Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Sam's conundrum

Sam, nearing thirty, is the youngest of Elisabeth's three sons and a regular visitor.  He comes partly to relax and partly to help me prosecute some of the many projects on my growing, seemingly never ending, list here.  Last year we made a good start on building a permanent outside kitchen, rather than the present quirky  and charming but somewhat lashed-up eternally temporary affair.  This year we hope to progress as far as finishing the planned rendered brick sink unit and to having it running.
I picked Sam up at the local airport on Sunday, it is now Tuesday.  For one reason or another, Sam's jet lag (Greece is two hours ahead of BST!) being one, we have yet to get stuck in to the work.  Sam, a pub manager by trade, has also to adapt to my early-to-bed-early-to-rise way of living.  That Sam is very good at his job is evident; the hostelry he manages is presently far and away the busiest in town.  Sam is a very genial lad, made for his job and it is job he does well because he obviously enjoys it; there is more than a touch of the thespian about Sam, a useful trait to have behind a bar.  But Sam has been managing pubs for much of his working life and however successful he has been he recognises that his living is doing little to develop him as a person, he sees himself as the same Sam as he was ten years ago and is concerned that, if he does not get out of the catering trade, ten years from now he will still be much the same Sam, playing the same part.  I understand his fears and understand too that, with no other skills or qualifications, he will find it very difficult to make a change.  He has told me that he is adamant that he will be out before the end of this year.  I have been hearing similar self-promises for several years now, none of them have been kept.  I hope for his sake that this year he will manage to get himself out of his rut and into something he will find more personally fulfilling.

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