Can the Universe read minds?
Floating on the back burner of my intentions has been the desire to “become an executive chef this year”. I’ve come up through the ranks, put in my time as worker bee and manager. Intellectually, temperment-wise, and experience-wise I feel I am ready for this position. I entered this career late, and I’m actually getting to the point where the grinding on-the-line work is not so much fun. Nor is it productive, nor does it pay well. In less than 10 years I’ve worked for several top companies in my city, rising to the sous chef and management ranks in all of them. I have felt for a while I was ready to embrace the larger responsibilities of exec chef, only somewhat concerned about the impact it would have on my family life. I had hard careers before and got divorced enough and lost friends and family contacts before I started cooking professionally. Like Jimmy in Pulp Fiction: “I don’t wanna get divorced!” But S. and I talked about it, thought about it, and decided that we are a strong couple and we could do this. So I began to think about it more and more.
The job I have now was only meant to be a temporary step towards that goal. It was going to help me recover my finances, fill out my resume, allow me to make the jump finally from supporting cast to leading man. The politics and psychology of the company just don’t mesh with my personal values. The way they treat their staff, showing undeserved favoritism to some and unwarrented repression to others, the way they think about food, the way they operate their business and treat clients… all make me feel like there is just no future or role for me here.
Until a couple of weeks ago when the “corporate chef” who brought me into this mess pulled me aside and said he wants me to take on the role of executive chef for this particular account. He pressed me again yesterday for an answer, telling me that I had to take on the leadership role in this account (the company’s cash cow) while he broke off from his managing role to start building up the company’s long neglected catering business. While trying to sell me on the idea, he used many of the same concepts and phrases I used in my own mind while figuring out this intention.
Can the Universe read minds? Can it deliver on unstated intentions?
I accepted his offer under certain conditions. I now have to wait and see if he can even fulfill those conditions, salary being the numero uno issue. I told him what I would do the job for and I won’t come off that figure one red cent. He reminded me that it won’t be about the money but that the ability to add “executive chef” to my resume and all the experience I get will be the real reward. I nodded and said “uh huh”, and said it’s about the money, too (cuz I needz to get paid, mutha!). Nothing is set in stone, and it might be weeks before it comes to pass. And I figure if I’m going to be there anyway, why turn down more money and a chance to start fulfilling an intention I had not yet said outloud?
