Audio Clip Transcript
My father was a district manager for our local steakhouse. And so he was in the food industry too, imagine where I get that from. You know, my parents divorced in '85, yeah because he died in '87. There was tumultuous times prior to that, and so I would say, he probably left the house about '83 maybe, you know, I'm under 10, by the time I was 13, he had passed away.
My mom went to nursing school. And so my grandmother was more raising us a lot during the afternoons and my issue is, that, that home person, and by this point in time, my grandmother had really declined mentally, Alzheimer's was starting to kick in, so there was a lot of, I would come home to, you know, the burner being on on the stove with food burning up on it, and things like that. So, we put her in the home when I was 16. My mom, um, she was dating, so she's, you know, working full time, and so I'm, you know, I'm coming home from school, I got to do what I got to do. I got to cook my dinner, I got to do this, I got to do that, go to do my homework, and you know, a 16 year old doing that. So, you know, 14, 15, 16, I'm not supposed to be taking care of this. So it, it forced me to grow up a lot sooner than I probably should have. But as soon as I could, I moved out. And that was when I was 18.
I was actually accepted to the culinary school out of high school. I couldn't afford to go. I was still in food industry, I worked in food, I was in fast food for a lot of years. I worked for Domino's Pizza. I worked for Wendy's, corporate. Because I was a manager in both, in both companies, um, it gave me knowledge and skills that I would not have gotten in college. When I finally did go to culinary school, I went down here in Atlanta, and I was 29 years old when I started.
And especially this last year with the pandemic. A lot of people did not make it because of that, they had a lot of challenges along the way these last few years, but I just rolled with the punches. Even some of my friends, you know, are like, how you doing, I'm like, I'm not where I wanted to be, I'm not where I thought I was going to be, but in the grand scheme of things, I'm okay. And a lot of people that are in this industry are not. I'm the chef at a fraternity house at Georgia Tech. Unexpectedly, I'm working part time here at the summer, and then the part time job that I had has actually increased as well, so this one decreased, that one increased, it's all balancing out.
I'd get a third job if I had to, you know, because I know there's this couple hours here, I can work a couple hours there, and I can do this, and I'm like, wait, no, I gotta sleep somewhere along the line. If I don't earn it, I don't have it. And I have, you know, I have a house, I have, you know, the expectations of what goes along with the house, and you know, prime example, I have a plumbing issue right now, and I'm like I'm dreading the fact of what that bill is gonna cost me. Asked a friend and it just, they kept putting me off, and I'm like you know what, I need to get this done. So I called a plumber and they're coming out on Thursday and I'm like okay. You know, I always try and make sure that I have those connections with my friends and things like that, where you know they could possibly help me out, but in the long run, I'm gonna have to take care of myself, no matter what anyway. I'm not one for I need somebody in my life. If you're in my life, I, I'm completely independent. I do not need you in my world. I want you there. But I don't need to have you there. You know, so that's why, you know, yeah I'm tired, mentally, physically, but you know what, I'm taking care of me. And, you know, that's ultimately what's important. My mom and I had our challenges, but I give her a lot of credit for how she raised me, slash grandmom, because had they not done what they did, I don't know if I would have been able to handle this last year and a half, because they gave me strength of self.