Bashert

In Yiddish the word "bashert" (bah-shehrt) refers to fate or destiny. It's most commonly used in the arenas of love and marriage - where your bashert is your divine, ultimate partner. A bashert is someone you were meant to be with, a match made in heaven (like me and DH. Awwwww....) These days the term bashert is often used to refer to other things which were meant to be - finding the perfect job, finding a great house, etc. If it was meant to be, it was 'bashert.'

Today, I quit my job.

My cooking job which I really enjoyed, which suited my days and my hours and most of all my pocketbook. Suffice it to say I had no intention of quitting my job today - the opposite, actually. My last day there will be August 31st. When I started the job, I told the owners that I would stay for the winter and then re-assess the situation with my business. Here in Australia winter ends on August 31st, and officially Spring begins on September 1st. All that is a very long way of saying that I quit my job, but I think it's bashert.

I went into the office to tell the owner that I needed some time off in September, to rearrange my roster and take some days off. This is because in September we have a huge number of family and religious committments which are non-negotiable. My neice's Bat Miztvah, the Jewish High Holy Days, and so on. September is just a month of a lot of stuff happening, and just luck would have it that most of them are on the days I normally work. So I went in to say, "September is a hard month for me, scheduling wise, can we work this out together?" and then give them the dates and see what we could work out. I imagined we would talk about swapping shifts, maybe getting another person in, etc.

What happened in reality was very different. The owner had a MASSIVE tantrum, and repeatedly told me that I was unprofessional, ridiculous and an altogether irresponsible person for not telling them about this earlier. Ahem. 6 weeks is not enough notice? Really? Has he ANY idea how most chefs barely bother to give 6 HOURS notice, let alone 6 weeks? It's a very long story but in the end I never got to talk about the roster, I just got yelled at for several minutes. According to the owner, I should have mentioned these things when I got interviewed, as it may have impacted the outcome of the interview. Is he kidding me? I asked him if his prospective Christian employees need to ask for Christmas Day off (while they are in the interview), and he said YES, they do.

Yes. Ahem. That was the proverbial straw. So I said, "Well since you're all about giving notice, and my contract requires 4 weeks notice of resignation... HERE IS YOUR NOTICE. My 4 week resignation notice starts TODAY." and I walked out.

Freedom never felt so good. It took a lot of will power not to punch the air and yell, "YYYEEESSS!!" as I walked away.

So back to the bashert part. I was telling The Neighbour's Wife all about this and she kept telling me it was bashert, that this was meant to happen, that it means NOW is the time to focus on making the business a massive success. I laughed her off, saying that the whole concept of bashert is just bullshit. She started to ask me all about a property I am VERY interested in for the business. I've made about 3 phone calls about this place and so far it's been really hard to pin down the agent to go and inspect the place. Anyway TNW just kept saying, "I'm telling you, it's bashert. It really is."

So I laughed and hung up and went to make dinner.

I checked my mobile phone, and it turns out I had missed a call while talking to The Neighbour's Wife. The call was from the agent of the property I want for the business, inviting me to make an inspection appointment. For tomorrow.

Bashert? Hmmm.

Let's consider this. I told the owners I'd stay for the winter...and my last day of work there is the last day of winter. I told TNW that I would call the agent on Wednesday... but the agent called me first and organised an appointment for Wednesday.

Now I'm not saying I believe in all this bashert business - far too airy fairy, too superstitious, too... not concrete for me.

But to quit my job and have access to the property ALL on the same day? In the same couple of hours?

Well. You know.

Maybe it's bashert.