As to starting an apprenticeship. You may have to step back for a bit and I know that is hard financially, especially with a family. At 30 you are still young enough to work hard but have enough maturity to not bring all the problems to the table that those in their late teens and early twenties bring. A good employer would see the value in that and there might be a possibility of fast tracking. Sometimes it is better to go backwards to get on a better road.
as counterintuitive as this seems, working a part time job along with a new trade oriented job might be a solution to the cash flow issue, on a temporary basis. A good server at a busy restaurant can make enough working a couple of shifts a week To help the family finances.
If the issue you are having with taking a step back is “what will people think”? you need to put that out of your head. If your wife is on board, nobody else’s opinion matters.
Another oddity I saw in the industry you are in is that pay raises never kept up with the market rate. If you left where you are on good terms, you could almost certainly go back to that company or a similar one 6 months later and do it at a higher rate of pay. They are always hiring, because as we know, the job sucks.
He retreated then tried to come into the kitchen and the staff held him back from coming in. Police were called, he was CT. For some perspective to my character, those words above were the only words I said to him. I didn't egg him on, threaten him, or escalate the situation (verbally) anyway. Including this incident I've been in a total of 1 physical altercation with another human being in my adult life outside of sporting purposes. I'm not the kind of person that picks fights, i use the skills I've learned from this damn job to de-escalate any and all issues. I couldn't tell you why I walked out there, completely unprofessional and out of character. But the threats got past my better judgment. Anyways I thought that was the last I'd see of him. But I should of known better. Maybe 40 minutes later I hear what sounds like an acorn dropping from a tree. I look around and go back to doing my job. I walk back toward the building and I see him just outside of property lines. As I walk inside the back door a fist sized rock hits the back door. At this point my boss is aware of the incident and inside the building. We call the cops again and he ends up on a bus surely to be seen again. I learned 3 valuable life lessons today. 1. Don't fight people with nothing to lose. 2. Never lose your composure. And 3. Let the cops handle it.
