Newsies

Where to begin after being silent for so long? Probably with the news: I have just accepted an offer for full-time employment with the Food Bank for New York City. I'll begin on the first Monday of the new year. After nearly four months of job-searching, interviews, applications and the like, employment is official. I've never felt so sure that what I'm about to begin is so fully a deliberate choice.

While I have been searching for full-time work for months, I have been working. Since October, I've been acting as a server at a kitchy, comfort food joint in Monrningside Heights called the Kitchenette Uptown. It takes a twenty minute walk to get there, so I've been meeting regulars who live in the neighborhood as well as Columbia students who frequent this popular brunch spot--I'm picturing our ritual Middlebury-weekend brunches transplanted in the Kitchenette, and I'm thankful for our shared dining tables, even if the so-called "free dining hall food" was simply illusory.

I'll tell you I'm acting as a server because I'm a bit of a hack. I had no restaurant experience prior to working there, which everyone tells me is impossible in New York City. Back in October, wearing an oxford shirt and slacks, no less, I walked into the restaurant and handed over my restaurant-less resume to the manager. After a two-minute discussion, she gave me the chance to train as a server. After a week training, the owners hired me. My first day of work, the manager who gave me a chance quit. If I had come in with my resume a week later, the new manager would not have considered me a potential hire.

I could write an entire post on my experiences at Kitchenette, and I hope to post some anecdotes eventually, but I'm using this entry to tell you about what's new in my life. After the summer months of hoping and doubting, and the autumn days of hunting jobs and prowling unfamiliar streets, I believe I've found what I was looking for. First, because I want to immerse myself in the intersecting worlds of food distribution, marketing, policy and education and its effects on the health and integrity of communities--and the Food Bank for NYC is one of the best organizations in which to do that. But I also feel that for the first time, perhaps even moreso than with college, I have taken responsibility for my next step. That, at least for me, for now, is news.

-=-Josh