I was willing to do anything to be a part of Seattle’s tech scene.
I had been working in restaurants for years. In restaurants, you have to deal with customers all day long, you have to do chores around the restaurant when you’re not dealing with customers, you don’t get paid vacations, you don’t get any equity in the company, and you don’t get many perks. Oh yeah, and restaurants unexpectedly go out of business all the time.
I had friends who worked in tech, and they seemed to have it made. They got all-expense-paid happy hours. They got unlimited paid time off (yes, you read that right—some companies offer unlimited vacation time to compete for talent). They got equity in the company in the form of stock options. They sat around talking about “unicorns” (start-ups valued at $1 billion). They talked about when they might “vest” their shares. I’d heard it all and, frankly, I was jealous. All I was vesting were discounted sushi rolls after my shifts.
I needed to taste it for myself. So I made it happen, through hard work and luck. I served my last table. Folded my last napkin. Half-assed my last batch of side work. I had wanted out for six years, and after years of countless networking coffee dates, I made it out.
I landed a job in tech.