In honor of International women's day, we have this latest blog post from Monica, in which she discussed a recent notable failure that she grew from, and bounced back to the next chapter and success.
I remember when I used to do hiring and onboarding in my many years of retail management, I would ask the candidate to tell me a time when they had a difficult working relationship with someone, what was the conflict and how did they take steps to resolve it. Some of the responses I got were… comical to put it kindly. At a lower level, there was a day when I was interviewing for cashiers and I asked a young woman fresh out of high school this question. She told me a story about how she fought a girl she worked with at Mcdonalds… like physically fist fought. I asked her how the conflict was resolved and she said they just didn't speak to each other after that. Needless to say I did not hire her. If only when we have internal fights with ourselves, could we stop talking to our minds like that girl stopped talking to her co worker after what I am assuming was a really entertaining fight. But it does not work that way. We are always in communication, conflict, chaos with our own minds.
My favorite concept in my life is this concept of good and evil, yin and yang. I talk about it thoroughly when I get the wine chatties. I get very philosophical (insert big smile emoji). But the truth is it's everywhere in our existence and I like recognizing it. So this question was presented to me, to describe "a recent notable failure that you grew from, and bounced back to the next chapter and success". My initial reaction is excitement that I get to write about success and failure, good and bad, yin and yang.
So here is my recent notable story. I briefly mentioned in my first blog that I had quit an office job that I had for several years, it was a safe and stable job and I was very lucky to have it. Sometimes we go through emotions in life and mine was that of lack of stimulation, I had to act. I had already been teeter tottering with my recruiter for months working on my potential army career, so I figured at that point of emotion it was the best time to resign, get a part time job and do some soul searching before boot camp became a really real reality. Fast forward a few months later after quitting/getting let go of a couple jobs that just were not a right fit… I finally find this really cool restaurant that I'm bartending at. I love the food, the customers, the shift hours were easy and fun, I was finally feeling really content with my previous decisions.
One day, I am presented an opportunity to go to Spain and Italy and see some family that I had not seen since I was like maybe fourteen years old. I ask for this time off to take this trip several weeks in advance, giving plenty of time for a conversation about scheduling or whether or not it would be an issue. I take the trip, (and in a nutshell the trip was life changing and I will be writing about that next blog) and get back a little less than two weeks later. After getting back to that states I start to check my phone for notifications that I was not receiving internationally, and I see a message from the manager saying they decided to replace me and I no longer had a position there.
Hospitality is a cut throat business, but that was honestly a dickish move. I thought to myself, "I took all the right steps. I gave ample notice, I would have completely been open to a conversation about changing the duration of the trip. There was no communication to me doing anything disagreeable". After all of the failures I had felt over the past months, this one hit hard. I did something that brought my heart joy at the cost of losing my employment. I was panicking about how I was going to fix this.
Needless to say I've spent countless hours looking for other restaurants I would enjoy working at, finding places that were hiring with bomb ass menus and a chill environment and maybe not run by….. well lets keep this kind. And today I accepted a job. and I feel a wash of relief and hopefulness. In my interview they asked me to make them a drink so I made a mojito with my own little secret twist… and I accidentally spilled coconut rum everywhere like a fucking rookie. But we all chuckled it off. This is a small win in a lifetime of ups and downs, and a lot of me wallowing in a mindset of failure.
My typical writing style is much more abstract and emotional than this was. It feels weird to just tell a story for a change. But one thought that crossed my mind earlier before the interview when I was running outside listening to Linkin Park feeling all angsty and righteous is the power of the mind. I am a perpetual pessimist and I am at least self aware of it. But another thing that I truly believe, is that our success lies in not allowing those inner wolves we all have, to tell our mind and heart that we are failures.
-Monica
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