New Pink Slip Lemonade story: Fork in the road leads guest blogger Patti Anastasia to become personal chef
In addition to sharing this story of making Pink Slip Lemonade from layoff lemons, guest blogger Patti Anastasia of Anastasia’s Table personal chef service is also providing our Recipe of the Week, one for each week of Pink Slip Lemonade month. So mix yourself a Pink Slip Lemonade Martini or a Pink Slip Lemonade Iced Tea, and enjoy the story. And don’t forget to watch Patti’s blog for more tasty, always creative treats!
My pink slip came in January 2003. I remember it clearly. It turned out that it was the beginning of the rest of my life. But that day, it didn’t feel like it. I didn’t see it coming. I was shocked. You know how it is when a VP calls you into their office at 8am. Your first thought is “Oh crap, what did I do wrong”. I actually got good news that day, my job was ending, but I got four months notice and a generous severance package if I agreed to stay on until May 30th to teach the outsourcing company how to do the work of my department. Not exactly how I wanted to spend the next four months, but the rest of my department was shown the door that day.
At that point in my career, I had been a technical writer for 22 years. After a week of job hunting, I knew that I wasn’t going to find a job like the one I had because my job was my invention. I was an information architect; very little of my time was spent writing technical manuals and that was not what I wanted to do.
Somewhere in the back of mind was a plan to become a personal chef. I read about personal chefs in cooking magazines. It was the perfect retirement career for me. When we were riding the internet wave, it was plausible that we could retire from our high-tech careers in our 40s, then do something fun for part-time work. The internet bust put those plans out of my mind. Shortly after my pink slip came, those plans started creeping back into my thoughts. Not just creeping, swirling around in my brain distracting me from everything. I had to figure out how to make it happen.
It was going to be a huge leap. I knew nothing about starting and running a business. I had always worked for someone else. High tech offered a big salary, there were a million reasons not to do it. But something in me wanted to jump off the cliff even though I was scared out of my mind about the leap.
Lots of things made this change possible. The biggest thing was that my husband and I were on top of our finances. We had worked with a financial planner for years. We had a budget so we could see where we could cut back, we had saving plans, we had my severance pay. When we bought our home, we looked only at homes that we could afford on one salary and we were almost 10 years into our 15 year mortgage. We had been using health insurance provided by my job, but we could switch to health insurance provided by my husband’s job. We could get a home equity line of credit before my job ended. Another big part of the financial side of it was that my husband was willing to forgo my earning potential in high tech to pursue this dream. I did research on starting a business. We agreed that my business had two years to prove itself; if I wasn’t contributing to our household expenses within two years, we would reassess my career plans.
I started my business before my job ended. Within a month of my pink slip, we made the decision to take the leap. I had a boatload of vacation time so I took a vacation day almost every week to work on my business. I landed my first client in April 2003. And I never looked back. By the time my job ended on May 30th, I knew that even though this fork in the road wasn’t going to be easy, it was the right fork in the road for me to take. My business celebrated its 6th birthday in March 2009. Getting laid off was a blessing. It pushed me to do something that was risky, but that has had great rewards. What I do now makes a difference to others. That makes a difference to me.
I was Patti’s boss when she was a techy and now I get to be one of her “bosses” in her personal chef role. She was a great info architect, but an even better personal chef. Can’t tell you how much my husband and I look forward to her arrival each month. Like Patti, I chose to leave my job to start a consulting biz in marcom for high tech companies, so I didn’t manage to complete escape. I continue to write but am also slowly developing a second career as a jeweler. I hope that by retirement time, I can use this second act to fund my jeweling addiction.
I’ve known Patti since she started her personal chef business. She has been a mentor to me as well as so many others. She exemplifies everything you would expect from a consummate professional. Without Patti, I would have had a difficult time deciding where to take my own business. With her support and advice, I am finally where I want to be. She’s a loyal friend and goes above and beyond for her clients. She truly loves what she does.
Never knew about your story, Patti. Who knew there were so many of us happy ex tech’s out there. Thanks for sharing some great financial advice. I”m sure you’ve just inspired many!
Congrats to Chef Patti, whose recipes for surplus zucchini were featured in the Feast section of today’s NashuaTelegraph! http://tinyurl.com/munxlt
[...] networking group. An extra big shout out goes to Chef Patti Anastasia, who not only shared her story but also created several Pink Slip Lemonade recipes just for [...]