The story of my life- My resume

The saying, being a big fish in a small pool refers to someone who in the big scheme of things is pretty low down the ladder, but within their own small ecosystem of the workplace are more towards the top.  I have broken away from this mindset many times in my ‘career’ and with seeing Mr Travel Summary deciding to throw in the towel on his old job and focus on something he believes in, I can see I am not alone.

Throughout my life I have encountered people who claim that what I actually do is impossible, this post is proof that it is not.  I have walked away from every ‘job’ or business that I have ever had, generally at the peak of it, and it is provided me opportunities to leapfrog forward. It hasn’t been a conventional path at all, but I think that is what has made it so interesting.

The biggest thing you need to keep in mind when you read this post is that I never walked away when things were tough.  I have had some rough jobs, including having to scrub kitchen floors in (relatively) high end restaurant, and clean out drains by hand in a fast food restaurant – I left those jobs not when I was doing that, but when I was about to be made manager of the entire operation.

Career Path

Kitchens

Technically, my first job was around 12 or 13 when I worked in kitchens to support my father, I worked with him several times, and I remember a point where I was putting in 40 hrs a week at around 15 years old during summer vacation from school.  However, I broke out on my own with a job in a Chippie around the age of 16-17.  Starting out as ‘Spud Peeler’ I would be in the back of the operation hefting sacks of potatoes into a tumbling peeler machine, and it was a job I rather enjoyed.  I got plenty of time to think, and some good physical activity.  On the down side I did have to clean out the sump drains each night which involved me diving into elbow deep muck to lift and clear filters.

After becoming a highly accomplished peeler of potatoes I decided it would be fun to be front of house, until then I had glimpsed it as I used to run large buckets of freshly chipped spuds to the front ready for frying by a highly skilled team of people.  I have to say the allure of seeing humans in my working day for more than a moment, perhaps engaging in a conversation with one or two, and having some other chump be responsible for cleaning out the sumps was quite appealing.

I used fast talking and a lot of excel diagrams to state my case for promotion to the front, and soon was working in the role of Chip Fryer. At the tender age of 17 I was a prince among men.  The way that the company was structured made all of the Chip Frying folk something of supervisors, and since we controlled the flow of Chips, we had a position of power.

You may laugh, but in all seriousness, there are still people working in the same role of Chip Fryer today, and they love their position of power, they have seniority within the team, the younger and less experienced look to them as a source of wisdom and expertise, and they do really well for themselves within the environment. They are Big Fish.

I was offered the role of manager of the store by the Owner, I am not sure how it would have all worked out but I think he had designs to open further stores and would be willing to position me above the lauded Chip Fryers in overall management, my salary would have leaped up from the $3.50/hr I was making into something resembling a regular wage, I think we were talking about 18-20K per year, which back then was equivalent to a Bachelors degree starting graduate salary.

I quit, and joined a restaurant in the city that was expanding.  Rather than being one of the top of the ladder I was one step up from a Dishwasher, but I was in the kitchen.  Within 6 months I was running service when the Head Chef took a night off.  I worked 60 hrs a week in this job and really enjoyed it, the team was fantastic.  I had gone from the Chippie where doe eyed lasses would ask for my superior knowledge, to being a peon, but in a group of people that were exceptional, most were College Students (I know.. but imagine coming from most were junior High Students, it makes a world of difference) I too was in college here, and in my second year as I found hours creeping up above 70 per week I found my interest and attendance of college diminishing.

Having risen to a leadership role, I started to see behind the curtain of the firm and I disliked some of the owner/manager dynamics.  I decided to move on, and rather than parlay my experience into another kitchen job I started out at the bottom again, as a trainee casino dealer.

This was my first time to break a career path.  I could have easily walked into another kitchen, but if I had I might still be working in one today. So at 19, as a full time student I started to deal Blackjack on the weekends on the late shift.

Casinos

The local casino was offering training programs with a paid wage of $4.50 per hr. As a team leading chef I was making about $3.80 so I would get a pay raise to role play dealing blackjack for 6 weeks, hell yes!  Also, they were able to give me two good shifts per week, Friday and Saturday nights, meaning I could put more time into my final year in college.

I worked in this casino part time for about 7 months before graduating college, during which time I was promoted to Dealer Grade 1, then Dealer Grade 2 – I couldn’t get the top grade of Dealer 3 because I hadn’t been trained in Roulette at that time.  Upon graduation I decided to learn Roulette and go full time for enough to gain some aptitude for the game. The vision being that I would use the completed skill set to work on a Cruise line and travel the world.  After about 5 more months of working full time I landed a job on a small US line called Premier Cruises (it went bankrupt on me, so you may not have heard of it).  A friend and I signed up for 6 months, and had a blast, but around the 4-5 month mark the company went into receivership, and we had to find our way home.

So, back in South Wales, no job, no money saved and a decent amount of credit card debt with me I went back to the casino I was trained in and asked for my job back.  I was hired with promotion to Dealer Grade 3 (the highest level prior to becoming a supervisor) and paid well.  Within the team I was one of the go-to guys, and whenever the new trainees came into pit I would be an expert that could help them.  However, the reason that the cruise ships were so enticing to me originally was a combination of wanderlust and that I was already hitting a ceiling in the old casino.  After 4 months I asked my manager for a transfer to London, the Mecca of Casinos.

I didn’t want to quit, because I appreciated they just rehired me, so I asked instead if they would allow me to interview internally for dealer positions within the chain, they agreed and after a series of interviews and tests I was hired in London.  My wage at this time was around $9,000 per year, moving to London increased it immediately to $13,500. And in doing so I became the trainee again, as the depth of experience was overwhelming.

When I moved to London I had no money, I was living pay check to paycheck and it was mid month.  I managed to scrape together about $200 which I used to pay for a hostel to live in, sharing a room with 8 other guys, a mixture of backpackers, tourists and criminals.  I remember having to creep back into the room at 4:30am after finishing night shift and trying to be as quiet as possible to avoid waking people.

Thankfully, after about 10 days of this my paycheck hit, it was at the old Swansea pay rate, but was still about $900 with some overtime. I took it and got a 3x8ft room in London, it had a single bed, a sink and a plug in grill (the bed had about 10 inchs of gap between it and the kitchen) that room set me back about $650 and the $250 that remained didn’t leave me a lot, I remember stuffing my pockets with food whenever there was a free or work provided buffet.

After a little time in London I was promoted to the top grade of London dealer, and again was an expert within the team.  I was then offered a supervisory role at one of the top London casinos, a pay raise and less work were attractive, so I took it, but after only 3-4 months of this I got itchy feet.  That club treated us incredibly well, with a staff chef who would cook to order for us, and all the snacks and goodies you could hope for.  The casino was very high end, when we got a game of Roulette we would regularly see $1M plaques and chips flying across the tables, but it was also so heavily staffed and low key that working there was a bore.  I quit this cushy number and set off for the seas again.

When I joined Carnival Cruise lines I was already quite seasoned, and despite being the new kid had tons of experience relative to the company, I had dropped my supervisor role and started out at the bottom again, flying to New Orleans and becoming a Dealer 1.  This was the oldest and crappiest ship in the fleet, but had a great manager.  My starting wage was $15 per day (currently $5 if you join now) and I worked about a 60hr week. After that contract, I was assigned to the busiest ship in the fleet as the top level of Dealer, and a huge wage increase to $20 per day.  During this 8 month contract I worked 80+ hr weeks, and discussed a management role with my boss.

I was assigned to Holland America,the Zuiderdam as Supervisor (pit boss) on their newest ship, the idea was that I could offer their table team value in my dealing experience, and they could help me wrap my head around how the various operations functioned.  I met Allison here.  Towards the end of this contract the flew me from the Zuiderdam to a Carnival ship to step in as emergency Assistant Manager relief, it was a 6 week contract, followed by vacation.

After vacation I was assigned to the the best Carnival ship, the Destiny as Assistant Manager, a role I took as there was no other option available.  The assistant manager of the Casino is a highly coveted position, in charge of daily operations and staff management of a team of 50.  Perks included your own private cabin, senior officer status, a large salary increase, paid flights to and from your vacation.  However, Allison wasn’t able to work on Carnival as her contract was with Holland America directly, and I liked her, so I asked for a transfer in any capacity.  Unfortunately for me, that meant moving to a ship half the size, and stepping down from the current role, but it was worth it.

We saw out that contract together, and were offered the next one on a Holland America ship together we me returning to the Assistant Manager role, things were getting really good.  Despite my status within the ship, Allison had better perks and privileges by a wide mark, so we were living together in a Passenger cabin, and as long as I was with her I had close to passenger status, money was good, life was good.

By this time I had accrued about 6 years of casino experience, counting back from the trainee role in south wales, and was the most rapidly promoted Assistant in the fleet.  Overall management was the next step for me, and it was coming within the next 1-2 contracts.  Salary would increase by about 50%, cabin would be the same as Hotel Director on larger ships, life would be pretty amazing within the ship.  At this stage in our lives, neither of us had saved very much, Allison was a recent graduate, and I was a degenerate bum, when we stopped to count up our dollars we had around $5,000.  And we were both at a cross roads.

We knew that we liked each other, and while we had been lucky in ship assignments thus far, as we were both leaders of our departments it was likely that we would be split up again on occasion.  However, more than that we were bored with the life, and stifled by the restrictions of the small pond, even though we were big fish.

We decided it was time for life on land.  However, as she was American, and I was British, if we had picked either location to live then one person would be a Citizen and one an Alien.  We thought that dynamic might not be a level playing field and might force decisions that shouldn’t be forced, so instead we agreed to move to a place where we would both be Aliens, and try to make it work.

We bought 2 tickets to Japan, round trip with a 21 day window on the return.  We took all our worldly belongings, booked a hostel for 2 nights, and got on a plane.  We had no jobs, no work visa, no accommodation, and around $2,500 in funds to survive (plus credit card debt) after buying our plane tickets.

This was my second break in career path, in moving to Japan I knew that Casinos weren’t legal there, so I had to find something new.

Consulting

In Japan we found fortune and fame, we had to start out small again, just like when I moved from South Wales to London.  We started in a Hostel, and then secured some temporary accommodation in the form of a month-month rental apartment.  That first month we had to make serious decisions about food, an I still remember a debate over the purchase of a bag of rice that cost $20, as it would wipe out half of our funds for the month. We had walked away from jobs with steady income and seniority to complete unemployment, with no offers of employment, with no employable skills, and it all worked out.

I remember well the look on the face of my interviewer in Japan.  We were discussing compensation and he was explaining the draw system they offered.  A 100% commission based job with a draw, meaning if I didn’t bring in money for the firm I would rack up a debt to them and have to pay it out of future commissions, in fact it was unclear on whether I would actually have to owe them should I be fired and a complete failure.   When asked if I was worried by this my reply was simply ‘you seem to be quite successful, and if you can do it I can do it’.  I was, and I remain, a bit of a douche bag. I must confess.  Luckily for me I did ‘do it’ and became very successful.

I must say, that was a hard job to leave.  My final wage there was very attractive, but Allison wanted to come home to NYC, and I wanted to follower her. So, I moved, and started all over again, setting up my own firm, still working closely with the guys in Japan, but now responsible for the development of a US operation.

I wanted to share this story partly as some background as to what makes me ‘me’, and partly to let you know that you really can do a lot more than people might tell you can be possible.  Whenever you think you have a great thing happening, ask yourself, are you just a big fish in a small pond, and what could your life become if you break everything you know, take a chance and make it work?  I know for a fact that there are people still working in the roles that I worked with them in, some may have a line promotion, but many are doing the exact same job, in the exact same town.

I think I’ll leave the story there for now, the current situation is that I have since wrapped up that consulting business, since my heart was no longer in it, the money was a big draw, but simply being the owner of a firm and making a large income wasn’t enough for me. I want a career now where I can help people, and that is why I am switching again, into wealth management.  I have a feeling that it will all work out, and like each other career change I have made in the past, it will multiply my earnings considerably, for now though, it’s time to eat rice and work 100 hrs a week.