for soap operas, food infomercials, and a daytime living well show, I ended up back at the bar of a former employer. The TV show had just got canceled (damn, if it weren’t for bad luck!) and I was day-drinking my cares away. The owner had her problems as well. Her pastry chef had just walked out that day, and she had an event the next day, Saturday, that needed 350 Crème Brulees. This was about 5 pm Friday night. She said if I was able to pull it off, I had the pastry chef job. I pulled it off.

Within a month, I became Executive Chef. This was a funky little bar pub in the middle of an artist loft community in DTLA. This was the end of 1999. In exchange for weekends off, I made the deal to work M-F, from 7am until closing, around midnight. I would take naps in my car between lunch and dinner. It was a grind, but left my weekends free for side hustles.

Serendipity often has her way, and this was no different. After Jose and I had proved ourselves in dishland, chef promoted both of us to the kitchen, working the Garde Manger station. Our first task was to split 50 lobsters for that night’s dinner special. For those of you that do not know, lobsters have to be kept alive until just before cooking. To grill a lobster tail, the whole Cretacean has to be cut in half, lengthwise.

Saying a small prayer over each living being, I plunged the point of a 14” chef knife right between the beady little eyes and then made a swift downward thrust to sever the creature in two. I must have passed this test, as after that the crew really become family. If you have never worked in a restaurant before, it is hard to imagine the depth of passion and emotion involved.

During this current crisis, the absolute tenacity, creativity, flexibility, massively long hours, and intense personal conflicts during the heat of the battles of restaurant workers have been laid bare to society. Restaurateurs and their employees are some of the toughest and greatest people on earth. Consider helping out if you can Barstool Fund Guy Fieri

After burning out at the DTLA restaurant, and with a pregnant wife and no real job with benefits, it was time to grow up. I started working for national restaurant chains. Rising to General Manager rapidly, I was put in charge of my own unit, with annual sales of over $1M. I was made a training store, and traveled to clean up franchise messes. I worked briefly for a couple of other national chains.

After serving the executive staff of a Presidential Library while running a unit in Yorba Linda, they created and offered me a role during the library’s overhaul in the early 2000s. This was a dream job! I was promoted to director of operations within four years. I got to meet a ton of famous and interesting people. I was working with many people that had worked in the White House.

As with all good things in my life, this road ended long before I had planned it to. Reorganization creates change, and with yet another severance check, I set out to create myself again. After spending most of my career on the operations side of things, I was offered a sales role. Oh no, the dark side! How could I do it? Well, turns out, when one sells things that one loves, it is not that hard.

I sold about $200K of event catering in 10 months at a couple of small units in a historic national chain. I loved it. I was never going back to ops, hell no. I then moved on to the big time. I worked for the largest convention center west of the Mississippi River. I sold catering to massive shows and small meetings. I managed a varied portfolio of over 50 accounts worth over $6M per year. Another dream job.

And I will be damned if we know when we will pull out of this. I cannot wait any longer. I am moving on. Again. And the lessons to be drawn out of my story?

The phrase “Jack of all trades” literally applies to me. I converted my garage into a woodshop. My love of tools and craft has resurfaced, and I am making things, like art and found object pieces, that I will write about in later posts. I am reaching out, stretching, trying old things for a new time.

I have been able to leverage my multiple work experiences into a somewhat comfortable life. I have owned a home. I was able to buy a new car last year. My kids went to very prestigious colleges. We used to travel. We had full savings and empty credit cards. But, it is a mistake to think that it is all over now. It is not.

The lesson to be learned here from my story is this: Start doing. Stop trying to do something. There is no trying. If you are trying, you are not doing. You are just stalling. I stopped stalling. I went beyond myself. I have failed and fallen often. But I have picked myself up more times than I have fallen.

I have mastered something that terrifies average people: reinventing myself over and over again. For the better. I have landed on my feet every time. I never give up. I always outwork my competition. I always respect my colleagues and my mission.

I am a proud jack of all trades, and always will be.