Show your love

I deleted the last entry, wherein I cried about a bad gig. I read it a second time, lucid and awake, made a face and produced some sort of interesting noise of disapproval. Then sent it into cyberspace to rot.

Today, I received some very interesting feedback from my now former Chef (Yes, my internship is done! More on this later.). All marks were high, but there was a caveat.

Apparently, I'm too dour, sometimes. It's not a huge problem, but going forward, I need to know this is my Achilles' heel. I should never tell people I'm tired; I should act as confident as my knowledge makes me.

I was initially miffed. I never wanted to give the impression that I didn't want to be at the restaurant that I had fallen in love with... wait, initially? No, I am still really miffed. Because the hard work I put in at this restaurant, and the amount of extra hours I committed to this place, required fire and passion. Were my extra hours not demonstrative of this love? How could they not see that? I wanted to give my bosses only the very best, and if that didn't come across, then I was disappointed.

...with myself.

Because I had received this criticism before. Obviously, I wasn't doing something right.

There's some sort of disconnect between my emotions and the rest of the world. I am so happy with my decision to become a cook, I am so happy I finished such an amazing internship, I love what I do.

But that really doesn't matter. Here's the general career lesson: not only should you actually enjoy what you're doing, but all of your positive emotions should be visible. It's simple: being around someone who is obviously positive (maybe not to the Pollyanna extent) is enjoyable. It isn't complicated; you don't have to dig for their emotions (like you do with me), and you don't have to handle them with kid gloves because you just don't know what's up in their head.

When I re-read that entry last week about our event gone south, it felt really icky. I wanted to be honest, but I also wanted this blog to be positive. Taking a catering job, I know to expect some strange events and hard days. But its all about how you look at it: was that a terrible fucking day, or a 12-hour learning experience? By any novice's standards, that should be a 12-hour learning experience. And it was -- so that's why I deleted an obviously negative post.

And it felt pretty awesome. To work through something so crummy and come out with helpful insight. I do it more often than I think, and more often than I show.
I'm an INTJ -- a pretty on-point description provided by the Myers-Briggs personality test. If you follow this sort of thing, then you might understand why these problems are fairly INTJ-specific. 


Oh, wait, what did I say? It doesn't matter.

I am so deeply in love with what I do, but I shouldn't have to explain that. No one should be forced to explain something so important and complicated as love. So show it.