So... I kinda have an idea what this character does for a living throughout the story, but I need something specific in order to proceed with. At an early age my character gets a job helping out at a family diner/luncheonette, working as a cook and stuff (he's like 15-16...17). He is a blue collar guy but very skilled and hard working. He lives in Brooklyn, NY and throughout the 70s as a young adult trying to support his family he struggles a bit during this period as that decade was particularly difficult and unemployment was high. I have parts of the story where he is on unemployment until finding another job until my other main character uses his pull among his social contacts to help get him an interview and job. I am thinking something industrial or food service related. I picture him driving a forklift (perhaps not this job) or working on a loading dock but he is very good with food and cooks a lot. I am less concerned with identifying what he does for a living during these parts although if I get any really good suggestions I will run with it. Historically, I don't believe there aren't many realistic options (that I know of) but it is important to note that an integral part of the story's plot is that he is at some point for some length of time, working two jobs in the city and instead of commuting home to Brooklyn and then back to work his other job, he stays in the city and it becomes almost (unintentionally) a part time living together sort of thing, like gradually transitions from a crashing on the sofa occasionally to get a little sleep to having his own key and preparing food there and... sharing the bed sort of thing... By, by the time he's middled aged he has overcome the hardship he faced in his earlier years and he's not rich but he has doing well for himself and has a fairly good management position managing other employees, etc. Has obtained the means to move out of the city and purchase a home for himself, etc. I have very much gravitated towards something related to food service in healthcare... like maybe he at some point goes to school and is now the director of food services in a large hospital. I can't seem to escape this and if anyone else believes this could be a realistic path someone might follow, it works especially well for me specifically because his sister is a nurse who works in a hospital (not the same one but maybe one of his earlier jobs is in a hospital in the city that she works at when she first graduates nursing school?) I have researched the statistics on what someone in this field's credentials and education might be as well as the approximated expected salary range, I just want to find a way to weave his career journey together from a blue collar guy barely scraping by to support himself and family to living a fairly comfortable, stable and secure life in a position where he has a decent amount of responsibility overseeing other people, with his own office-ish. Thoughts? Suggestions?
For a hospital's Directory of Nutrition Services (typical name), se below this is a casual search, and is for that position in West Texas. Qualifications • Registered Dietitian (RD) with the Academy of Nutrition or Executive Chef required • Ten plus years healthcare food service experience, or 5 plus years of healthcare management experience required • Three to five years of healthcare clinical nutrition, or executive chef experience required • Must have thorough knowledge of nutrition and dietetics, administration and operation of hospital food services • Must have knowledge of all H.A.C.C.P. guidelines • General office equipment such as computer/laptop, telephone, copy/ fax machine, calculator, scanner, etc
Hey! Thank you so much for sharing this, this is good stuff. I have looked very casually in the past at similar job listings in the region where my character lives and I really do feel like this is perhaps the best position he's got at the later part of my story, was curious if anyone could think of something similar as I am still a little shakey on what kind of compensation someone in this role would get and/or if it would be an opportunity someone like him could potentially get down the road, even with some education, considering his low income beginnings in his 20s. That is not to say someone can't over time develop a sound foundation to work their way up, building experience and work his way up the ladder into better paying jobs to be able to fund going to school, like part time or something. I don't know for sure if he would be someone who gets a MA...I hesitate to even to say BA, it feels like it would be a long shot since he drops out of high school. Any suggestions on what kind of jobs/places of employment he might have had during the 70s- possibly ones that could piggy back off his experience in a diner and build from there? Or maybe I don't ever need to really specify? I can totally put in the story that he becomes unemployed without explanation.. .it's what kind of job his friend gets him that gives him a huge leg up? I was wondering how likely he could have gotten him a job working at one of the meat packing plants that used to exist in the vicinity of the friend's neighborhood. As far as I expect they were probably union jobs.. I don't know. Seems it would be difficult to get in the door on account of knowing someone casually.
That is an interesting concept but really wouldn't work for this story. Not that the other character has doesn't have a shit ton of money... at that particular time in the story he doesn't, really. I have, however, played around with incorporating with him helping him out at some point.
One of my more recent reads had a character who was the head chef/ops manager of a ghost kitchen (where they cook multiple cuisines under different business names for companies like DoorDash, UberEats and GrubHub). In that book's case, he was also the owner, but I don't think he'd have to be, it could theoretically just be a W-2 job.
We almost bought one of those a while back. Still looking. It would execute the menus of our 4 small restaurants that have been known to do 40% of their sales in takeout (53% of total food sales when alcohol is removed). Not sure why a ghost kitchen would need a ops manager, since there are no real ops to manage, but even if there were it would a cold day in hell before I ever put a chef in charge of operations. Culinary and Operations are all loggerhead all the time. That's by design: to let the artists focus on art while the engineers focus on making the art feasible. A chef masquerading as an ops manager would go broke faster than you can say "food costs money?" That is a very interesting ad. Looks like they're looking for a nutritionist or a chef. Kind of like you better be in an expert in making food OR knowing how food works in the body. The actual job might not have much to do with food production, as a nutritionist would be completely useless in a kitchen. And chefs are useless at just about everything outside of a kitchen. But I can see the two of them working together, with one providing nutritional guidelines while the other divines recipes to meet them. Then flip it around. One divines recipes that don't taste like shit while the other vets it through nutritional guidelines to make them more nutritious. Either way, you'd need a boatload of college and a multiple degrees to qualify probably. I have several chefs that have worked in healthcare facilities. There's nothing particularly different about them than regular chefs. Not sure about the 70s, but today, a executive chef in a hospital could easily make six figures. I pay my good chefs close to that, and they don't have to faff with hospital administration, budgets, or whatever nutritional guidelines. The OPs character would have no problem making money if he worked hard and knew how to cook. In the 70s it's unlikely he would become a cheffy-chef without attending culinary school or studying directly under somebody who had. Formal culinary education was very exclusive back then and not easy to acquire. It's only recently that culinary education became popular and "cool," mostly thanks to those stupid chef shows and social media charlatans. Thanks to those, I have to deprogram all the kids who come through the door and think they can make "sick" specials without first learning how to cut a fucking onion. And now modern culinary schools are dropping the classic programs (like cutting onions) to attract kids who only want to make "sick" specials.
I wasn't thinking the friend provided the financial support directly. Rather introduces the MC to contacts who do have the resources.
So thank you all for the feedback about my character's future career. I was watching some videos on Youtube that show how different hospitals' food services departments are run.. I assume most of are training materials of some sort. I am feeling like my initial plan for him being the director is the right one. The nature of the position lends itself to the way I picture him in an office, not overly dressed like admin or anything and working closely with the kitchen staff, like on the phone and shuffling paperwork and walking around the department like checking things- maybe doing inventory, kind of thing. He's very much a blue collar guy and does not have the whole "college guy" thing, it's just not really him. But he's very smart and efficient and hard assed but incredibly fair and likable which commands respect from others so he's a good manager. Easy to build rapport with his employees, especially considering he was born and raised deep in the inner city hood and most times kitchen staff in a hospital are closer to his socioeconomic background than some guy who is a corporate suit and landed there because of a college degree versus years of really dedicated hard work and skill. What I really need some help with now, because it is very unclear and undeveloped (unless it does not need to and I could use suggestions on this idea, too) is creating a fictional work schedule and job roles for my character, in the 1970s. Again, it could and should be somewhat related to food (I used to have him working in a diner in the city but that's stupid, he could do that in Brooklyn) and definitely like some blue collar type stuff. I know there was not much of that left at that time which is how he goes though periods of unemployment. Even an intelligent and very skilled person who works hard can be hard up for cash and living pretty much in poverty in a war zone neighbourhood if there is a shortage of job opportunity... I was doing a lot of thinking about what kind of job he might have had in the early 70s that brings him into the city (the vehicle in which the two characters have a excuse to spend so much time together in the city) and I need to do more research, but there was a section of the lower west side back then gay men frequented to hook up referred to as "the trucks" and I am not really sure what the trucks were. Like whose were they? Why were they parked there? I guess it is possible my character at an earlier stage gets a job driving a truck (not the big rig kind that would require a CDL).and maybe there could be a connection there. I toyed briefly with the idea that after they meet he has a job driving a truck, oes into the city and they come across each other again by accident that way, when he is in the city and they recognize each other. My other character is a gay male who lives in that neighbourhood and pretty much just lives on the street with his friends frequently the different cruising spots. This is a very important set of factors to focus on and clarify because there needs to be a way for their friendship to transition away from being casual friends at the bar where they first meet in Brooklyn. I always said it took lots of months of slowly getting to know each other for the relationship to finally transition away from the bar to deliberately seeking one another out elsewhere, but the West Village is a LONG way from Coney Island, especially for someone who is without a car, like an hour or more by train. But he does have family in the city so that was always my excuse for finally, after several attempts, taking his friend up on his invitation to stop by. Going back to the truck thing... I have a scene idea somewhere that I wrote years ago and never developed when one of his odd jobs is working for a company that he "borrows" a small box truck from on a weekend to help his friend move a large piece of furniture. It is quite the scene as he manages to rather expertly navigate through his small back street and park the truck up on the sidewalk. These are the kinds of acts of affection he performs lol I don't know that I like the idea that they had met and then later accidentally run into each other in the city and go from there BUT I could potentially piggy off back his friend's familiarity with the businesses in that particular commercial section of the city such that he has "gotten to know" someone from one of them enough to put in a good word. My Brooklyn character still needs a second job, too, in the city. I can't think of any other reason why he would be spending so much time in the city at his apartment other than he lets him use the apartment as a place to crash. Like I said, like between shifts/jobs etc so that he won't have to go all the way home and come back. But what kind of jobs could someone be working to create this sort of random schedule? Keeping in mind his friend spends a lot of nights out very very late... like not coming home sometimes until morning, I imagine one job is like second shift and the other third shift or night but... he leaves from the apartment in the morning when he is still sleeping and often is there in the evening or at night when his friend's night is just beginning so that he gets to be there hanging around with he and his entourage. I am confused by the details and need help structuring what his schedule might look like and what kind of work he is doing to create a schedule like this. He has his own place and down the road as his family grows and moves on to different jobs and stuff their lives become more separate but by that time he's got full access to the apartment as if he lives there (but like he works out of town) when he comes over to visit.
