John and I met in college at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma, when we were 21 years old. We were both pretty laid back students, and we both had a lot of fun in college. At one point in college, after a frustrating semester with low grades due to this fun I was having, my dad proclaimed that I would be lucky to find a job at all in my future. (My dad believed in tough love, for sure). I didn't really take school seriously until I could start to see the link between what I was learning and what I was going to do when I grew up. I was not one of those students who could fake it or wing it. I was always amazed by friends who would say that they were going to fail an exam, and when the grades came out, they actually made an 'A'. How does that happen? When I said I was going to fail, I usually ended up with a pretty dag gum low grade. My dad's lack of confidence in my future may have motivated me to get serious toward the end of college.
I chose a major in Hotel Restaurant Management and a minor in Spanish, because a friend of mine who was attending college in a different state had a plan to go work at the Barcelona Olympics. I have no idea why this was my goal. I was not an athlete, and aside from my childhood infatuation with Nadia Comoneche, had never really been a big sports fan. By the time we finished college, my friend had plans to get married, and I had been brainwashed that I couldn't get a job, so was motivated to show those neigh sayers they were wrong. I wanted to be out on my own, makin' a livin'. Mannnn... did I think I was hot stuff!
I had fun the summer before my last semester working internships at Doubletree hotels and Chimi's restaurant in Tulsa. I was actually pretty good at working in a chaotic environment. Other interns hated the cocktail rotation at the Doubletree, because it was so crazy and customers often got rude after many drinks. I had one night during a car convention with about $300 in tips, and that was all I needed to excel in the cocktail rotation. I did dump juevos rancheros in a customers lap, breaking a couple of margarita glasses on the way down, one time, but I have been able to use that story for many laughs over the years. Can you imagine anything worse in your lap? I really felt like I was good at this hospitality thing. I was ready to roll in this career.
I took 21 credit hours my last semester so that I could get out in the world and show my stuff. I was in such a hurry. Looking back, I wish I had taken that extra time to take a golf class, and enjoy a few more months of being a student. In December of 1990, there was no turning back though. I was on my own, and my dad was so ready for me to be on my own, skeptical as he may have been.
Anyway, I was not a loser after all, but maybe a late bloomer. I graduated from college with solid middle of the class grades, and a degree in Hotel and Restaurant Management from a good school. I was so proud to have a few job offers to choose from upon my graduation (I showed Dad! Ha!) I believe Doubletree Hotels offered me $17K, and General Mills Restaurants offered me $23.5K, so although I had always pictured myself in a setting like Arthur Haley's movie Hotel, that extra 6K made me abandon my hotel career for a life in restaurant management. I felt like I had won the lottery when I accepted my first job with General Mills, and they placed me in a management training program in Red Lobster. I completed a 3 month training, and I was officially a manager. I was placed in a restaurant in St. Louis, a place I had never been. I thought I was so worldly now, getting out on my own.
John and I were still dating at the time, but were not at all talking about a future beyond dating. Because I am a strong independent woman, I left him behind in Oklahoma, trying to figure out what he would do when he grew up. He graduated a semester after me, and had visions of graduate school or law school, and I just simply could not wait on him to chart his path. I had very important things to manage in my career. I was not waiting around for a boy.
I was 24 years old, and I was a "very important manager"... so I thought. I showed up at my first job with Ralph Lauren navy pants, and Cole Hahn shoes, only to learn that I needed to have garden boots and Dockers for this job. I was the lowest of the low men on the totem pole. I was a shrimp splitter, a floor scrubber, a fry cook, you name it, I learned it. Not that I thought I was too good for this, but it was just much harder work than I had envisioned when I chose this major in college. I grew up on a ranch in Oklahoma though, so I was used to hard work. I was tough. I tried to be important, but at the end of the day I was a disaster. My shoes were soaked in the slimy residue that ends up on the floor of a busy restaurant at the end of the day, and my glasses often were so spotted with things like Caesar salad dressing or roumalaude sauce that it was amazing I had seen anything during the day. I wouldn't notice the glasses until I was driving home at around midnight, and would be embarrassed that I had walked around like this for so long. I also was the low man when it came to shift schedule. I was the newbie, and I was single one with no children, so this job was my life! I worked every night shift, and certainly most week-end nights.
I needed to pay my dues. I wondered how long one must do this to actually pay said dues, because about two months into it I felt like I had been there for years, and was looking for a promotion and a large pay increase. I laugh looking back at how important I thought I was. I really struggled. My boss was about 5 ft tall, and had worked his way up from a fry cook. He was very aggressive, and frequently threatened people by saying "I will tear your face off." (What does that mean?). I know he must have laughed when this 24 year old sorority girl showed up in his establishment, sent by Corporate, with no input from him. He looked at me like a child who knew nothing... and looking back, I really had a lot to learn. He was buddies with all the employees, and regularly went out with them after work. They all probably had a lot of laughs at my expense, but I had no clue. I was younger than most of my employees, and I was so so so so Greeeeen! They all knew it. They tried to walk over me, and eventually, I figured out how to be the boss, though I had like 20 years less experience than my employees, and seemed a child to most of them.
I did manage to take control of the situation, and I think I was starting to actually be taken seriously, when I walked in on an uncomfortable situation with my boss and a female employee. I didn't really see anything, but I was very suspicious of this man. He hinted to me that nobody would believe me over him, which I took as a threat. My job suddenly seemed unpleasant. All of the excitement I felt about setting the world on fire with my great management talent was blown away by a boss that seemed to have questionable ethics. I would call and whine to my mom about my misery, and she taught me one very important lesson... she said "Don't complain about the situation if you are not doing anything to get yourself out of the situation". It had never occurred to me that I had a choice in the matter. I had never entertained the thought of quitting a job. I guess in this new found adult life, I actually had this choice, and my mom just gave me her approval. By now, St. Louis was starting to get cold, and the holiday schedule at my restaurant was posted, in which I would be the main manager working both Thanksgiving and Christmas weeks, allowing my co-workers to have time with their families. To them, I was the single gal, who had no life, and thus would not mind working. To me, I had never spent a holiday away from my parents and siblings, and the sight of this schedule made tears well up in my eyes. I was trying to be a grown up, but I needed my mom and dad for the holidays.
By now it was fall, and John was attending graduate school in Houston. I shared with John my frustration about my job, and he started sending me the classified ads from the Houston Chronicle (before online job search was possible). He was too proud to ask me to move to Houston, and I was too proud to admit I was moving to Houston for him. I easily had a couple of job offers, and at a starting salary $24.5K, I accepted a position as a restaurant manager for a new company, owned by a French entrepreneur called la Madeleine French Bakery & Cafe.
I thought I was hot stuff. I told myself I was moving to Houston for this fabulous career of mine and not for a boy. No, No... not at all for a boy.
I remember when my dad and I loaded up the Ryder truck from St. Louis to Houston with a speed ability of only 55 mph, and the lecture began about how John was a free loader who would surely want to move in with me and take advantage of my successful career and big income. Dad was worried that John had chosen to go to grad school instead of getting out there and working. Of course, my dad totally denies this conversation today, but I remember that painful 16 hour drive in the Ryder truck very clearly. Dad will forever deny it!
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