(Picture Above: racks of burger buns that need packed for customers)
My first year at Reality Kitchen was a year of growth.
On September 23, 2021, I had an interview with my long-time friend, Executive Director of Reality Kitchen, Jim Evangelista. Jim and I knew one other for several years while I studied at Lane Community College and the University of Oregon. During the interview, although we caught up like friends do, he asked me questions you'd expect in a job interview. What skills do you have? Are you a quick learner? A quality problem-solver? What are your available hours? Are you good at coming to work on time? What are your goals for the future? He asked many questions, most of them I don't remember because a year has already passed (wow, time flies by fast). We discussed the book I published, and he asked me questions about my book and the writing process. I answered those questions to the best of my ability, and, to my surprise, Jim hired me on the spot as the Production Assistant. There was no waiting time. No time to reconsider. He knew what he was looking for, and he got it—my employment. He told me the next day that I could come in and start training, so that was what I did next.
The night before my first day at work, I was anxious. I didn't get much sleep. Jim, however, reassured me after the interview, saying, "We won't set you up for failure."
I kept that in mind. I had faith in what he said to me.
If I remember correctly, my first day was on a Wednesday, the day after the interview.
On my first day, I wore my worn-out shoes, my only pair of jeans, and I wore a dress shirt (perhaps not the best attire for a bakery and café). I arrived 30 minutes early and sat in the car, praying to Jesus (yes, I'm a Jesus follower) and listening to worship music, hopeful that I won't fumble and make a complete fool of myself. When I walked inside, the supervisor welcomed me and, after clocking-in and washing my hands, he showed me how to pack the 4 oz. burger buns. Similar to the picture above, there were racks full of burger buns. He showed me how to stack the buns into a bag (six in a bag), get all the air out without squishing them, and seal it properly with a bread tie. You'd think that'd be easy, but it took some time to practice. To use a bread tie, you must wrap it twice around the bag—once all the air is out—and twist the tie three times. This method ensures the tie doesn't fall off or loosen during shipping. I learned how to bag not only burger buns, but hoagies, seeded buns, slider buns, brioche buns, pressed buns, hotdog buns, 6 oz pretzels, 8 oz pretzels, pretzel twists, ciabatta (square and rectangles), loaves of bread, and many other items. I learned how to tell when the bread was ready to pack, and I learned how to slice loaves, a frightening task because the blades moved fast, and they were sharp.
My next learning experience involved the dish pit, taught to me by Sam Hayes, who worked at Reality Kitchen for over 7 years. Sam Hayes was a local rap musician (rap isn't my kind of music) and a fan of video games, TV shows, and movies. Sam (who insisted on calling me Sam the Second), showed me how to scrub dishes in hot water, pile them onto flats, and push the flats through the Jackson dishwasher. The trick is to pile as many dishes as possible on the flats (or pegged ones), so that water isn't wasted—water bills can be expensive. Also, it's important to put silverware and smaller dishes under bowls or bins, so they don't fly out. He showed me the proper way for the dishes to dry on racks before adding them to dried dishes, used by bakers and the chef at the time, who was called by everyone, "Chef Sparkles." I had no idea what his real name was, but I remember how he cooked me good food. He worked there for the first three or four months that I worked there, but eventually, he disappeared, likely went to work someplace else.
One day, while I was eating his food in the café, Chef Sparkles came up to me and said, "Sam, you have a pretty face; I just want you to know that. You're a very handsome man." I'm not sure where he was going with that, and although I felt bashful by his compliment, I also felt uncomfortable. I would've said something to Jim about his comment, but the following week, he was gone, and I never saw him again.
Once he was out of there, Jim and his wife Catherine cooked until Jim hired another chef named Rob. Chef Rob had a great sense of humor, a big heart, and he loved country music and blues just like my wife and me (I also enjoy jazz). He'd make us delicious meals send us home with food. We would deliver totes of his cooked lunches and dinners to COVID-19 patients (not directly; we'd give the food to the nurses outside). Chef Rob worked at Reality Kitchen for several months until the COVID-19 location had too few patients); then he went to cook at kitchen.
My wife and I loved his fettucine alfredo and mashed potatoes and pork.
I learned how to do deliveries in the delivery van during the first week. The supervisor took me on deliveries once, and Jim took me on a round of deliveries (to show me the ropes, so to speak). Jim drove me to a place in downtown Eugene where he painted a mural, since he was a mural artist and a talented one.
Deliveries involved placing the boxed bread in the back of the delivery van. I had an invoice, and I was required to check the invoice to make sure the items in the boxes match the invoice. Most of the time, a round of deliveries would be between 3 to 6 places, sometimes more, sometimes less. Once I delivered the bread, the restaurant or café or bar would double-check the amount I handed them and sign the invoice, sometimes writing a check or paying in cash. It was my responsibility to make sure the invoice and check or cash made its way back into the office where they belong. During the latter half of the year, the delivery van had several mechanical issues, but Jim worked from the office to ensure deliveries were made, and safety was his number one priority.
Another part of the job was collecting recycling and trash—often quite nasty—and take them to the dumpsters outside. This was done by switching a full (or halfway full) garbage bag with a new bag and putting the full trash bags together in a trash can that sits on a low level 4-wheeled dolly that was filled and needed to be taken outside to the dumpster. The recycling went into a large blue bin with wheels that also gets taken out to a separate dumpster. This essential task was done each day to ensure bakers and cooks would have a place to put their garbage without having to slow their cooking and baking process and do the garbage themselves. And of course, washing hands was something everyone did often at Reality Kitchen, especially after taking out the trash.
The last thing I learned during training was how to mop. The first step was sweeping the floors beforehand. Jim one time saw me mop the floor based on a technique I learned from a theatre class at the University of Oregon—a technique I learned for mopping stages before each performance. Jim, however, pulled me aside and taught me a different method for mopping floors—and I'm so happy he did because his way was better. His technique involved wetting the mop, wringing out the mop in the bucket, then when it was time to put the mop to the floor, I would move the mop-head side to side while walking backwards about an arm's length. Once I did that, I would use the scratch pad side and scrubbed at the floor from left to right, making sure not to miss any spots. Then I'd flip the mop head over and go over it again to ensure there'd be no streak marks. Then I'd repeat the process. It would take 2 1/2 to 3 hours to mop the entire building, which would leave me sore and tired—usually I'd take advantage of the weekend to recover. I've had blisters on my hands from mopping, and I've developed rough calluses on my hands. I've used a nurturing hand cream at home—a cream made in Israel from the brand Lavido.
In my first four months at Reality Kitchen, most of my job was only dishes and packing and mopping floors. The supervisor did the fun job of telling me what to do (mostly the order in which he wanted everything to be done), and he would take the bread I packed and made the delivery. Minus those jobs, he'd pull bread from the freezer, print off invoices, and went on smoke breaks—lots of smoke breaks. I estimate that for each hour he worked, he smoked for about twenty to thirty minutes outside, right under a No Smoking sign—quite ironic, if you ask me.
Jim pulled me aside one day after first four months of employment and asked if my fiancée Kaylee Condos would like a job (since she worked at Reality Kitchen several years back as the primary delivery driver while I was in college). I went home that night and asked her, and she was happy to receive the offer. She accepted and started working with me as soon as it was possible.
The supervisor wasn't happy about that at all. Although he told Kaylee he was happy to see her again (they worked together years back), he didn't show it by his body language and the tone in his voice, especially because Kaylee took the fun job of afternoon deliveries away from him. Now he had to do more tasks inside the bakery, but instead of doing that, he took more breaks, especially more smoke breaks; and also, he decided to take an entire month sabbatical off from work.
Before he took that time off, they trained another guy to replace him because our old supervisor wanted to quit the job, always complaining about low-pay and lack of respect. I never felt like the pay was low, but I struggled (and sometimes still do) with getting enough hours. As I write this blog (Tuesday), yesterday our shift was only 2 1/2 hours, and today our shift was only 2 1/2 hours. And it was a lot of gas to drive to work and home. On the other hand, sometimes we worked over the number of scheduled hours. It was difficult to obtain or even balance the correct number of hours because it was usually based on work available. And the work was not very difficult—most of it is self-explanatory and laborious.
The next person that supervised us was like a drill sergeant, jealous of my wife and I, and difficult to work with. One day (he actually did this for several days), he did all the deliveries and left us with nothing to do, so he told my wife and I to take a rag and clean the carts. Our entire five-hour shift was nothing more than wiping down carts. People saw this, and nobody seemed to like it. The chef hated to see us slaving for five hours on racks. He thought it was cruel, inhumane. I understand a simple wipe down, but this supervisor wanted us to clean them spotless, even making threats toward us. He said, "If you don't make those carts shine, I'll give you a job you won't like so much." My wife said something about his behavior to Jim, but Jim's reply was, "You don't trust the people I hire?" We cleaned carts three to five days per week for several hours a day, often our entire shift. And the carts (since they were used so often) came back dirtier than we could keep them clean. Our hands were always wrinkly because of the wet soapy rags we held for hours and hours, our arms and hands were sore, and we still felt unappreciated by that supervisor.
We, however, felt that we had no other choice but to deal with the new supervisor. But honestly, we felt close to quitting our jobs. I didn't feel welcomed in that environment, and neither did my wife. Scrubbing carts all day was not our ideal job.
But maybe our boss was right? Perhaps we should trust the people he hired? Perhaps they're better than us, and we're the low-life ones? Was this some kind of punishment?
It was during that time I saw some hope over the horizon. Although the supervisor was getting worse and worse, forcing us to wipe every spot—no matter how unnecessary—and separating my fiancée and I at every chance he could, Jim offered me an opportunity to teach high school students creative writing, since I'm a published author with multiple college degrees. The new supervisor didn't like that at all. He was jealous. He did everything so I'd throw in the towel and my wife and I would quit our jobs. He even made sexual comments toward my fiancée, and that became too much. He would walk up to her while she was packing and say, "Look at those nice, soft, fluffy buns. I'd sure like to touch me them buns, buns, buns." He wasn't looking at the burger buns, he was looking at my fiancée. But I stayed vigilant, cautious, and never left her alone with him. It wasn't that I didn't trust my wife, because I did, I didn't trust him, and the things he'd put us through.
I didn't think we'd last much longer at Reality Kitchen. However, a few weeks into the class, I went into work one day with my wife and learned that the replacement supervisor called Jim and said, "I'm pulling out," and that was it. He was gone, no two-week notice, and the old supervisor was back. Although the old supervisor was difficult to work with, he was much better than the replacement.
It felt almost like a breath of fresh air.
The most difficult time I had with the old supervisor was when I told him about my men's retreat with our church, Ekklesia Eugene. He said, "Church? Barf," and he walked off making barfing noises in front of the entire staff. And since then, I perceived that he thought of me as less educated, and he acted as if my existence as a Christian was a threat to his homosexuality. He even told people that I don't know how to slice bread, although I had done it dozens of times in front of him. Often his aggression toward my wife and I was low-key and subtle, but sometimes he made it obvious. However, scripture teaches believers to love one another, even love our enemies. My role as a Christian wasn't to offend him or hurt him or hold his life choices against him. Scripture convicts. My job as a Christian is to love people and extend the grace God gave me toward others. And if that inspires others, I give the glory to God. And that can lead them to Christ. It's repulsive to throw scripture down people's throats. The Bible teaches us a different approach. Love one another.
My fiancée and I got married. Our boss Jim and his wife attended our wedding. They provided our wedding cake, wedding cupcakes, and they gave each of our guests a bag of heart shaped pretzels (pictured below).
It was the best wedding we could ever ask for.
Each Tuesday while my wife did the dishes or deliveries or cleaned around the bakery, I taught Elmira High School students creative writing over Zoom while seated in the café. Jim and I became closer as friends because we shared a common interest: storytelling. Jim and I loved stories and wanted to enrich high schoolers in the craft of writing. We came together and made it happen. Each student in the class wrote a new short story for publication, and each student had workshops with us each week.
After the classes were over, we had a new project: Salem farm orders. This included new items for the bakery to produce such as shortcakes, biscuits, and different kinds of cookies. The supervisor wanted nothing to do with these orders because he wasn't the person to drive them to Salem and drop them off—that was the job for us. The Salem farm orders required us to print off a list of the orders, pull the cookies from the freezer and pack them, and we had to label the food items with labels (pictured below). We had pretzels to package and label. We had loaves, ciabatta, and challah braids to package and label. We needed to pack totes of biscuits and shortcakes—100 per container. Some orders would have up to 800 shortcakes, 400 biscuits, making the delivery a valuable one. Once we had everything packed and ready to go, we would leave the food on the counters until the following morning when we'd store them in the delivery van and drive them to Salem. The trip took about 3-4 hours to complete, depending on the traffic, mechanical issues with the delivery van, and the time it took to drop off the items and get a signature on the invoice and a check.
We loved these Salem trips. It was a time for us to connect as a married couple while working for our job and making others happy by delivering the highest quality food.
After some time, the supervisor found another job that he said was better (higher pay) for him and left us with a new supervisor. This new supervisor seemed to do great with getting tasks done in a quick and timely manner, but this supervisor took most of the deliveries and left us with barely any to do. We spent much of our time at the bakery, which was fine, although my wife was supposed to be the primary delivery driver. Perhaps we were used to the old supervisor who took more smoke breaks and extended more work to others. We tried our best to support this supervisor. We didn't know too much about this new supervisor because this supervisor was so new and untalkative, but we were being as gracious as possible with this person because of various mistakes that arose.
We've faced many instances where we'd get blamed for someone else's mistakes. That's why it was difficult to trust anyone Jim hired (and that was not to put anyone down), but rather, we had learned it was better to stay on guard and keep watch for other's mistakes, that way we could fix them as we saw them. If we didn't fix other's mistakes, we'd be blamed for them. It seemed too often that our biggest struggles were usually our supervisors, and it rarely ever had anything to do with the work itself. But over time, our supervisors had gotten better by teaching us and helping us be successful, rather than set us up for failure. We had many ups and downs, but we learned that our supervisors were generally helpful people with the goal of getting the job done.
I believe in the mission of Reality Kitchen: to employ individuals with and without disabilities to provide them with a safe and enjoyable workplace where they can flourish and grow and help the community. Reality Kitchen is a unique and special bakery and café located in the heart of Eugene with the purpose of providing the highest quality breads and sweets and restaurant quality food to customers. Reality Kitchen is a non-profit that thrives on the customer's satisfaction.
My first year working at Reality Kitchen had a fair share of challenges, such as difficulties with supervisors, gaining weight (I ate too much when I was stressed), my wife's miscarriage, instructing high school students, money management, and a good amount of physical pain from a lifetime of sports and injuries. I gained so much good out of the difficulties and challenges. I was able to earn income to support my family and church. I saved enough money to get married and buy a new stove and a new car (well, a used car, but new to us); and I was able to work on my next book throughout the year and make plans for the future.
I see the next year as a better year. I learned much from the first year, and I have goals going into my second year of employment to make better use of my time, and to continue to use my income wisely. My next year will include more writing, more exercise, continuing my walk with God, and working the best I can at Reality Kitchen. I can see myself working there for a long time, but who knows if that will be the reality—it depends on how we are treated and various outcomes of the future. Either way, if I work there for a long time or not, I'm truly blessed to have this moment where I can work with my wife. Not many people have that opportunity and actually enjoy it. We love the 30-minute drive to work and the 30-minute drive back home. It's a great time to talk and listen to music and get into the right mindset. And we work great together. Teamwork is best in jobs and in relationships. And we have the best of both worlds. I care about my boss and his wife, who are both so thoughtful, kind, loving, and supportive (I'm not a sycophant; we've had our difficult times, too). They have a big heart. They care about us, give us time off when we need it, listen to us, compliment us, and they understand our ups and downs.
This blog entry serves as an honest, thoughtful reflection of our first year of employment. I feel blessed to be on the Reality Kitchen team, and I look forward to a positive second year of employment.
Check out the pictures below (organized from oldest to most recent at the bottom):
Before ^
After ^
