Trust

21 04 2011

I was at work yesterday at my serving job, when my fellow-server came running to me, in tears. Her table had just walked out without paying their bill, which was $67. That was a bill she would have to pay out of her own pocket. It sucks, but the fact of the matter is that the walk-outs happen in the restaurant industry more often than you would expect.

It is a matter of trust, of course. We trust that the people who are eating at our establishment will ask for the bill, pay and then leave, so that we can all maintain a happy, cooperative society. It would be a horrible place to come eat, if we asked you for your payment up-front before you could enjoy your meal. That would make things awkward, uncomfortable, untrusting. You know how uncomfortable you get when you know someone around you doesn’t trust you and is watching you like a hawk, in order to ensure that they do not leave or steal or do something else illegal and detrimental.

Of course, the problem was that the girl would have to pay out of pocket. She worked a long 8 hour shift on her feet, washing dishes, serving people, chatting, laughing, and she got a bit of a tip for it, a 10% tip, supposed to be 15%, and now she would spend all of her tip money on paying off a bill for a group of white guys who could probably afford it, better than she could. Life sucks, and then it gets better (or worse depending on who you ask).

Every server has gone through the same thing and we all wonder the same question, why, why, why. Why did they do this? Do they not realize we pay out of pocket? Would it change their mind if they did know that the restaurant or the franchise doesn’t pay for it? Why would someone do such an evil thing? It is like getting suckerpunched in the stomach for the first few moments after your realize you had a walkout. You feel disoriented, and angry. Really angry. You want to call those people names, go to their houses and throw shit at their beds on them while they are sleeping.

After all that, all you can do is laugh at the world and laugh at yourself. Otherwise, you might cry.


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Categories : Relationship

For sale: MBA, unused, almost new

26 03 2011

I have an MBA from a reputable university in Canada. My life has been like a clothing dryer in most cases, tumbling up and down, into and out of most of my careers. I became a government worker, because they asked me to, after being a student worker with them for a while. And I joined the MBA program when there was a lot of dissatisfaction in my life. I didn’t know what I was doing with myself, I was worried I was floundering. I wasn’t contributing to the world in a way I wanted to. I felt that I was just being a burden on the planet, instead of being a contributing member. I wasn’t leaving a positive footprint in anyway on the planet, environmentally or otherwise. It was time for a change.

Not knowing any other way to discover myself, I decided to go for more schooling, the only way brown people on this planet know how to advance themselves and learn more. If I was a Canadian, I would have given up everything and started travelling, and that would have been a better way to discover myself, than anything. But whatever. I spent thousands to get a degree in Business. Looking at me now, looking at my personality from my blogs, you can surmise that business would not be a good fit for my green, yogic ways. That would be a correct assessment. I graduated with honors, and got a great job right away, with a great company and a great boss. Everything seemed rosy, until I realized that the personality required for business, cut-throat, driven, competitive, hard-core, is something that I do not like to be. I am none of those things. I like cooperation rather than competition. I like rest rather than hard-core. I am relaxed and unhurried. I am easy-going. The business clashed with my personality.

The time came for me to decide either to change myself and fit my round peg into the business square hole and be unhappy for the rest of my life, or remove myself from the job. I left for my travels, and I had the best time of my life. I realized I needed to do the MBA to realize that I do not ever want to work in that field. Of course, it is an expensive trial by error, but it is a lesson that will stick with me forever.

Now, I have an MBA, almost new, that is unsaleable, and unusable. I am hoping to use the skills I learnt in the program for some charitable organization and so I have been applying like crazy on Charity Village, Canada’s premier charity job site. Hope I get something, fingers crossed.


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Categories : Life, work

Being free

12 08 2009

Every time any of my friends talk about opening up their own business so that they can be free, I always wonder about that freedom that they are aspiring towards. I feel like even though they would be working for themselves, they would still be grounded or stuck because of their business in their home country. It is not really the kind of freedom that I would imagine.

Being free to me entails being able to pick up and go anytime you want. I know that I am lucky because I am able to talk about picking up and leaving and I am really lucky that I am able to do that. But I also think that I wouldn’t have been in this mindest only a few months ago. I was still thinking about opening up my own business and trapping myself in one country for the rest of my life.

I’m glad, therefore, that I went through the breakup and went to Hawaii, which is where I had a chance to read the 4hour work week, which is a book that literally changed my viewpoint upside down. I realized then, that a lot of things that I have been thinking are completely wrong and that there is a different way of living that I didn’t even think about, because I hadn’t been exposed to anyone who was living that way.

I did a really eye-opening exercise yesterday. I calculated how much I have earned over the course of the last 8 years of my life, which is when I started my earning life. I calculated that I have earned around 200,000 dollars out of which I have not even a single penny saved. I wanted to cry out loud and beat myself senseless when I saw that waste.

I could totally see how people could work 30 years of their life, earn millions of dollars, and have nothing to show for it. I am glad at least that I figured this out earlier in my life, so I can be more vigilant from now on about spending, saving and doing more with  my money. I want my money to be used for experiences, but not items. If I look at all the clothes, shoes, books, jewellery and other items that I have collected, I always think the same thing, I wish I had spent my money on travel, instead.

And now I am! I am going to spend my money traveling, instead of sitting in an office. I realized that no matter how amazing the place is that I work for, no matter how cushy the job is, I will still want to leave it ( as do a lot of other folk who work for it), because we always want to be free and on our own terms.

I was told though that the journey has barely begun and the doubts have barely started. You think getting out of this rat-race was hard, wait till you actually get out there, and then you will realize how hard it is to stay out of the rat-race. Everything about the rat-race is so alluring. It is so charming, so much like a Casanova, you know its bad for you, but its so tempting to just fall in love with the handsome stranger. You know you shouldn’t be in the rat-race, but its just so easy to get back into living to spend, rather than spending to live tendency.

I have realized and realize this even more every day, that I am done with it. I am totally and utterly done with it. I can’t even pretend to summon any enthusiasm for the whole business anymore. Dont even ask me to pretend, because I cannot anymore. I have pretended long enough. People think I am passive, because they haven’t seen the tides of passion that have been tamped down, while preparing myself for a journey that is yet to come.

Living in the present is hard, but it will be done, and then life will begun again, a second life, a different kind of life. Lets see where this journey takes me.


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Categories : Life, Money, Travel

Decisions, Decisions

16 07 2009

Anyone who’s over the age of 19, has probably had to make some really major decisions in their life. Every time I make a decision, I always wonder, did I make the right decision? Obviously, I will not know if I made the right choice or not, unless and until I know the impact that decision has had on my life. Maybe for some decisions, I will never know if I made the right decision.

I wonder a lot of times, I feel very strongly about a decision, and I know that is the decision to make, but everyone else is against that decision. Sometimes, that decision turns out to the best decision I have ever made, and a few times, that decision turns out to be the biggest mistake, I have made, but a mistake, that I probably learnt a lot from. I try never to regret my decisions. I know whatever I do, good or bad, I will learn something from it.

I dont know if my ramblings even make any sense. I just had to put it out there. I wonder about my decision to go to Australia a lot, but also, the decision that I made not to help out in the family business. I haven’t regretted either decision yet, but I wonder? Probably my life would have been really different if I had helped out in the family business, if I had chosen to stay on.

My three major goals for the next 3 years are the following I have decided:

1. Travel as much as I can – slowly but surely tramping across the world, starting in Australia

2. Pay off my debt slowly but surely as I travel across the world, a hundred or two hundred here will surely help, in addition, the interest from my investments and any extra from my condo rent are going into it as well.

3. Lastly, I would like to pay off my condo by renting it out.

I am sure I can manage all three, and I absolutely sure I will manage to do them really well and come out looking triumphant at the end of it. I’m excited! These are really stretch goals, and I can’t wait.


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Categories : Family


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