Douglas Wilson
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Old Bridge resident Douglas Wilson ran a catering business that shut down in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. He’s experienced food insecurity and went back to school a year ago to pursue his bachelor’s degree.
Annotations
Elder Care - The United States lacks sufficient policies to ensure proper care for aging Americans, especially when compared to other countries with post-industrial economies. Policies that make it easier for children and loved ones to take care of their parents and older relatives would provide significant help to end of life scenarios.
Context Link 1: https://healthjournalism.org/blog/2017/11/u-s-ranks-worse-in-elder-care-vs-other-wealthy-nations/
Context Link 2: https://aspe.hhs.gov/basic-report/caring-frail-elderly-people-policies-evolution
Higher Education - Making advanced and higher education available and affordable for adults who want to pursue a subsequent career is critical to ensuring healthy labor market participation, limiting poverty for older residents, and maintaining a healthy economy.
Context Link 1: https://www.naspa.org/constituent-groups/posts/policies-that-connect-adult-learners-to-postsecondary-education
Context Link 2: https://www.educationdive.com/news/higher-ed-administrators-can-better-serve-adult-learners-heres-how/530932/
Transcript
Ok, um, can you give me your, uh, full name and tell us about, tell us the day and where you are right now.
Uh, my name is Douglas Wilson. Uh, today is Monday, June 18, 2018. We’re in Manalapan, New Jersey, conveniently located next to my hometown of Old Bridge, New Jersey.
I’m going to wait for that sound to go away [laughs].
That’s water running somewhere.
I see, okay.
That’s one of the people upstairs.
Upstairs, I see, I see, so I guess we can start from the very beginning. Um, so, you said that you were from Old Bridge. Did you grow up in Old Bridge?
Pretty much my whole life. Uh, I spent a lot of time outside of Old Bridge, but uh, was raised there and lived there for the last twenty years.
Um, what was that like, growing up there?
Growing up in Old Bridge? Uh, great town, classic, uh sixties, uh, developers planting houses on what used to be apple orchards and nothing but children sprouting from them. Uh, classic baby boomer neighborhoods, uh, just uh, good school system, good friendships, everybody had, four, five, six kids. It wasn’t, the norm was that you had a football team at the top of the hill versus the football team at the bottom of the hill. ‘Cause there were just so many kids.
Um, so how would you describe the town for people who are not familiar with Old Bridge?
Old Bridge was a rural town that has grown to be probably the second, if not third largest community in Middlesex County. Uh, it does not have a town center, but has the Parkway running through it, Route 9 running through it, Route 18 running through it, and multiple East/West state highways.
And, uh, you went to high school there also?
Yes.
What was your favorite thing to do when you were, um, growing up in Old Bridge?
You know, [laughs] if you’re on Facebook, everybody is always doing those throwback things, like you know growing up you have your bicycle, that was your wheels to your freedom. You didn’t ever want your parents to have to take you somewhere to drop you off. You didn't have a cell phone that they could call to check where you were, and as long as you were home by dinner time, everything was good, so you know it was a freedom, you know that, of course I’m sure our parents worried about us, but it wasn’t what it seems it has become now.
I see what you mean, um, and then uh, you went to college in Rowan, right?
I went to Rowan, uh, out of high school, did not complete it, went back to Middlesex Community College, uh, in the early nineties at the last recession prior to the Great Recession and uh, graduated with a, uh, nutrition degree, a two-year Associates.
Uh, did you enjoy doing nutrition?
Yeah, I’m a food service guy. I’ve been in the food business and, uh, understanding the nutritional aspect for food service management was an area of enjoyment, expertise.
Um, and, you mentioned that you had a deli, um, how soon after did you own your deli, like, what did you do out of college? Let’s start there.
Well, the first time out of college, I wasted the eighties away, like many of us. The second time out of college was in 1992, uh, that was where I also had multiple positions. I did a lot of freelance, a lot of per diem. That was where I was able to work as a stringer for The Ledger while doing summers at a day camp as the food service director while developing a catering business on the side. In 1996 I was able to establish my business in Manalapan, uh, to do off-premise catering, with a deli component on site. A 24-seat, small deli, but bigger corporate catering, event catering, planning, but it went well. It got a bump in the road in 9/11/2001. It seemed like the catering business took six months off um, then we resurged, rebuilt, until 2006, 2007, 2008, when the, uh, Great Recession was, it took them awhile to realize that we were in a recession. Retailers in my heart could feel the wholesale prices going crazy, yet resisting raising our prices because that would create a, uh, negative. You’re trying to hold on to things. 2008 things got tighter, the stock market crashed, people catering, uh, corporate, corporate catering was almost, not downsized, it was just eliminated. Uh, how does a, how does a management team wine and dine each other when the secretary’s husband is out of work and ten percent to twelve percent of the people are in, I don’t want to say foreclosure, but they’re behind on paying their taxes, you know it was just a real challenge. The challenge for me ended in 2010 when my lease came due and I washed my hands and walked away figuring, well, things’ll get better. I’m 50/52 years old, I’ve got a lot of energy and I’ll figure out what to do. It didn’t, it didn’t get as better as quickly as we would hope. Um...
Yeah, um, you mind repeat-- Should I move a little bit? You’re ok?
Yeah, I’m okay as long as you’re getting a good read on my, as long as my you know, what I’m sharing is what you’re looking for…
Yeah, no I, everything is like, it’s your story. I can’t rewrite or dictate it. I’m just worried about the bags. I know I’m like super duper anal.
No, no, no, no.
[Laughs]
I want to be on a podcast, and I want, uh, Rutgers to hear my voice twenty-five years from now when I’m long and gone.
I just want to make sure that you’re comfortable, you’re not like this all the time.
Yeah, no.
Ok, so just to backtrack just a little bit, you were talking about the recession and 9/11 and how that affected your business.
Mm-hmm.
Can you dive into that a little bit, uh more?
Ok, the recession into the business. Hmm. Ok. Catering. Catering is a luxury. Catering is something that people do as part of the corporate culture, you know the lunches, the business meeting, it’s just a cost of doing business. Uh, one of my big accounts, I still remember the day that their checks stopped coming on a weekly basis and started coming biweekly. I remember when the banks made my deposits not immediately available. As had been the process. You put a deposit in, my money was immediately available. I think this was 2006, 2007. I said, “Mmm.” I started seeing a slow down of payments, uh, the recession, that was what was giving me an inkling something is going on. Money is slowing down. Um, credit card companies are still absorbing every one of your sales. One point seven eight percent plus the handling fee, the banks were kinda dictating the control and flow of money. I felt, debit cards were not in their infancy, but everybody was starting to use debit cards. The cash associated with operations was just going away. Uh, deli restaurants, which used to be eighty to ninety percent cash businesses in the seventies, were now eighty or ninety percent credit card business. Uh, the recession, you know during the good years, I always had to keep an extra one or two people on staff just to cover for the call outs, the interruptions somebody couldn’t show up. Starting in 2006, 2007 everybody was showing up. And I had extra people on my payroll ‘cause everybody was showing up. Uh, inklings of what’s going on. Stock market up, down. I remember in 2006, 2007, you know, I’m struggling and it’s not unique. Many of my fellow business owners, not just in the restaurant industry, um, you know struggling. I would say do you want to waitress to come with your party and the common response was, “No, no, my sister-in-law’s going to help. We don’t need the waitress.” That’s a hundred bucks that was coming off the party. Um, I would get inquiries in 2007, 2008 when they were looking for, they wanted to hear, “How much this is going on and will it really feed seven people, or do you think it could feed 10?” You know, “Well if I get this from you, I get that from you, well do I really need this?” And you know I thought people had Excel spreadsheets and they were calling around to ten or twelve caterers to find out where they’re going to get the antipasto platter from, who they’re going to order the cold cut platter from, and whether they’re going to make their own salads, ask their guests to bring potluck or how they’re going to make this party happen without the waitress and questioning the fifteen dollar delivery charge. And, you know, it's just the recession. These are the underlying things. And like I say, 2008, I don’t know if it was October or whenever the market crashed, and things got worse.
Um, so, I guess how did it feel when all of those things were kind of happening to your business? And um what was it like working, um, you know, owning your own business? Did you enjoy it? Were there things that you did like, or didn’t like?
You know, I, I, I, enjoyed owning my own business, I enjoyed employing people. I enjoyed those, you, you, supported their families, whether they were a kid working part time, it meant their mom and dad didn’t have to give them gas money, ‘cause the kid was earning something. Uh, when you had a housewife helping out, on weekends, around, you were helping their family continue to survive. The pin money, that little extra money that helps pay bills. Uh, of course as your business goes in a little bit of decline, your ability to pay people is declined and you feel for that, uh, most business owners do feel that their staff are an important ingredient to their success. And they owe their staff the support, the mutuality. Um, so that’s disheartening. Some days you looked at the payroll and you heard the electric meter running and you heard the water running and you didn’t see people coming in the door and you sometimes felt that you were going backwards. Uh, disheartening, uh nobody ever wants to close a business but some days you wake up and you look at your debt load, you look at your ability to catch up, you look at uh well what do I have to do? Do I have to take another loan to get forward to make it out for maybe, when is it going to get better? Can it get even worse? Who knew in 2009/2010? Uh, I think indicators at that time started showing a slow increase, but, uh, how low can you go and how much does it take to get you back where you were at? [Clears throat]. That’s what I can share on that. I’m sorry.
That’s alright. I know it’s hard to, it’s not natural to be so um, like boxed in.
That’s ok, that’s…
Where exactly was the deli in Manalapan?
Uh, it was located on Route 9 South, it was, uh, right directly on the main drag, um, small location, small shopping center. Very affordable rent. It was probably one of the better rents on Route 9 per square, uh, we, I remain good friends with my landlord [laughs]. We shook hands and we remain good friends. But he didn’t have, uh, a management company. He took care of the operations himself which enabled it to be a little bit less expensive. We probably didn’t have the greatest parking, which was for an off-premise caterer for delivering for office, corporate, medical office lunches, uh, being conveniently located was more important than the parking because we were primarily an off-premise site. Uh, we, uh, yeah, right on Route 9.
And was this business always something that you wanted to do?
Yeah, of course, we always, we always, when you’re in this business, you do a little catering on the side, you always want to grow and have your location figure that business is going to be your retirement fund. You’re going to build it and somebody’s gonna want to buy it from you with all your accounts and uh, it doesn’t always work out that way.
Uh, and then is this kind of that start of how you got into this more difficult situation, um, financially?
Oh yeah, oh yeah, you don’t max out credit cards if you're doing well, and credit card companies don’t immediately lower your credit rating and your credit card interest rate when you start rebounding and becoming more consistent in your payments because they don’t have to and they don’t. And, uh, yeah, you know it’s somehow, I look back and in retrospect I say, you know Doug shoulda just gone bankrupt so you just screwed everybody instead of paying everybody 100 cents on the dollar. But, uh, I can look people in the eye.
Um, did you have a family at this time, or…
I’ve never been married and had children, but I have a good family. I’ve had that support.
That’s good, um, what kind of family do you have around, siblings, parents were around, er…
Well actually, yeah um, I had parents and siblings, lost both my parents in the last two years. Um, they were aged 92 and 89. They had good lives. Um, ultimately, I was living with my parents, uh, at the demise of the business. Uh, I went from their support for survival to being a caregiver. Uh, they were pretty independent. They didn’t need a lot of care, um, but they needed company, companionship, they needed rides to the doctor, they needed somebody to take care of the property, but they were independent. [Annotation #1]
And when was this again? Um….
We lost my mom about six months ago.
I’m sorry to hear that. Um, I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to be in your situation currently, on top of taking care of parents and losing your business. It’s, it’s a lot to take on.
Yeah, but it’s gotten better [laughs].
Yeah, um, tell me a little about that.
[Coughs] Well, you know, in the interim, I went back to school. I figured I had time on my hands, um, I’d reached some roadblocks. I was working part-time here, part-time there, I had a job at a parochial school for a couple of years, but of course the parochial schools were closing left and right. So I mean it was a fine position for a couple of years. Uh, I was able to do some catering out of the site as part of the agreement to manage their, uh food service department. But of course that was another, uh, sign of the reality of the times. Parochial schools closed. I was in 2013. So that was five years ago. So I bounced a little bit more, took a part-time job at Rutgers. Somebody said, ah, there’s a lot of opportunity at Rutgers, so I took the part-time job in the Rutgers Dining Service. A little bit lesser than my skill levels, but not having a Bachelor’s degree, I didn’t qualify for their manager’s team. Not having a chef background from a culinary, uh, accredited Johnson and Wales and or a Hyde Park, Culinary Institute of America, I didn’t qualify for their chef manager positions. I didn’t have the Bachelor’s, so about a year ago I went back to Thomas Edison State College, kind of out of the reality I needed to do something on my resume to freshen it up. [Annotation #2] It was, uh, a little stale. It showed a lot of talent, it showed a lot of experience, it showed a lot of ability, but I guess it didn’t show a lot of higher ability. So I went back to school. I had nothing to lose. I actually qualified for student financial aid because one day I woke up and realized I qualified for a lot of things that I was too proud to ever investigate and I guess that’s either a hopelessness or a, uh, awakening, to potential growth. Uh, I’m hearing that people are coming out of retirement and going back to work for A) financial reasons B) for social reasons C) because we’re all living longer and our health is better than our parents’ generation 25-40 years ago when you were sixty you were ready to retire and if you got another five to ten years of retirement you were lucky, but now living to 78-80, the quality of life has changed so I didn’t feel as challenged. I felt that I could complete that Bachelor’s that I started in 1976 and didn’t finish in ‘78 and I got that two year degree in ‘91-‘92 and probably should have gone on to my degree at that time, but you know, life interferes, you know the rent has to be paid, the car insurance needs to be paid, and uh, you’re not a twenty-year-old. At that time you’re 34, 35 years old and uh, life has to continue so now not having a wife, not having any kids, not having any obligations I can be carefree and be a student again.
That’s really great. Um, did we talk about why you weren’t able to finish at Rowan?
Uh, lack of, a party atmosphere college.
Got it, it happens, it happens. Um, can we go back a little bit, I guess when you were talking about bouncing from food service job to food service job, can you kind of describe some of the things that you were feeling, the things that you were going through, um, while having to I guess bounce around with some uncertainty with where you were going to be?
Are we talking recently or are we talking when, you know…
We can go back to when you were um, at the parochial schools, and at Rutgers…
Ok, um, ok that’s the last eight years, the last seven years. I was at the parochial school from 2010, um, ‘til 2013. I went to Rutgers 2013, knowing that it was ending, one of my friends that helped out at the food pantry that I was food service director at the time, excuse me, pantry director um, it was something I had been doing, when I closed my business I got involved in developing a food pantry at my church because I needed to do something, ‘cause they weren’t lining up at my restaurant. You know I had that food background and there were a lot of other people struggling as well. But one of my volunteers was a Rutgers employee and said, “you know Doug, the job doesn’t pay well, but it’s a Rutgers job. There’s a lot of future, you know, there’s a lot of potential. Once you’re in it, you’re in it and it’s a growth opportunity.” And I took it. I ate well. Dining services at Rutgers. Brower Commons. We eat well. Uh, but it was just a part-time job, I, ah, again going back to my education levels didn’t qualify me for what I felt I was qualified and talented enough to accomplish. And the positions available for me were really not what I wanted to be.
Ah, what were those things?
Well I, they have a status of utility B. It’s a pay status more than anything, but you’re just a food service worker. It’s a generic term for multiple different positions within food service whether it be uh, the pot room people are utility Bs, the dish room people are utility Bs, the kitchen staff, the people that work on the serving lines, the people that work on the cook to order lines, we’re all utility Bs. Um, I pretty much did multiple tasks within the uh, within the facility. I kind of took it to see it was kind of to answer something to myself, like if, I thought I could be a leader and a supervisor, did I remember what it was like to be the worker? Did I remember how it was to take orders, to take direction to apply myself, and I hate to say, to break a grill down and clean it like I’d expect somebody to break the grill down and clean if I was the supervisor. Um, but, uh, it was just a part-time, during the parent care issues it was fine. If I needed a day off there’s more than enough bodies available to cover. There was no, no importance of my position per se. If I needed a day off, it was off. I had summers off, I picked up other work during the summers when I needed to be with my parents for a doctor’s appointment I was there. When I needed to take my dad to his college reunion, I was able to do it. So bouncing, it wasn’t bouncing. I knew I was coming back in September, maybe [laughs]. And if something better came along, but again I was meeting some roadblocks and dealing with the frustration of greying. All of a sudden I wasn’t that 35-year-old wonderkid anymore. I was all of a sudden 55-years-old. There are a lot of nice ways that you were, that told you weren’t right for the job. “You know we have a fast paced kitchen. We don’t know if you can keep up.” So, needless to say I could keep up, but I got the message.
Is that one of the things that was kind of a roadblock for you? Um, was that a thing that was a pattern that you saw?
Uh, I heard it in different ways. You know we’d always heard it when I was 35-40. Oh you know when you’re 55 or 60, people would bemoan that fact that ageism in the workplace was real. And I can tell you I agree with it because there were certain things that I wouldn’t do. You know, when I was younger I would hoist a 50 pound bag of onions on one shoulder and a 50 pound bag of potatoes on the other shoulder and lug it, and you know I’m not doing that anymore. That was when I was 25 and 30. You know, so I can understand the expectations uh, as a utility B at Rutgers I told management I’ll do anything, but please do not ask me to go into the pot room or do, I will not refuse but I will give you a dirty look if you ask me to go work the dish room. I said I did it once, I said I have checked that off on my bucket list. Worked the mechanized dish washing machine. I’ve done it, and again, age affects a willingness to do certain things and so I can understand it. But, uh, so I went back to school. I’ve got nothing to lose.
And um, when did you go back to school? Recently?
Ah, a year ago. Almost. I had gone back for a retraining program. Uh, going back in January, February of 2017. It’s a year and a half ago now. Uh, my computer skills were antiquated. They went back to a C:\. I remember going from the floppy disk to the little hard disk and wow we’re on cutting edge. We were on this page maker, uh, and I don’t know who bought all this page maker, but there is no longer you know. Microsoft Word does everything, you used to have to do this, so needless to say, the technology kind of ran past me in the last twelve years. So I went back to learn how to maneuver on a screen, understanding a download onto a thumb drive. Uh, learning that all’s you got to do is click over there and it’s really there. You don’t have to go and check your file to make sure that you downloaded it properly, it was that easy. You didn’t have to type in a path to uh, you just click, identified where you wanted it to go and click and it was there. Um, learning how to make a brochure, it seems like every college student knows how to go on to Word and make an eight and a half by eleven multifold paper with cover and not have it print upside down on one side and right-side up on the other. Um, learning, I mean PowerPoint was something I really enjoyed learning. I watched people do PowerPoint presentations. I was almost in awe. Like ten years ago, twelve years ago, wow, you know and to learn it a year and a half ago, it was even much more easier, much easier than it was ten or twelve years ago. You can do so much more with incorporating graphics and music and everything was just a click away. But for me it was a million clicks away because I had to get over the frustration of mis-clicking and getting into screens I didn’t know how to get back out of. As my brother said, “You’ve got to stop going down the rabbit hole, Doug. Don’t worry it’s not crazy, it’s not that difficult, just take a deep breath.” So I went back and uh, became much more adept.
Oh, what did you go back to school for?
This time I went back to Thomas Edison for my communications degree. They no longer offer journalism at Thomas Edison State College. In 1994 when I first went to Thomas Edison, I was very close to completing my journalism degree, but then I got that five-hundred-dollar bill for the yearly tuition and I just didn’t have that 500. ‘Cause it was the rent, the car insurance, or the tuition. And, uh, I’m back there and I need sixteen credits for a communication degree ‘cause they don’t offer journalism. So…
Is journalism something you want to pursue, um, in the future?
I enjoy writing. I enjoy being able to express myself in what I think is becoming more of a lost art. The uh, the hundred, I don’t know what it is now, Twitter is up to two sixty-something? More characters, more ability to say a little bit less with a few more strokes of the key. Um, I enjoy the written language. I enjoy language. I think communication is a key ingredient in what I do in food service management. Uh, being clear on the message that you’re sending to your employees. Uh, understanding the cultural differences associated with the work force and understanding the cultures as well as how you’re communicating with them. Ah, a lot of miscommunication goes on. Prepositions, amazing prepositions. They cause lots of confusion. I’ll leave it at that.
Um, you had mentioned earlier that you had helped start a food pantry at your church?
Yeah.
Ah, which church were you involved in?
St. Georges in Helmetta.
Okay.
I, uh, when I closed the business, uh, they had the pantry going. It was a closet that the, uh, parish administrator would come out if somebody came knocking, looking for a little support. She’d go over and open up and they would pick out what they needed. And, things were in tough times in 2009, actually I closed in October of 2009. I say 2010 but it was October 2009. So I was at the church one day just visiting and she said, “Do you want to take care of the pantry? I have more people coming on a regular basis and I can’t keep getting up from my regular job to go spend twenty minutes with them on this more regular basis.” And uh, I said, “Well, I got time.” [Laughs] I need to take time, you know, you just close a business and it’s a hardship. It’s, ah, you didn’t close it because you were making money, and you don’t have a job open to you the next day because we’re in this economic doomsday right now and you almost say why bother looking, let me just stabilize myself and move forward. Sometimes it takes a little bit longer to start moving forward than you had originally planned. And that’s you know, procrastination, stagnancy, sloth. All of the above, all of the above. But, um, yeah, so I took over the pantry, not took it over, but got some things going on, made some connections, made a call for some volunteers, had some great volunteers come out that, uh, had the common joy of giving. Getting, volunteerism is uh, if there’s no place for people to volunteer, there’d be nobody volunteering. So kind of, we made this mutual type of operation where there were people that were able to give of their time, people were able to give of food. And, uh, to be able to give to to others that need it. It was a mutual, uh, mutually beneficial.
How did it feel helping people at the food pantry?
Ah, it always feels good. It’s a sad thing to say, you look at some of the people coming in the door and you say, “I don’t really have it that bad. I have a roof over my head. I have family. Um, I have my health.” You hear some horrible stories of people, what has gone on in their lives and their world to put them in that situation of being dependent upon food pantries. Uh, of course, it’s an interesting, it’s a reality check, but it’s uh, what we’re called to do and so we do it.
Uh and how, so you used to live in Old Bridge and now you live here in this shared house situation.
Yeah.
How did you arrive at this shared house living situation?
Craigslist. [Laughs] That’s what everybody told me. You know, you know, after my mom passed, we had to clean the house up. I lived there for a couple of months and uh, to get the house into a sellable situation. ‘Cause that was in the will, that the house would be sold. And the monies would be distributed amongst the remaining siblings. I have two brothers and a sister, but I was at home and I needed to get out of the house so that we could clean the house up, remove everything. Uh, it just went into, it’s closing in a week, so I mean uh, it took us two months, you know, we polished the floors, we polished the windows, we ripped out like the old carpet, we, actually it looked more beautiful than I think the house looked in sixty years. It was pristine. It sold to the first person that walked through the door.
What was it like, is this your childhood home?
Yeah.
What was it like selling your childhood home?
It’s not sold yet [laughs]. It closes July 14. It’s an interesting, ah, it’s an interesting new beginning. It’s good, it’s actually good.
Ah, what’s it like living in your current situation?
It’s interesting. There’s five other people here. We all come from different backgrounds. We’re, I would say there’s a commonality of economic challenge here. Ah, you know, people are here for multiple reasons. Ah, it’s a large house so we see each other, but we’re not on each others, in each other’s way per se. It’s convenient for me, ah, in that my world revolves in Middlesex County, Manalapan, Monmouth County. Uh my sisters and my brother are in Monmouth County. My other brother’s out in Ohio but ah, being in central Jersey most of my adult life, my contacts are here, my friends are here, my, ah acquaintances, uh, my community service, my application of my uh, my volunteerism. It’s in here. My history.
Yeah, definitely. Um, I’m trying to think of anything else that we can kind of talk about. Um, oh, um, I think we haven’t really um addressed some of the challenges of being I guess kind of like in your I guess economic situation. We did talk about how your age eventually played a role in it, how losing a business, um, affected you, but, um, you know, did you ever try to apply for any aid? Was it hard? What are some of the organizations that helped you out, um, you know, what are the frustrations that came along with that?
Well, I actually did about a year ago applied for food stamps. I probably qualified for food stamps for ten years, but food stamps were for poor people. It’s, you know I never considered myself qualified for it. I didn’t look, I mean we’d have people signing people up for food stamps at the pantry and I never wanted to be one of the people who went over there ‘cause they wanted to look at your W-2s and they wanted to go into, you had to provide this and provide that and sometimes providing all that documentation kind of like it uh, it brings to the surface a lot of the failure associated with the last few years. So you just muddle forward, you muddle forward. Needless to say, it was July of last year and uh, Rutgers had ended and I actually didn’t have anything. Ah, for whatever reason, my calendar was blank, ah, my mom was not well at that time, uh, so there was a lot going on. The reality that there was real change coming and uh, I said, “Oh my, oh my time to, oh my, oh my. Better look and see and.” Which is why I went to social services up in New Brunswick and uh, I guess it was easier than I thought. It was less invasive, I just needed to bring my income taxes, which I had filled out on a regular basis when I filled ‘em out. Um, here, that’s an oxymoron, right? I filled ‘em out on a regular basis when I filled ‘em out. Ah, I brought the paperwork necessary, uh, for my identification and brought my W-2s and brought my recent uh, income tax statements and uh, basically they asked me, “Why did you come here?” I said, “Because I have no idea where I’m going or what I’m doing and I need to do something and I need to make a plan.” It was at that point in time, I was re-registering for school. I had just finished computer training. I was re-registering for online school. What a challenge online education can be. But now I know how to use a webcam, and now I know how to upload files much more, much more easily. But it’s still a challenge. But yeah, I went to social services and I got food stamps. And uh, I was assigned to go to a job resource center, uh, job hunting over in Perth Amboy. I went a couple of times, but I was unable to adequately comply with their reporting of my job searches. So even though I had been searching for work, it didn’t meet with their compliance expectations, so I just, for the hundred dollars a month and the financial benefit that would have come from participating in the program, I just went out and found a job part time, knowing that I was going back to Rutgers in September, knowing I was going back to school in September. I would get by. I, uh, I didn’t have a mortgage, I didn’t have a car payment, I actually had gotten my credit cards down to zero. I don’t know how I did it, but I got my credit cards down to zero. I haven’t paid a penny in interest or credit card charges this entire year. So things have been better, but whatever, but that’s, I took the two hundred and ninety seven dollars a month in food stamps, went to the pantries that I had identified through my participation in other things, uh, I was able to, uh, I was able to do a lot of volunteer community service that was very good for my mental outlook. Ah, keeping, uh, I was able to inaugurate in the last couple years, in conjunction with MC Foods, and the Feeding Middlesex Alliance, A Dime Below The Line, hunger awareness event that we did for the third time this year where we brought together speakers and I brought together some chef friends and we took an elegant, or we made an elegant spin on pantry staples. We took, you know cans of tuna, and cans of salmon and made wonderful salmon cake crisps and just took pantry staples and gave them an elegant twist. Uh, and then talk about what we do in the county. What we do, uh, to serve the neighbors in need. And again, going back to that, I felt blessed in that, not that I was better, because I really wasn’t better than a lot of these people because I was in the same financial status, but I had the ability and the willingness, and the desire to as your parents would have said, to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and get it done and move forward and stop feeling sorry for yourself.
I think that’s so fascinating that even in your situation you’re able to help people who are going through the same exact things you are. You had mentioned it was good for your mental outlook. Can you expand on that a little bit more?
Well, you go through a period of hopelessness. That’s pretty much with, you know they talk with your alcoholics and your drug addicts, and people that are depressed. You go through a period where it’s just hopeless. You see the light at the end of the tunnel, but you know it’s a train coming at ya. It’s uh, it’s uh something that I, I, I guess would be called giving up. And you just have to keep moving, you just have to keep percolating. Keep a positive outlook. I would say it’s a little deceptive because I didn’t let people know how low I was feeling or how hard it was for me. Also, because you, you know, you wanted to inspire them. You wanted them to come along. And their little victories would be victories for you. So, it was just an interesting time. I just feel lucky.
Is there anything that um, I should know about, or I may have missed?
No, you got a lot, you got a lot. You touched my soul [laughs]. Got my emotions, you know? Started a new job this week.
Right, so tell me about your new job.
I, um, you know in the midst of everything I had been interviewing and I kept hitting roadblocks because I didn’t have this certification and I didn’t have this degree and it was just becoming more and more frustrating. I sometimes felt it was an excuse to not to say you’re a little older than the guy that we’re looking for. I went and took a management certification test, um, five hundred and eighty-seven dollars worth of a management certification test, but you know I had to bite the bullet because one of my interviewees said, “Doug you would have had this job, if you had this certification.” And I said, “but my degree from Middlesex had always superseded that certification requirement.” “Well Doug, in 2014, the state of New Jersey, the health department, anybody in the healthcare industry needed this certification regardless of duh da duh, duh da duh of how talented.” So, uh, he said, you would have had it, and it was a good job, you would have had it, you know we liked you in the interview, this was, uh, in February of this year, three, four months ago. And, uh, he goes, “I mean I could give you a cook’s position,” and I said “Oh that’s very thoughtful.” He goes, “Well it would be part-time to start.” And I said, “That’s really great, what days did you need me?” And the two days that he needed me I already had a job that I was working part-time and so I said it wasn’t the answer, I mean it would have just been more, you know not the answer. So I took the certification test and, uh, I remember getting the study guide and looking at the first ten questions and closing the book up and saying, “Oh my gosh this isn’t as easy as I thought.” Then I opened up the study guide the day before the scheduled test and I read through it and I said, “Oh my goodness, why didn’t I schedule this test two months ago?” You know the first ten questions were the hard ones. The next ninety were the easiest. So I took the certification test up at a computer site and, uh, I think I got a ninety four percent on it from studying the book for two hours. It reinforced what I felt that, uh, that I did know my work product. That I did know the requirements, the sanitation, the health certification, I understood management, I understood protocol, I understood primary importances. I understood getting along with people, and directing people. Needless to say I was at a meeting a week ago and going back to that story, I ran into a friend. He said, “What are you doing?” And he was working at a facility that had just terminated their food service director, and this was on a Saturday, well the person was terminated on a Thursday, I met him on a Saturday, I interviewed on a Monday and I started on a Thursday because I had this certification. I had all the paperwork finally in place that was needed and timing and luck [laughs]. Timing and luck. But no, truly only luck. Being in the right place at the right time, with the right credentials.
Yeah that’s a lot. Especially, um, there were a lot of hurdles to get you to be you know at that right place at that right time.
Yeah, yeah, we’ll see how this works out. It’s been a very good four or five days. Um, it’s what I do. I have a couple of uh, younger cooks who want to be chefs. It’s what I do. I can bring them along.
Um, what does your job, um, like specifically entail? How do you work with people?
Um, my job here at that facility is, um, I’m, I’m, I’m the director. It’s interesting because I’m not a hands on director. I’ve got a dietician that reports to me, not that I need the dietician to report to me because we’re going to work mutually on things. Um, but I’ve got a weekend shift supervisor, I’ve got three cooks and it’s a very small facility, but because the state requires this level of supervision, um, I qualify. Um, it’s a basic menu. I’ll be doing ordering, I’ll be working with the cooks to create a new menu, a little more upscale, hopefully along the lines of many of the things we do over at Rutgers which are fresher vegetables, leaner meats, the new normal, uh, and we’ll see where that goes, but we’re creating a new menu, it’s uh it’s like any healthcare food service. You worry about the cleanliness, you worry about the proper food handling, you worry about training the staff properly, service on uh, uh, multiple different topics, and uh, you make breakfast, lunch and dinner and you go home.
Who does this facility serve exactly?
Uh, it’s actually an alcohol and drug detox rehabilitation center. It, uh, serves a much needed place in the community right now. A diverse group of people that come in through the, uh, rehabilitation.
This sounds like a tailor-made job for you right? Like really, this is like a full-circle job [laughs].
Kind of. [Laughs] It’s like yeah, it, ah, touches on who I am, what I have been able to do and who I’ve been able to touch. And yeah, it's kind of who knows how it happened, but it happened.
And you’re still in school now, or?
Yeah, yeah.
And how much longer do you have to go?
Well, things got delayed, with life interrupting again. I had thought that I could pull off these sixteen credits like in, you know four quarters, but just trying to absorb the information in the books, it’s a little overwhelming because not having been in school in twenty-five years, those things that your bring from the other coursework into the current course work are lost in the ebbs of time, so I’ll be another year.
That’s not too bad.
It’ll be my birthday present when I’m another year older, it’ll be fine.
Ha ha, um, yeah again anything else that I’m missing or didn’t come through?
No, you covered it all. I think you did good. Hopefully this is good for you.
I hope so also. Um, let me take this…..