w/my dad

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Hello, hello. Thanks for listening to Guidance Counselor 2.0. Listen, I want to give you a quick rundown of what this podcast is and what you're about to get into as you listen to these episodes. We had Guidance Counselors in middle school. We had Guidance Counselors in high school, but we didn't really have Guidance Counselors in college and now as professionals, we don't really have anybody to turn to to ask a quick question to learn something about the job search or to navigate your career. And so that is what I want this podcast to be for you. I want it to be a tool for you to navigate the job search and your career.

So that being said, I hope you enjoy this episode. And if you need to reach me, Taylor at vaco.com is how to get in touch with me old fashioned email social media at tdesint. D E S S E Y N. And finally, please rate and review this in the app store because I want this to be discoverable for others so they can navigate their careers. Hope you enjoy the episode. Dad, give the people an intro about you, who you are, and then we'll go from there. All right, well, Dave Dessen, of course, Taylor's father. I was originally a military kid. Dad was in the Navy, so grew up a lot of strict standards.

Yes or no sir, that type of thing. I think my mom probably had the same mentality, military mentality. military mentality also was live hard, party hard. So we got a little bit of that going on also. Went to college, was going to be a commercial artist. I look back and feel like I was probably doomed from the beginning because I wanted to make album art and of course albums went away. Hand art pretty much went away, went to computer art so probably not a good choice. I lost my college scholarship after two years. I wasn't a scholarship, my loans, and went into the private sector.

My mom and dad said, good job. And so I ended up washing dishes at a restaurant. And it was a new restaurant. And they said they would hire management from within that group to expand. And so I saw it out into getting into management just made sure I was better than anybody else around me to get promoted in. went through, I think this might be the fourth restaurant I've been with since 1980, first one was a company called O'Brien's. Second was Steak and Ale. Then I did a real long stint with Outback Steakhouse. And I've landed with a company called Taza Kitchen based out of Richmond, Virginia.

Which is fantastic. Taza, if you're watching this, it's time for you to get to Nashville, please. Thank you. Great vibe, farm to table fresh cooking, craft cocktails. So it's got a real unique niche in the market. So this is not an episode. Just let y'all know, we're not about to have a cooking episode either, even though my dad's a great cook. That's happening later. But the one thing, so there's a few topics I wanted to talk to you about, and someone who talked to dinner the other night. But the first thing, so a lot of people are watching this or new in their career. Don't know what to do.

Obviously, I tell your story a lot about finding a job. When you left Outback Steakhouse for 25 years, You didn't know where to turn to. What's some encouraging words to people? Because a lot of people that we deal with are, I'm not calling you old, but what I've experienced, a lot of experienced individuals are kind of going through a career crisis. And so like what can you speak on that as some encouraging words to those folks? It's interesting you use the word experience when I was interviewing with stake and then I went back in the day. I was turned down initially on the first time I interviewed because I said, I need to get more experience.

So you're too young? I was too green. Yeah. I would just say that you need to look at what's available, and you need to put your head down and go for it. My dad said, when you start a job, if you want to make an impression on people, just start doing whatever you see needs to be done. And he says, you will quickly find out where your boundaries are. They'll tell you when you've gone too far. but he said, don't be the guy that has to be told what to do. So I think just, you know, you just gotta put your head down, look at what's available and then go for it.

Well, and then also too, right? I mean, to talk about, talk about, let's talk about when you left Outback Steakhouse, right, you're at Outback Steakhouse for 25 years. Okay, put it in perspective. When I started with Outback Steakhouse, there was not an internet. And I was born basically. So I mean, you were there for a very long time. You were, you only, I mean, literally the internet wasn't even around, you worked there, and then you left your job. The one job you had to talk about how you felt, because I think a lot of people think they're alone on an island. Yeah, so the dilemma was not that I was successful at Outback, the dilemma was- Narrator, he was very successful, so that's not the problem.

I was a little too successful, too successful from the business point of view, but not successful, especially from a family point of view in managing time. And so my mantra was I'd give a third of my pay to have more time off to myself for work. And so I left work because I didn't need to prove anything else. The restaurant was the busiest it ever been. I was making more money than I'd ever made. Unfortunately, I had less time to myself than I ever did. So I left wondering, is this still what I wanna do? Or do I still like what I'm doing just not where I'm at, find a better environment?

So that was the whole issue. There was a little sense of loss. I'm leaving something I've done for a long time that I was hugely successful at. So where did I want to go from there? So you had to determine, did I still enjoy doing what I was doing? So after taking about, I think it was about a year and a half off and burning through some money, a lot of online shopping and that type of thing, but I realized I enjoyed doing what I was doing. I enjoyed the people. So then I had to find an environment where I could enjoy myself in that environment.

And that's where Taylor came along because it was very unfamiliar territory, not going and shaking somebody's hand and speaking to them in person. And so I asked Taylor, I said, look, this internet was not around before. So how do I approach that? And of course, dad or Taylor looked at me and said, well, we've got a resume that was like somewhere somewhere somewhere. It's an a file box, a literal metal file box. I wrote it with a paper. So we started the process and Taylor just guided me through starting to use different means of media and he said, wherever you get the bump on the media, that's where you go.

And then you start using that. But, and before you go to Ford, I like to interrupt people. So, and this is my show, so I kind of interrupt you. So basically, let's go back to what you said about realizing what you wanted. Right. Because I feel like a lot of times people just want to bounce around and make the bread, make the money, which is fine, make the money. But at the end of the day, it's like you said, like there comes a point where it's like, I mean, Jackie's dad says the same thing. He'd rather, he'd rather take a literally, I think you said a third less pay to have more time off.

But like, how long did it take you so when you left out back and you missed and you knew you missed the people, how long did that process take you? Well, it was about over a year. It took a year. It, it, it, well, maybe six months and then the next six months was trying to start figuring out how to get back in and where I wanted to go. So, it was, you know, people asked me probably the last five years I was with the Outback Steakhouse. Well, if you didn't work here, what would you want to do? And that is, I asked you that question.

Yeah, and I think that's such a tough question because number one, if you're working where you're at, if you're always thinking about what you'd rather be doing, you're not going to be successful at where you're at. You're not going to be focused. You're going to be always looking for that next thing. And don't get me wrong, a lot of people have been successful with that. A lot of people are make a job out of jumping from job to job to the next best thing. And I've seen people that have increase their salary, you know, two and three fold by doing that. And, you know, I'm from the generation where you stayed in one place and you worked and you rode there.

You rode that wave as far as you could go. And, you know, I've pretty much done everything I could from a unit level without back steakhouse. And I had had some multi-unit super resin experience in the past and really wasn't interested in doing that. So, you know, the dilemma was, okay, if I'm going to do something else, what do I want to do? Well, yeah, I want to go live on the boat down in the Virgin Islands and pick seashells. You know, I don't know. Well, but also too. So I talk about all the time. Not everybody has to go into senior leadership. Right. You I realize that from early on when my first restaurant job, I was became actually is when I was managing pools.

That's how my mom and dad met. We're going to be in an ad store. That's another. So I was managing pools and one of my best friends was my assistant manager and I offered him the manager position because I was changing to another pool and he didn't want it. And that blew me away. You know, and my dad told me, I was talking to my dad about it. My dad said, you know, Dave, not everybody wants to be in leadership. And you have to understand that. And that takes all kinds of people. So it's not bad. It's not wrong. culture, it's like hustle hustle hustle, work up the chain, the chart, whatever, and something's wrong with you if you don't want to go into leadership, but there's people, I mean I tell people especially even on my team, like listen, like if you just want to recruit until you die, do it and do it well, and that's totally acceptable.

My brother-in-law works for John Hopkins, and he does, I I think NSA stuff. He's not my But he hires Basically Computer Yeah, I still don't know what he does. You know he says he were computer people computer people He works with people what he does is he gives them a challenge And they swarm under that challenge to develop whatever they're developing But that's what they like doing. They're not interested in being enough for management So it's, it, you know, you can't, you're doing somebody a disservice by trying to get them into management. They don't want to be there. They will get very uncomfortable and removed from you.

So you have to kind of realize where people want to go. Yes, where other people want to go as a leader, but then also where you need to go, right? Because you don't want to be as effective as a leader. Right. Well, as long as you know where other people want to go, that'll get you to where you want to go. Oh, that's good. I'll be clipped up and we'll share that on contact. I want to talk positive quick. Samantha Palmer, what's going on back in the day, old neighbor, appreciate it. It's good to see you Chris, especially in the restaurant business. There's no such thing as that's my job.

My dad used to always say that. Amy goes to such a great conversation. Hope 22 is best year yet. Matt Juggers, what's up buddy? Teammate Brandon Arvey. Hey Dave. Andy goes greetings looking to tweak my crew path and join. Y'all thank you, Andy. I appreciate that. and Yolanda, good morning, happy new year everyone. So dad, I want to go into the next thing. I like that quote, that's not my job. Yeah, we call that is the- Not my windows mentality. Yeah, I don't do windows mentality. Exactly. So let's talk about the thing. And again, we only have like 15 minutes. So we can't get too heated here.

Okay, right. Interviewing. Interviewing. What? So give people, so give like a- Yeah, I know exactly. I've lost a lot of time. You got to find somebody to interview first. So my dad, again, the restaurant industry, this is primarily towards tech. But I wanted my dad on because I never want to have such like a tunnel vision view, because I want to tell people stories, because I think my dad's story in the restaurant industry is still applicable to an engineering manager at Google who can't find the right talent. So dad, talk about the state of interview right now, what you have to deal with. And then maybe just some tips to people for interview.

For interview. Yeah. The state of Vancouver right now is that it is very, I'll give you some options. I was talking to you last night. So we increased our base pay for cooks about 60 to 75% of the last year, realizing that if we didn't do that, we wouldn't have anybody in the kitchen because everybody is being forced to do that. But for what in the day I'm paying now, Now you really would have gotten an ace cook. You're still getting the same people that you used to get. What you've done is because that income is being eaten up by society right now. So it's not like it's this huge, you know, if you look at it and say, gosh, we've increased our pay by this, but people aren't realizing that.

So it's a struggle. It's a struggle. And I am just now over the last month and a half starting to see traffic. And I think Taylor deals with that you have to have traffic before you can start getting candidates For a long time. I didn't even have traffic where I would once put an add out and get a hundred applications in two days I'd get 12 I mean that's I mean that's literally where it's at right now and so It's a process of just getting the getting the traffic going and then trying to qualifications and then bringing people into interview. But are you trying, and maybe put you on the spot here, but honestly, it's good.

It's what I like doing this long because people can't have. Are you trying to put in new training in place? I mean, is that's- We are right now. The company is going through a completely new process with the training program and redoing that. Realizing that the talent we're getting is not necessarily the talent we used to have. And so we have to bring these people up to speed a lot better. Hey, companies, you hear that? Restaurants are even innovating. So tech people, if you're not innovating, get with it. Yeah. So, but then we get into the interview part and the candidates interviewing. Yeah, so so where are we?

And give me all that with so much money. Yeah, well, I would just say that if you are going to interview for a job, I don't care who you are. I tell people, my first job for the restaurant, Well, my mom and dad told me I needed to get out and get a job. So I went and interviewed at a restaurant, never worked at a restaurant before. Two years of college as a commercial artist, figured I'd get a management job, right? I've been in college. And they're hiring me to work in the kitchen. And they said, why should we hire you? And I said, and this is because of my dad, I said, because whatever I do, it's going to be the best that you've ever seen.

I said, I don't care if I'm cleaning toilets, it'd be the cleanest toilet you've ever sat on. And I said, so, you know, if you are interviewing, you have to give that person interviewing you something that's going to make you stand out. And I will tell you right now more than anything, you have to show the character that you have and how you deal and take care of what you do before you do anything. Having other jobs in that industry, that's great. time at those jobs is important, but more than anything, you have to be able to show your integrity and your character when you're interviewing the people because when it gets to it, if your interviewing is the one doing all the talking, if your interviewer is doing all the talking, it's gonna be tough.

Yeah, absolutely. So let's talk about leading during and certain times. certain times. I think I've had to innovate, you've had to innovate. What is what is what is one or two things that you're doing differently than you did in March, but for March 2020? Which by the way, March 2020 seems like yesterday, we're like in this weird. Yeah. And this was, hey, hey, can somebody else confirm Hillary says that the stream has ended, Hillary, we're still going on our end. So hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, we're still going to someone comment to make sure that stream still going? Anyways, so yeah, leadership stuff. Okay, what are we doing differently?

What are you doing? What am I doing differently? More so than anything, instead of talking to people about work at work, I'm trying to talk to them about life. I didn't even team up for that. We will talk about how are you You know, what's going on? Why is that? What's going on in your family? Because more than anything, in this times that we're in, people need to feel that connection. If you don't have a connection, they're not going to stay with you. And they have to know you care for them, because back some of those Lou Holtz videos we used to watch. But I couldn't understand half of it, but, you know, knowing that somebody's parents got COVID, checking in on them, how they're doing, knowing somebody might have had an accident in a car and you check it in with them.

Just touching base with them, you know, instead of going and saying, hey, I know she's doing this, this was okay, I need you to work on this, just saying, how are you doing? You know, what's going on with you? And so anything I can help you out with and just communicating with them on a regular basis, let them know that you're interested in that you care. I love that. I love that. Yeah, and I mean, obviously, this group heard me say at a time, but I think, well, and then my dad said, and then we talked about this too, working in a remote setting versus, I mean, my dad has to go into work, right?

He has to go into work, people have to go to work in a professional industry. Also, tipping people well, right? Tipping people well right now. But the one thing I talk about is I think in meetings sometimes, like I'm just so, I mean, to be honest, excuse my friends, I'm just like, cut the bullshit. Let's just jump to it. All right, we have this topic. Let's go bang, bang, bang. You don't got time to talk. I ain't got time to talk. Let's just get it over with. We're done. Yeah, the business meeting. Yeah, yeah. Right. But now, but now, it's not that, because we're dealing with a pandemic, people still are scared.

People are battling. I mean, we were talking about as a family last night at dinner, is that more people have COVID right now than I've ever known. I mean, 20, 25 people in my friend group have it at least. And so, it's one of these things where like, you have to check in on people. And I think as a leader, I think showing people they care, showing people you care, is an incredible way to level up. It is, and it's caring about their health, that it's caring about their mental health. You talk about Hills and Valleys, and I call it the COVID Canyon. It was, you know, it's some tough things to deal with.

And so you've just got to make sure that people know you're interested in them, you know? I think Lou Holtz in that video had said that, you know, people need to know you're interested in them, not that, you know, if he's coaching a football team, if they were a good kicker, they could carry the ball well and run and stuff like that. But how are they doing? for big college football, guys, I can't tell. So is there anything else? Is there any secret sauce of Dave Destin from a management perspective that you like to share with hiring managers out there right now? Because you've been in it for 90 years.

Thanks, it's not quite that long. But I think just from a hiring perspective, you have to give the people to open up. You have to find out where their head is at. You have to let them know that you care about them. But you also need to make sure they understand that you are running a business also. I think one of the most difficult things sometimes that we face is that while we do care about people and want them to be healthy and want them to have a good mental outlook and that type of thing, at the end of the day, we do still have a business to run.

So it's let them know that, you know, yeah, I care about you and I'm interested in you for a position, you know, but you still have to maintain what you're looking for, the standards you're looking for. So it's balancing standard versus like making sure people also understand that they're cared for. Yeah, I mean, I think the first thing we do is, We talk about when we interview we talk about them personally and and my biggest thing is I sit down with somebody I just say tell me about yourself. I want you to tell me your story How many people can actually tell their story you'd be surprised how many people just sit there and they were like yeah?

I was on my last school here and And I worked here and over there and you know being in the restaurant business for 90 years as you say and I will tell them I'll say, tell me about working in the restaurant business. And they'll say, well, I would come in and set the line up. And I say, listen, I've been doing this a long time. I know you don't just come in and set the line up. Let's be specific, you know. But we're looking for that communication, that ability to communicate. I don't care what job you're in, people need to have the ability to communicate.

And then I'm gonna step on some toes here. But in today's society, there are too many people under the age of 25 that flat out don't know how to communicate with people face to face. That's one of the coming on the last. They just, they all search. I mean they could probably text me to death, but that's an issue. Period. But across the board. Yeah, and so it's, you know, my business is face to face. And in the tech world, probably a lot of it is not face to face and I understand that. But you have to be able to verbalize and get your point across and I think that if you can do that face-to-face you're gonna be successful online doing it.

I love that. As we wrap up here I want you I want to go back to the worker. I want to go back to your employees. What makes some employees really stand out? Like what are I mean I know we talked about communication interviewing, we talked about taking responsibility, the no windows mentality. What are some other things that you like to see in your best employees? Because that's one thing, right? I like to have higher majors. Ownership. Okay, go ahead. Flat out ownership. If somebody screws up, that's okay. Don't blame somebody else for it. Don't blame the guest for it. Just own it and move on.

That's the biggest thing is like, whatever you do is like I talked about cleaning a toilet the cleanest toilet you ever have. Own what you do. Own what you do and own the fact that if you need to get better, what can I do to get better? And as a manager, you actually like to hear probably, hey Dave, I messed up, but I promise like I will try my best not to make this happen again. You'd rather probably come to me and say look I made a mistake, I've got an issue with XYZ, can You help me fix this. And I'll say, yeah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And then we'll talk about it and say, OK, let's go. Let's make sure that we learn from that. Don't happen again. I don't mind people making mistakes. It's the people that make the same mistake over and over and over again. It's like, hello, is anybody home? McFly. Yeah, that's an old reference. Sorry. That's an old reference. Terrible movie guy. Terrible movie guy. What else? Is there anything else that you're passionate about seeing other people? I love seeing people take on responsibility and really enjoy it and have fun with it. I have had employees tell me that have graduated from USC on the monitor over here at Fox.

I have had people get their degree and leave the restaurant. And I am so excited. And I try to hook them up with Taylor if I can to find jobs and stuff like that and give them his website. But the people that have left and they say, best thing it's ever had to me during my college years was working for Tazam Kitchen. And it's like, that's just freaking awesome, you know, because I could tell they were going to be successful in their jobs wherever they went because watching them move through the work on responsibility and then joy that responsibility and what happened from that. That's it.

That's the biggest thing. Well, but do you also like for them to take ownership and be creative even within the restaurant? I mean, have you had employees that like, I don't know, do some crazy inventive stuff that you didn't ask him to, or have a flare? Yeah, I've had that. I will tell you, growth within the restaurant, I recently, because of COVID, lost the chef that I had, and I had a person working there. And she was awesome at the job she did, and she wanted that opportunity. And she has hit the ground just running. I mean, just completely taken over that position. She owns it.

Ask questions. Always looking, asking questions, always looking for the next thing she can work on. We communicate every day on a daily basis. I also have another guy that's done that, another aspect of the restaurant. He said, you know, I want to do this. And I said, okay, well, this is what we need to do. And boom, I start going, and their mentality has pretty much been that, okay, I'm just going to start doing, you tell me when I get off, off point or out of bounds. And it's just like, you know, hey, let's do this, let's do that. So again, it's having people come to you and asking questions.

It's not having you chase after them and no, no, no, it's you don't want to have to spoon feed people. You know, think about who you spoon feed. You spoon feed babies. And, and I mean, Ari doesn't like taking stuff out of spoon. You know, but if you have to constantly spoon feed somebody, now I'm talking about constantly. Yeah. Sometimes initially you have to spoon feed. You have to spoon feed. Yeah, a new one already has to grow. Everybody has to get towards solid foods. But, you know, if, again, it's that you wanna see people learn. And if they don't learn, you kind of scratch your head sometimes and say, you know, what am I doing as a manager that's, I can change to make that happen a little bit better for the person.

Last question as we wrap up here and again, thank you all for commenting. We got a few comments coming in. Pia goes really enjoying this session. Note to future guests. The guy's Council 2.0, Davis set the bar for being genuine. Come correct. I love it. Taylor goes back to the future is not old. It's a classic. It's old. It's from the 80s. It's old. Alex goes here. Says what's up, Alex? More old references, please. Taylor's needs to watch 80 movies. And then Taylor messes up a lot, but he always emits it. And I say, I don't mess up a lot. Alex, more immersive. All right, anyways.

last last question and we'll wrap it up here because I want to go get more coffee. When do you fire somebody? With the market it is right now. Okay. I very rarely fire somebody. Please explain. Okay. What I do is I set the expectations and if that person can't meet the expectations, we have a conversation and they realize that, you know what, this, I'm probably not going to work out in this position. And they end up resigning or just saying, this isn't going to work out. Now, there are cases I have had to terminate people and the termination only comes when I realize that that person is toxic to the team.

If that person is toxic to the environment and the team and it is, yeah, I mean, we don't have room for that because if you, as a boss, if you maintain and you keep on people that are toxic to your staff, you're good people are going to leave. Toxic is what you're going to have left. All right. Well, actually we're going to end right there. That was great. Any last encouraging words for people who learn in 2022 and the job search or transitioning careers, maybe they are in the restaurant industry but they want to get the software or I don't know just any last words of wisdom.

I would just say that personally you need to get out, you need to get mobile, you need to walk in some fresh air, put your head, take some time off. Find yourself worth. I had to go through that last year. I had a very dark period. When COVID first hit, and we kind of went and we were coming back out. We didn't have masks on. And we had had some frank conversations between my wife and myself. And I said, I don't know what I'll do if COVID comes back again. Bam, there it was. And it was tough. It was tough. We were closing down again.

In our industry, we went through a period where lost bonuses, lost insurance. I mean, basically the owner of the company was pulling out a legal pad and figuring out who's gonna pay each day. So it was really tough. So coming out of that, it's mental health first. You have to take time to make sure you take care of yourself. You need to read some books about taking care of yourself. We need to be mobile and be athletic, take care of your body, body and mind, and then start looking at, okay, now that I've got myself set, let's get back into this. What can I do?

Because if you go into work and you've got this cloud hanging over your head each day and you're going through the motions, you're not doing anybody any favor. Cool. I love that. Thank you again, dad. Thank you for hanging out, man. I appreciate it. I was like, yeah, we're gonna have breakfast now. Next time I give you some stories about him. No, we're not doing that. We're never doing that. But y'all, thank you for hanging out this morning. Listen, this week's crazy with guests. Tomorrow I have an engineering manager from Kroger up in Cincinnati. He heavily leverages junior developers. So that's gonna be a fantastic conversation.

Also this Friday, I have to give a shout out, Kent Dodds. Kent Dodds is a huge player in the tech industry. He is the, he was one of the core groups with React. Now he started his own framework called Remix. Tech people get wild, they start to make up names. You need to check out Friday. Remix is a very old term. I'm sure. So y'all, y'all check that out. But this week's gonna be crazy. I'll post a list of guests this week. So y'all, but like 2022 is off to a great start. So y'all, thank you again for hanging out, Dad. Thank you again for hanging with me.

I appreciate it, man. Sure. I appreciate the bedroom. Absolutely. Absolutely. And y'all have a good one. Appreciate y'all. Bye. Hey, you did it. You listened to an entire episode and I am very grateful. Cause you know why? There's a lot of podcasts out there. There's a lot of episodes and I myself rarely finished an entire episode. So I appreciate you so, so much for listening. Quick reminder, please rate and review this podcast in the app store. I want this to be discoverable to others. And the only way that happens is if you take the time right now and rate and review it, please, like, right now, unless you're driving, then don't do it.

So thank you again. If you need to reach out to me, Taylor at Vaco.com or at T-Destin on all social media handles. And I hope you have a fantastic day.