My journey began when I moved to Manhattan Kansas in August of 2012. My schooling was temporary after pursuing multiple college courses out of highschool and chasing my passion for foreign languages. 6 years of Spanish and a tenuous grasp on the fundamentals of psychology and philosophy was just what I needed. I started out as a part-time Meat Clerk with a hunger for social interaction. Before long my store director at the time had offered me 1 of 3 options. 1) Stay in the position I was in. 2) Delicatessen Department Manager. 3) Assistant Manager. I was proud to accept the full time position as Assistant Manager. I buckled down and learned as much as I could in the short amount of time before my previous Department Manager reached out to me from Omaha Nebraska. He had presented me with an opportunity to become the Seafood Department Manager at one of the top locations in Omaha. I accepted and uprooted myself as quickly as I could. I learned an excessive amount about myself and my ability to adapt to change within the first 3 months of accepting this position. I learned a lot about what it takes to manage a department AND the team members running the department. I learned the basics and fine tuned my meat cutting skills, I became food safety certified, acquired an uncanny ability to interact with customers on a genuine level, and I finally started to enhance my network of business professionals. After I felt extremely comfortable with the Seafood Department as a whole I decided to move over to the position of Meat Service Manager. I have always been extremely comfortable with retail/sales so I figured it was time to learn the ways of the Meat Cutter. I received my own set of knives and hit the ground running, figuratively speaking. My focus wasn't just on the Meat Department at this point. I was actively thinking about demos, pricing, sales, both department service counters, customer orders, etc. My career with Hy-Vee came to a screeching halt the moment I decided to reinvest in my education in the Spanish language. El Camino De Santiago (1,000 Kilometers across Spain with interactions from various cultures and ethnicities). I love the challenge of adapting to new environments and my journey is FAR from over. My Way is abnormal but extremely effective.