The Reality Check Dealing with Retirement

by on with No Comments

The Reality Dealing with Retirement

I never thought that one day I would be writing about retirement! One suddenly realizes that life is unbelievably short!

I noticed over the last few months that I am reflecting and thinking a lot about past times, all the things that I have accomplished, and things that I should have done, or not done. Things that I have missed out on, opportunities I passed up, family events I couldn’t attend, weddings I missed, and saying goodbye at funerals, all because work was always the priority and came first.

Being a chef,

means sacrificing more personal time than hardly anyone does in another profession; because one always works when everyone else is not, and one is off when everyone else is not.

It also depends on what type of establishment you work in, if you are employed in a large establishment such as a hotel then chances are your schedule is more flexible because obviously there are more employees to cover shifts, if you work in a smaller establishment such as a family or single owner restaurant then you’re working flexibility is very limited because chances are there are only you and a handful of employees the owner can depend upon. Now if the operation is open 7 days a week you are really screwed, if someone is sick, on leave, or on vacation..guess who has to fill in! In a larger establishment that would not be an issue.

As I completed my apprenticeship

in a restaurant establishment in Switzerland, I was always attracted to a similar size operation, I preferred that style of cooking.

After I left Switzerland to see the world! I landed in Bermuda with Holiday Inn in St. Georges, which really made me realize that I didn’t want to pursue that type of cooking, in the main kitchen I felt like I was back in the Swiss Army cooking for 150 guys! In the Supper Club kitchen, where I was in charge most of the time, very little was fresh, prepared food, instead, we served frozen seafood, even though we were in the middle of the ocean!

When I arrived at my next gig in the Bahamas, El Casino in Freeport, the food quality was a lot better, everything was prepared and cooked to order for several hundred people on a nightly basis.

After that I finally arrived in the USA opening a private club as a chef, that is where I really began to create the type of food I wanted to serve.

Now that I am retired I am pursuing some things that I missed out on over the years such as photography, traveling, blogging, enjoying the family, etc.

I came to the realization that when you reach a certain age it doesn’t matter what your portfolio of accomplishments contains and what your lifelong professional experiences could be contributing to another generation within that profession, your possibilities are very limited due to age, at least here in Switzerland, that is to attribute to the fact that the social benefits for people over the retirement age are more costly than for younger people for an employer. Actually, I feel that here they discriminate against the older workforce as employers are allowed, through job advertising platforms, to mention they don’t want you unless you are a certain age! That would be a lawsuit in the US.

That reminds me of a saying from my friend George  Mayo

“You are only as good as your last meal!”