My Own “Never Forget”

How 9/11 ended my time in the food service industry

Chad Parenteau
5 min readSep 12, 2021

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I’ve heard several stories from friends and loved ones about how the first year of the COVID pandemic helped change their lives for the better. As an essential worker, I have a hard time relating, but it’s true that opportunities come up and you can prosper during hard times. 9/11 was the furthest thing from a “good” day in my life or anyone’s, but for me it was a catalyst that eventually led to an opportunity to change my life. Even then, it was only through work and luck (and more than a little privilege) that I was eventually able to leave a horrible job working in a seafood restaurant and end my career in the food service industry altogether. Not unlike today’s workers, it took a tragedy to find out how little those who ran the restaurant cared about my well-being. When I hear people like Jon Taffer talk about how to rally restaurant workers “back to work” like cattle, it only reaffirms what I learned decades ago.

The recessions of 2000 and 2001 were not kind to service workers who relied on other people spending money. I had just gotten out of an insane roommate situation, which cost me nearly all my savings. I was in a long-distance relationship that demanded I take time off during weekends to keep it going, which meant less income (you don’t work weekends as a server, it’s like taking an…

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Chad Parenteau
Chad Parenteau

Written by Chad Parenteau

Poet for Hire. Link to buy my new book, The Collapsed Bookshelf, available via my website: www.chadparenteaupoetforhire.com

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