Chef to Physicist

(The date reflected on the post is the date that I migrated the post over from LinkedIn. The original story is from 2019)

(Preface (08/21/2020); I wrote this a few years ago and edited/updated it last year. This is the story of my career change and the emotions that were experienced along the way. I have no ill feelings toward those who took advantage of me, and I hope those who I was unpleasant to have none for me as well. This is my story of the inevitable downfall, and my painful climb back up.)

Sitting on the porch during a warm fall evening, a close friend whom I have known for years pleaded passionately with me about my underperformance with grades. There was a calm expression on my face as the words, passed through my emotions like wind through a swing-set. My research was moving forward nicely, with several professors interested in my abilities, my performance in several competitions was above average, but the GPA I was sporting as I entered my fourth year of undergraduate was dangerously low. However, I was overly confident in my ability to squeeze by and become the modern Reimann. Despite my acute ability for theoretical mathematics, I was unable to follow the pattern that was predicting the letter I received shortly following my marriage less than a year after that anticipatory conversation. I was “academically dismissed”, which was the most pleasant way possible, for the registrar’s office of Rowan University to inform me that I had failed.

After working in southern New Jersey for around a year my wife and I decided to move up to upstate New York where I was born and raised. I took some odd jobs here and there, working in residential care for people with developmental disabilities. After a while of little to no professional progress, I wanted to try my hand at cooking professionally. Growing up I enjoyed cooking tremendously. It was, after all, a science complete with experimentation and creativity. The only skill I had to truly develop was my work ethic. Brutally long days, pain in many of my joints, burns, cuts, heated tempers, the list goes on. There is no experience like cooking professionally, only those who have made it through the trenches know what it’s like. As it turns out, I was quite a talented cook and later chef. The skills came naturally, and the work ethic was something I could learn. I found myself bouncing from restaurant to restaurant quickly peaking in restaurants located in Binghamton. I decided I would try my hand at City restaurant life. I took a Job working at The Lambs Club in New York City. Traditional French Cuisine and all that working in that environment entails were completely different experiences. Though I had a quaky start, I again was able to overcome and become quite adept at this harsh environment.

Despite my successes inside the walls of the restaurant, my ability to support my growing family under NYC conditions was not successful. Living in the city with two small children on a line cook salary was damn near impossible. This was when we retreated to Vestal and I began to work in the Binghamton restaurant scene again. Inside I secretly felt broken, I found the work not challenging and very repetitive. I found my way to Tall Pines Players Club where I enjoyed tremendously the environment, save a few people. The beautiful scenic restaurant was very welcomed after my daily commute to NYC.

Needing more income, I decided to pick up work at one of my previous employments Lost Dog Café. It was there through my close friend Joe, that I had previously learned how to handle myself on a fast pace line. While Joe was still there, the atmosphere changed. It became more challenging to find the desire to be there. I was growing more intensely dissatisfied by the day. I was miserable to be around both at work and home. I was becoming the person I never wanted to be. Staying out late, sleeping in, and wanting little to do with anyone or anything. To pass the time I would retreat to my computer and play a strategy game online that I used to enjoy. One big difference was, at this point in my life I was terrible at it. It became just one more thing I was furious with daily. It all culminated one day at the age of twenty-seven.

It was fall and students had returned to town. This meant the restaurant was back to being extremely busy. The day started fairly standard. I made my way into dry storage to find the order from the previous day was still not put away. This was in fact standard. My blood began to boil, as this was one of those things that would happen, and I would normally just swallow the anger and put the truck order away. Today was different though. I walked back to the kitchen and hastily asked one of the other cooks why the order wasn’t put away. Their response was along the lines of “we knew you would take care of it today,” which was followed by a chuckle. Internally, my anger erupted. I nodded at my coworker and proceeded to calmly walk back into dry storage. I reached to grab the first box to put it away, but the box taunted me. Beads of sweat formed on my forehead. The cardboard felt disgusting, the lettering on the box was a list of all my failures, and the stacking of the boxes was a reminder of order. Something I envied vehemently. The product in my hand made its way through the air with a velocity enough to blast multiple holes in the sides. My untethered rage was abounding. The orderly stack would find the same fate as my mental stability. Like confetti at a wedding, pasta and pieces of boxes fluttered through the air as I swung my fists, grabbed them, and smashed whatever I could. The years of losing myself to this hideous form were being played out. Somewhere in the mix a box bit back and serrated a decent cut into my hand. Out of breath and noticing the blood I grabbed a paper towel. I sat down on a milk crate around the carnage that I had just created. I thought to myself “what happened”. I was once an intellectual academic full of thought and promise. Yet here I sit, the savage, the deadbeat, and the poor excuse of a husband, father, and son. I never felt like it was the career choice. Being a Chef is admirable. I’ve worked with some of the best and some of the worst. The career is brutal and those who do it are remarkable people. It was what the career did to me that was deplorable. Maybe, better stated; it was what I let my career do to me. I spent some time cleaning up my mess and wondering about a remedy. Luckily, much of the disaster could be salvaged and no one knew what happened back there that day. One permanent thing happened though, I changed.

It was September 2015; this was around the time that LIGO had detected its first event, the merger of two supermassive black holes. I like to believe that the sweeping of gravitational waves over me was what led me to this life change. I made two life choices that escalated into a dramatic life alteration. The first choice I made was to no longer go out and drink with friends after work. Nothing long-term positive manifested itself on those nights. It was merely a stress reliever that only covered up the internal issues. Furthermore, getting home earlier allowed me a chance to get more rest. Overall, this improved my mentality. The second change was far greater. I decided to start listening to science podcasts and audiobooks. I spent 60 to 70 hours a week in the kitchen. More than half of which I could listen to music on my headphones. Why not change it? So instead of music, I listened to Star Talk Radio.

Three major influencers happened over that winter. All of which I am very grateful for. The First was Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Star Talk Radio. It was through this show I got the taste. The taste that something was there to discover. I felt connected to these scientific problems that were being laid out. I needed more though. The content of Star Talk only touched the surface of these scientific issues. Digging deeper I found the next and greatest influencers in my journey; Brian Greene and the World Science Festival. I listened to some of Brian Greene’s popular works before I found the WSF. I binged on the programs that the WSF had uploaded on YouTube. I mean I was obsessed with all of them. I remember days when I would spend twelve or more hours listening to the programming of the WSF. My new self was constantly in thought again. Wondering about the universe from the quantum realm to the cosmological realm. My mind was being exercised and I was becoming a better person. I decided that spring, I would go back to school.

The World Science Festival was exciting, enticing, and enthralling, and I wanted to do more. I applied to Binghamton University but was met with rejection. I would like to say that my heart sank. It didn’t though. I mostly expected this. When I met with a counselor, she reminded me of my past. The academic dismissal was staring me down now and I needed to make more decisions. The counselor was pleasant, she informed me that if I were to go to school at Binghamton, I would need to do a full reset of curriculum and start from square one at Broome Community College (where I had already previously spent 2 years in 06’ and 07’). This is the moment when I was devastated. Four more years of undergraduate was not something I wanted to be thinking about staring down my 28th birthday. After some conversations with my wife, I decided I would teach myself independently. I spent many nights and weekends ingesting physics and mathematics materials, unsure of which route I was going to take. Enter the third influencer.

One day in my studies I found an article that claimed Einstein’s theory of special relativity broke down under a certain condition. I was able to use high school algebra to prove that their conjecture was wrong but was unable to find the exact solutions as to why the theory held. I didn’t know at this time that the journal that published the article was completely bogus. I was ignorant of how these things worked. So, like the ambitious go-getter that I am, I wrote a paper explaining why this is wrong and tried to seek publication. It was my duty to vindicate Einstein. I sent the paper to a series of obvious rejections. One of which was unforgivably embarrassing, Physics Review D. Never hearing of it, I assumed it was small. I had no idea about the prestige surrounding this journal. My paper landed in the hands of Erick Weinberg the third influencer. He wrote me back a very pleasant email informing me of my mistake in taking the bogus paper seriously. He also helped me find the correct formulation for why Einstein’s Theory held (independent of my existence). Even though I was very embarrassed, I wrote back and asked him about another idea that I had that was raised by writing the paper. To my surprise, he replied again. He gently, informed me that all of this would become clear if I were to receive a formal education. Professor Weinberg’s courteous reply was what I needed to hear. Had He responded dismissively or not at all, I feel I would have backlashed, and I may be singing a different tune these days. I decided I would begin my college career again in the fall.

Four years to get my degree was still out of the question. I chose the physics path and began taking classes at Broome Community College. More was required though. I took one class at Binghamton University and began researching. After rejection from seven scholars, I ended up researching With Dr. Bruce White. What a tremendous time that was. Dr. White helped me get my academic feet back. His graciousness and willingness to teach me were unwarranted but very appreciated. During this first year back at school I remained cooking at the two restaurants. I needed to keep full-time hours of work to support my family through this experience. The finances were rough. I was gone more, and we had less money. My wife supported this change sincerely. She knew I was broken, and this change needed to happen. Through the efforts of myself and my family, I was able to get a 4.0 GPA at Broome Community College and a 3.4 at Binghamton University. With a reference letter from Dr. White and my GPA, I was accepted into Binghamton University as a full-time student to start my second year.

During November of the second year, the realization set in that I could Graduate over the summer. After two full years and one summer session (plus the four failed years earlier), I would have enough completed credits to graduate. The feeling of being done was very liberating, but then what. Finding myself with this conundrum, I began weighing my options. I wanted to go to Graduate School to begin working on problems that were on the frontier, but I was still a mathematician at heart. My degree would be in mathematical physics and that is what I desired to do. Ultimately, I wanted the tools I needed to study a mathematical formulation of time in physics. There was only one professor at Binghamton University, Dr. Charles Nelson that could do this with me, yet he was not able to take any students. Some of the other projects were fascinating but they ultimately were not where I wanted to be. I began the process to join the Air Force. They were accepting physicists and would allow me to have steady work in my field while I find a new area to settle down for graduate school in the future.

The unexpected twist came when Dr. Nelson decided he would take me on and teach me the mathematical methods and phenomenology needed to become a particle physicist. With Dr. Nelson’s fantastic news and some health concerns that would affect my entry into the Air Force, I decided to do an about-face and attend Graduate school at Binghamton University. After Graduating and making it through one more summer of full-time work in a kitchen I was finally able to cut down my restaurant work to part-time. For the first time in the seven years of cooking I was finally not a professional cook anymore it was merely a part-time gig to get me through school. This was terrifying yet exciting. The First year of Graduate School was by far the hardest year of my life. The Stress of being perpetually behind was exhausting. Hanging my homework from the ticket holder above the window while I cut vegetables and sautéed pasta, was a common occurrence. Between, cooking, homework, classes, crafting lesson plans and quizzes for my students, and research. I have never been torn in so many directions.

The surprise from my first year was how much I enjoyed the act of teaching. Not so much the grading and the planning but having students was very enjoyable. They were curious about the things that captivated me so much in my darker days. Some of my students would hear one way or another that my project involves dark matter and would become very fascinated with the topic sometimes leading to long in-depth discussions of space and time. The ability to excite younger people has been very rewarding. Recently, I was able to go down to the World Science Festival as a volunteer. My time there was remarkable. I met many wonderful people. Some students, some teachers, and some non-academic people were generally just interested in the sciences. The most notable experience was taking part in the City of Science. Explaining the sciences to very young very impressionable kids who are natural explorers was amazing. It was wonderful to be a part of an event that has such a large impact on people. I’m certain there are other versions of people like me who have hit a solid wall in life and need to remember that joy of exploring they had as a child.

As I make my way through Graduate School, I sometimes wonder why I did it all, and why my family did it all. Statistically, it’s unlikely I will lead the next scientific revolution as a thirty-something-year-old. No, I did it for my kids, and for others who are at a job they loathe. I want my kids to know what I did and why I did it; to give them a better future. Not necessarily financially, but I want to be there for them emotionally and intellectually. To do this I needed to find happiness. I needed to be pushed to the limit of my abilities. They need to see firsthand that working as hard as they can has rewards, whatever field they choose. So that one day, they can have a future they love and a career they look forward to progressing in.

While I still cook, and most days dread going to work, I am a lot happier. When I get home from work or before I go in, my life has personal meaning. I’m furthering the human bank of knowledge. A charge I do not take lightly. My kids experience me as a passionate excited individual who looks forward to progressing. A far stretch away from the individual I used to be. I am proud of the accomplishments I have achieved over the past four years, but I will not soon forget the road of trial it took to get here.

Update (8/21/2020); After almost ten years, I am in the final week of my career in the restaurant industry. With every major step into this career change, I have found myself facing large rushes of emotions. Unsure of my success, terrified of the unknown, and mostly facing the failures of my past. I have always wanted to spend a period of my life inspiring and helping others through any similar battles they may be facing. I did not know that I would be finding this at such an early stage in my career. As I continue to grow my project, I want everyone to know that the purpose of this project has always been to help and inspire others. I hope you continue to find this to be true, as we enjoy each other’s company studying physics together.