Saturday, January 31, 2009

Filling in what a resume can't.

I would like to take a moment to introduce myself. My name is Jack and I am a 37 year old male and I am in the prime of my life.
I am a Seattle native and world traveler. I have lived in several states of our fair Union and I have also spent some time in Vancouver, B.C. I'm not a transient, but there was a time in my life that I moved around a bit. So far, I've lived in Seattle; Portland, Oregon; San Diego, California; Colorado Springs, Colorado; and Dallas, Texas. But that was several years ago, and Seattle is my home.
I started my work life in the local restaurant industry. You may be familiar with a few of the places I was employed. I worked at the 5 Spot on Queen Anne, and Chandler's Crabhouse in the early 90's. At Chandler's, the head chef was Brian Poor who went on to host a local radio show called "The Poor Man's Kitchen". I was a line cook in that era and the love of cooking has stayed with me. The 5 Spot and associated Chow Foods restaurants were, and still are, very successful and very busy. I enjoyed working there and still drop by now and then to have breakfast.
While cooking, I saw that the waitstaff was consistently making hundreds of dollars per night in cash. I felt it was time for a change. In the late 90's I started waiting tables. I worked at Trattoria Mitchelli in Pioneer Square (I think it's gone now) and Stella's Trattoria. Moving on from there I worked at The Crab Pot on Pier 57 for several years. It was really fun to work there. The staff were all committed to working hard and giving the customers the best experience possible. It was also fun to put the bibs on for customers and dump food on the table. If you've not been there-go! It's different.
I then move on to bar tending. I was a bartender at a now defunct restaurant called The Raindancer. It was a fun job. We had live music nights, good food, and good drinks. I'm not sure what the owners are up to these days, but they sold the place and it became Finn MacCools. I was gone by then and had moved on to selling cars.
I started my automotive career at Huling Bros. in West Seattle in 2001. I worked there for several years selling new vehicles. I then moved to Colorado Springs and continued my automotive career at Team Honda. After a year there, I moved on to Dallas and sold Hondas again, this time at Rusty Wallis Honda. Around this time, the car business was getting to me. I found it to be hopelessly crooked. I also was very, very tired of being the "enemy". I decided to change my career path and get the necessary education to work in IT.
I sought out training at Brookhaven Community College in Dallas and received my A+ certification there. I moved back to Seattle and started working for Best Buy as a Geek Squad in-store technician. I worked on computers every day and really loved it. I helped develop new standards and procedures as the operation ramped up. The media blitz was on! We went for 10-15 PC's in the queue to 50-60. We had to shift gears and keep the focus on doing world class work. It was tough but I did well and was promoted to Field Agent after a year in the store. I did well in this position and was promoted again to the Special Agent role, catering to small business.