We just went through my husband’s closet and threw all his chef coats in the trash.

I threw out a dozen aprons.

The ChefWorks chef pants are neatly folded up and up on the top shelf.

After two decades of having chef coats in the closet, they are gone.

The closet looks empty.

As the Chief Culinary and Operations Officer for his former company (Friday was his last day), he occasionally wore a chef coat when he worked in the kitchen doing menu development.  But about a year ago, we had to hit the mall and get some business casual clothes for that position.

Instead of washing chef clothes, I was washing Tommy Bahama shirts and dress pants.  And when I did have to wash a chef coat, there were no stains on it because he had not been working on the line, just menu development.

He started cooking less and doing administrative work and managing staff more and more.

This week he is without a job…by choice.

This ENTIRE WEEK my husband is off!  Woohoo!!

Next week he starts a new job, one that is very different than any he has done in the past.

He will be the Chief Operations Officer of a fast casual restaurant chain here in Seattle.

Hmmmm….no front of house, no alcohol served, much smaller menu than what he’s used to….totally different!

It’s been a hard few months for him as he talked with several different companies about different positions that were offered to him (without him even looking for a new job).  It sounds funny to say this, but sometimes having multiple job offers is really hard!  I’d rather have that than no job, but it was pretty stressful as we talked and prayed about this decision and what would be best for his career and our family.

So here we are – moving forward on a totally new adventure without chef coats and the word CHEF no where in his title.

It’s interesting to look back and see what he has learned in each restaurant he has worked in.  All those times when I felt like he was being taken advantage of because he was doing so much more than his own job actually helped him get to this place in his career.  I could write about that for a while….probably should save that for another post.

I have absolutely no idea what this new position will be like, but I’m thankful all the locations are local, there are great medical benefits for our family, and the restaurants all close at normal times – none are open ’til 2 am.

From one chefwife to another,

 

PS: I’m sure none of you will ask, but someone outside of the industry will – “Will he work less hours with this job?”

Nope.  Thanks to Seattle traffic, he will still leave at 5 am, go the gym, then work a full day and wait out the traffic, coming home around 7:30 or 8.  If he leaves any later in the morning or earlier in the evening, it takes him over 2 hours to get to work or to get home.  Sigh!  🙁