Prelude

It all started in 2004 when the employees of a hospital, were told that the building was being sold and the hospital would be shutting down. I worked in the Nursing Department (I had started as a Unit Clerk and was a Coordinator by the time the hospital closed), and had been there for a few years.

Note:
One of the most important lessons that I learned is that hospitals never close – they never close. We had six floors of inpatient beds, and 16 units to staff and this had to be done 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 352 days a year. The days where people are told to stay home because of the weather, are the days that hospitals may need the most staff to get through the night. I learned a lot from those employees - we were like a family.

Back to the story

After the hospital closed I ended up with a job in our corporate offices (it has been a wonderful learning experience and it will be the reason why my posting will be done mainly in the evenings). But, something else happened in 2004; I realized that I wanted more. I wanted to be able to someday in the future work for myself.

Since I can remember I have wanted to own a hospitality business and thought (still think) that I had a great idea for anyone who owned restaurants and might want to consider a joint venture. I thought my idea was hip and cutting edge and would surely be of interest to someone. Believing that the worse that can happen is that someone says “no”, I mailed out a bunch of introductory letters with my resume asking for a meeting to discuss a venture and maybe work together, and guess what - not one person called, e-mailed – nothing..

Then one day, one of the letters came back marked “return to sender”. I held that letter for a long time and came to the realization that I needed to think this through more thoroughly. I’ve always been a firm believer in education and decided that since I had managerial experience I needed more experience in hospitality. I did my research and by the time Fall 2004 came around, I was enrolled at the University of Southern New Hampshire.

Until tomorrow..
Jackie