Employment, Housing, Beer, and other things.

 

Picture of me taken by my wife at a keg tapping of Hop Silo 16 beer by Tampa Bay Brewing Company last night at Craft Street.

     Very recently I moved yet again to another spot in Florida, this time leaving my job of 5 years with an Anheuser Busch distributor. They sold their brands and distribution in Florida to other beer distributors, which left me empty and losing faith in the business that brought me up in this state.. Beer. Low on energy to do this all over again, I knew I had to change things up.

     As outlined in some other posts from long ago, I've worked in Distribution for almost 20 years in one way or another. Sales, marketing, events, administration, operations, finance, and national accounts most recently. I've managed brands and developed programs for breweries for the last 11 years of that 20. I had the urge to work with the people that have always been great to me and been the most fun to work with; the local guys, the ones who made really good beer and fought the good fight in the market to do different and interesting things. I wanted to make the change over to the Supplier side of the industry for the first time since I worked for Molson/Coors in 2010.

     You have to have a job right? I applied for any and everything to get an idea of what people would be interested in as far as employment. I don't know if you have been looking lately, but there are a ton of jobs out there. I started in distribution and started applying for supplier and local level positions right out of the gate before the other 190 employees being laid off would get there first. I secured some decent references and worked in for a week straight, at one point keep a spreadsheet of all my applications and interview processes. I had two and a half months to make something happen.

     Offers started coming in first from distributors from people that know me or I have worked with in the past, which kind of surprised me at first. The company that sold offered me a transfer out of state, and the new regime that took over offered me a position as well. I was waiting for one company in particular to call me back, so I told everyone else to hold the line, as I have severance coming and they would need to wait. Eventually that call did come, and my dream job in the supplier world presented itself. A local legend in the industry, someone known to make things happen, take risks, and well known to be very good to his employees reached out to me and I couldn't say YES fast enough. I said goodbye to the severance, moved to Tampa and started my new job the very next week. 

    The rest is history! I'm settled in my new place, already love the people I work for and with, and made some friends with some really talented people in the industry. I've already started my book blog back up and made my first post, and there I've outlined the timeline of my 5 moves in 4 years. 

Cheers!