Ep 06 - Should I Leave My Job? - Horatio Colombo

Should I leave my job?

It’s a question many brewers face, and in this episode of The Modern Brewer Podcast, we dive deep into it. Myself, Chris Lewington and guest Horacio Colombo explore the good and bad motivators for leaving a job, how to make the leap, and top tips for acing that next brewing industry interview.

This episode was recorded live, offering a fresh format compared to our usual style, so you’re in for something different!

Key Topics Covered:

- What are the main reasons for a brewer to leave their job?
- The pay/skills gap in the brewing industry
- When it’s time to move on and when it’s not
- How to gracefully exit your current role
- Essential tips for nailing that brewery interview

Timestamps:
02:43 - Intros
04:03 - Main reasons for a brewer to leave their job
10:43 - The pay/skills gap in the brewing industry
15:15 - When should a brewer leave their job?
28:03 - What shouldn't make a brewer leave their job?
36:06 - How to leave your job like a pro
45:28 - How to ace a brewery interview
50:00 - Goodbyes

Sponsor: Special thanks to our sponsor, Jack Coomber, a Digital Marketing and Ecom Consultant. 🔗 Connect with him on LinkedIn

🎧 Tune in for insights on when and how to make your next career move in the brewing industry!

Transcript

0:14

Hey, everyone. Hope you're all doing well out there. Episode six of the Modern Brewer Podcast. It's a slight curtail from the standard information style podcasts we deliver. In this episode, we're going to dive into a more discussion based episode as we try to find the ever elusive answer to the question, when should I leave my job? Whilst I do not claim the answer to be scientific, the debate is certainly going to be an interesting one. Before I start, I would love to give a shout out to the best marketing consultant I have ever worked with. He has helped me set up my own business, given me the confidence to start this podcast, and define a sales strategy for my business, Brew Resourceful. He has experience building brands from the ground up, and recently became a freelance marketing consultant. His name is Jack Coomber, and I strongly recommend his skills and services. His details will be in the bio of this podcast, but you will be able to find him on LinkedIn by searching Jack Coomber. So now it's time to introduce my guest. He's been working in the brew industry for 10 years and has held down a management role at Beavertown Brewery in the UK for the last three years. In that time, seeing thousands of CVs, running hundreds of interviews, and of course had many experiences with team members coming and going. But, after all of these achievements, he's most famous for writing the tune to this podcast. One of the coolest names I've ever heard, and is a great friend of mine. Horatio Colombo, welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much, Chris. It's a pleasure and an honor to be part of this. Uh, I've been listening to all of the previous episodes and really thoroughly enjoy them. Uh, yeah, I'm, I can't wait to, to be part of one and not just playing the music. Yeah, so we met a few years ago, we met at Beavertown. Yes. When I was also working here as well. Um, we've seen a lot of people come and go through the years. Um, London, for it's many... Good attributes. It's definitely a carousel of employment. You get a lot of people coming in and a lot of people moving on. Some people don't get on with a city. There's a huge pool of people. So I think that's why I wanted you on here. Cause I think we both had a lot of experience with this type of thing. And it's, you know, sometimes it's just things in life, but other times it's like, you see a trend of people making maybe better decisions or worse decisions. It's kind of what we want to debate on here today. Yeah. My case in particular. I started my career, my professional career in brewing in London. I moved to Brighton, I moved to Scotland and four, four and a half years ago I came back to London a little bit like a magnet, like a moth to the light. Exactly the same as me really. I mean I moved from Daleside up in Harrogate to... Thornbridge Brewery in Bakewell to London, I then moved to the Caribbean, and then come back to London. So that, that magnet is here for me as well. Uh, I remember being in the Caribbean thinking I'll never go back to London. No, that's it. I'm done with the city life and here I am, sat here in Lockwood Industrial Estate once again. Welcome back. So yeah, um, it's interesting, isn't it? I think. Brewing is, we're, well right now, not in the brewing world, but right now we're in this, what they call the Great Resignation as well. So it's, a UK phenomenon where people are leaving their jobs at a higher rate than usual. Um, there's loads of reasons why that could be and why that's happening, or that they are saying it's slowing down a bit of post covid, a bit of the whole, you know, people just wanting a change and, and adaptation. People beginning to realize that, They have the value, whereas I think historically people stuck with companies for a long time for the benefits. Those benefits probably aren't there anymore. So, what are the main reasons a brewer might want to leave their job? That's It's, yeah, an unanswerable question, scientifically, but we're going to give it a go. Main reasons why a brewer might want to leave their job, it's usually, what I've seen, it's usually looking for development, somewhere else, growth, professional growth, learning opportunities. I've seen lots of people moving because they wanted a bigger wage, which, uh, We're gonna discuss at some point later. Um, but yeah, there's such a such a huge amount of reasons why people might leave. And you were saying this about the great resignation. And I was thinking that probably after the COVID period, lots of people found a different kind of life work balance that they want to regain. They want to achieve a different kind of balance between work and, yeah, life outside of work. That they didn't know that it was possible before. Yeah, it's like, almost, not, it's a strong word, but toxic work culture. Where I think people... When they have that time off, they look and they go back and they're like, Wow, this is a lot. I actually dedicate far too much time to this. And I'm not, maybe I'm not reimbursed in fairly. Or maybe I'm not getting the opportunities I want. But yeah, I think a bad work culture is one I've seen always. It's the, one of the reasons people leave. Yeah, they, yeah, true. Uh, I, I think it's so subjective, the toxic, uh, work culture. Because, uh, what... It might seem a toxic work culture for a person might be the place to thrive for another. And I don't want to get into some company's exploitation of this. But I have seen it in individuals with the same role. That could work really, really well under the same conditions while others would struggle a lot more. And the perception of the toxic work culture, it's a dangerous one in terms of what is contagious around a bigger team, for example. Um, One person or that doesn't like a certain amount of things within their role starts intoxicating, it's not the right word, it might not be the right word, but making toxic the rest of the team and that eventually will create a toxic work environment. I have struggled. Uh, within my role to try and keep a non toxic work environment when some people have been, uh, moody in a way that would bring everybody down. Uh, while at the same time, some people are bringing a lot of positive energy to the team. Uh, and that balance is such a delicate one. Uh, and Yeah, it's a lot of work to keep it positive and non toxic. Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, it's always the power of the personality of the person with that opinion that drives a lot of the cultures. So, you know, some people have very strong personalities or a very strong presence within a team. Who feel, who, who don't like something that's happening, and that can really then, in fact, affect everyone else. And that, you know, they're really good at basically rallying support for their opinion. I've seen that as well. And sometimes, to be fair... You know toxic work cultures exist, there's plenty of times where people are overworked, there's too much stress put on, none of resources allocated. I mean, let's, let's be quite honest, the brewing industry, my experience, what I've seen, not just when I've worked, but places I've been and, you know, not everyone of course, but... Generally, everyone is slightly under resourced, you know. It's rare you walk around and find breweries with bountiful resources of people, of money and everything. It just doesn't seem to exist. Maybe it exists in no other industry either. Maybe it's some fabled fairytale that you always think other industries have. We're just so suffering here in the brewing industry. There is a lack of resources and investment in people across the board, yeah, certain personalities that can rally people, people around them. And this is what I was going to say, the, that sometimes these people that have a very strong personality and a very strong opinion about how the working conditions should be and should be different to what they are. Don't have, usually what I found is that they don't have an honest conversation with their managers about what should make the environment or the culture a bit better. And, uh, there are certain personalities that, uh, are contempt in the complaint. In the position of, I'm a very good complainer.. I, I, I don't, I don't know if this uhm might resonate, but, uh, yeah, I, I, I, some people are, are very good at complaining without proposing, uh, ways of improving the things that they're complaining about. Yes. Yeah. And it is quite difficult sometimes'cause it's easy to complain. It's quite hard to come up with practical solutions, but then it's also often that's the role of the manager is to turn those, yeah. Those complaints into actionable solutions is why they're in that role. I, you know, pay is also another issue in our, in our industry. Yes. I think that's probably what we might come to later on, on the pay, but you know, it's rare. I've seen pay at an acceptable level for the level of responsibility and. technical understanding you have to have for a process. Yes. Such as you are in brewing. It's quite a skilled job, and especially when you couple in other roles within that, you end up doing quite a lot of stuff, and let's look, the average pay is not, is not, is not super high. Yeah. So, it's an industry wide thing. I think there are, obviously, brewers doing much better, loads better, and there's some that are probably exploiting that a little, little further than before, you hear these jobs that are offering silly money for little, you know, guaranteed hours and it just, yeah. How do they exist in an environment where that is so uncommon? My first job in brewing was, uh, was quite low paid. It wasn't, I'm not going to say where it was in numbers or minimum wage. It was above minimum wage I guess. But, um, they were, the, the employers were relying on the passion that we had for the craft beer scene, uh, to, to be growing and being part of it. And it was something very cool. It was something that you wanted to be part of. So they were, I mean, they were paying us with our, with our own passion. So, yeah, it's an excellent point. I was just like, it's the social currency of being a brewer That's what they rely on. Yeah, it's so funny. I think one admission I will make into the rest of this podcast is that there are reasons people move breweries for personal reasons, you know. Moving City, maybe the family's got a job, a partner's got a job, like just to make this abundantly clear, this is absolutely not covered in this podcast, they are just like, that is life. Yes. You know, we're kind of talking about why you might want to move brewery or your job, if that's your reason, don't worry about the rest of this podcast, it's not what it's about. We're not here to debate your, uh, you know. Might be helpful in the future. Yeah. I hear you. But, but yeah, that, that. We were talking about earlier, it's a, it falls more on a need situation than a want situation. Exactly. Exactly. So, I have another reason for you, why you might want to change your, your role and it's your favorite brewing, opening, opening, uh, your Uh, your dream role, and then, then there's no, no doubt. You, you need to apply. Yeah. You will speak to your, to your manager, to your head brewer. But do you have, what was your dream role? Well, I, this one, . , no, come on. Well, uh, I, I've always moved for, for a dream role. I, I'm not sure if. The dream role has changed over time. It obviously has. When I saw a role of Senior Brewer at Two Wall in Denmark, when they were opening the Two Wall City in a small town, not too far from Copenhagen, but not too near either. And... I was interviewing for this role, senior brewer, uh, at Beavertown, and I was so tempted to go for it. But I really wanted to come back to London. I have lots of friends here. I had already lived here, so it wasn't starting from scratch in a new place. It was coming back to London and... In a role that it was very promising and it delivered. Yeah. So, it was a good bet. Yeah, always. I mean, yeah. It was a good bet to be fair. It came really well here. I think my dream role was... I had probably two roles. either any good role at, uh, Bells Brewery. Or any role at Sierra Nevada. Sierra Nevada especially would have been like, I think I felt like I would have made it if I got there. Uh, haha. I mean now, I do my own thing, it's very different. I probably wouldn't take that role now. But I think when I was in that vibe, I always used to look at them thinking, that's just like the coolest place to work in the world. California? Uh, yes. Of course. Yeah. So what should make a brewer move brewery in your opinion ratio? I think, eh, for example, finding a professional ceiling is something that should move you, uh, roles, uh, change changing jobs. If, if you cannot find. Within your brewery, within the role that you have, somewhere to grow, eh, I think that the, yeah, it's, it's a, it's an open window to, to, to look for, for roles somewhere else. There's, eh, learning opportunities somewhere else. The dream role, like we said, eh, Those are the reasons why I think moving a brewery should happen. Yeah. To, to learn, to develop, because it's your favorite brewery. Uh, can you think of any else, any others? Yeah, I think it's, I mean, they are probably To me, the best reason, I mean, a good, a solid team as well. I mean, that goes hand in hand with the brewery, but maybe you have experience of knowing a solid working team, a good manager. Yeah. I think in, and this isn't just brewing industry, across all industries, good managers are very, very hard to come by. You can find a good manager, stick with them. And if you hear of a good manager. Go for it, because they're actually, they're the people who will develop you as a person, they're coaches rather than managers, and they're actually going to help you progress as a person and as a brewer. So if you ever find any, if you ever hear of any of those, then they're the people I would always go with a brewer for that. That's a very curious thing. a I don't know, at some point in the last couple of years. And they were saying that there's a Quite a big percentage of people that leave their job because of the manager. And I was very surprised because I never thought of, personally, me, and this is my personal experience, I never thought of changing jobs because of my manager. And maybe I've been lucky. But, I was quite surprised to learn this. Yeah, I think it's interesting. I, I would say it's not uncommon for people to, I would agree. It's not uncommon for people to leave because of their manager. I can't say I've personally ever really done that, we we could add toxic culture then. Yeah. In, in the, why should you move I if there's a toxic culture and toxic working culture. Uh, in your opinion, what would you define as like a toxic work culture for you? Yeah, I guess the, the, the feeling of drainage, the, the, uh, psychic drainage or. Physical, you can be a brewer and have a very intensely physical day at your role and go home and sleep like never before, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you're drained, you're tired. While I, I think in my opinion that a toxic working work culture drains your, drains, your energy in, in a very different way. Where you, you, you're not just tired, you are sad, you are frustrated. You, uh, yeah, you, you, you don't want to go meet your friends. I don't know. There, there there's other bits that, that are deeper. And not just physical. Yeah, it's kind of emotional drainage, isn't it? Rather than like a physical drainage. Emotional drainage. Yeah, I would agree. Anytime it gets like that and you don't want to see the people around you or something because of the way you think it is, absolutely. I think a, you know, a toxic work culture that is, it's not a reason to leave a brewery, but I definitely think adds to a, uh, that is, it's the lack of respect for working hours. It's so common. phones buzzing all day long, one of the biggest changes in our life has been that now we're able to work at all hours of the day, previously you would leave the building and then that's it, that's kind of it, you get that little bit of closure, whereas now it's, especially if you're brewing as operating past your hours, uh, you almost get no, then it's just, you're basically on, or you're thinking about it, or you get that message, I used to get, There was times where I'd be like out with my friends, and I'd see an email, it's just the worst, I should never have allowed this to happen, but I see an email from like a lab report or something, and I'm looking and going, oh, that is a big problem, and I'm like, and now all of a sudden, for those few minutes, I'm like sat there going, this is a big problem, and then I'm just, it took me a while to learn to basically, calm that down, and be like, you can't, sending emails now is not going to solve anything. Yeah. But yeah, I think that that does add to a toxic problem because that affects your work life balance. I think it also comes with new onboarding responsibilities. Like you're suddenly now responsible for something and you want to be on top of everything because you need to prove yourself or. Um. As you grow within the role or within your position, you start to understand and you start, okay, whatever I can do now is not going to change anything about this, yeah, work result. I can call somebody and see whether there's something that can be done still in the brewery. Well, for example, here. We used to have whatsapp groups. Oh, yeah, I was gonna bring those up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah fair enough They were a nightmare. Oh, um getting messages at any time And if Passive passive aggressiveness or oh my god, so the anxiety thinking about it I totally get the necessity at the time. Yes, right like you need to be able to communicate you're a small business How do you cross that? of like, we need to communicate as a group and aiding, using technology will aid that communication 110%. But how do you, it's important that there's a differentiation between when people can turn that off. So when they're at home and they're not receiving all these messages, like, Oh, who did this? Who did that? And then also it's that management of that, that group, but it's just, you need to be in those environments and come out of them and look at them from the other side and be like, that So. Regarding that, we, so first, uh, order was no more messages, uh, before 8. 30 and after 5. 30. So, that, that's working hours for most of the teams. Some people start at 6, some people finish at 11. But, uh, only during that window, messages on the WhatsApp group were allowed. Otherwise, you... Needed to know who was on shift and send them a personal message, uh, asking or suggesting or requiring help or whatever needed to be communicated. It needed to be outside of this group. And again, no more, uh, uh, passive, uh, passive aggressiveness or this kind of, uh, this was done wrong or this, uh, this wasn't done, who did this? Uh, I mean, uh... Guilty, eh? Always. I've done it a hundred times myself. I'm always sitting here with my high towel. I've been a part of this and done it and sent those passive aggressive messages when you're angry. And you're like, oh, he's done this. I'm like, I want, you know. I want blood. No. I want the head. I want a silver platter. Yeah. No, but, I mean, at the end of the day. Uh, don't hate me for saying this, but we're only making beer. Uh, and it's, if something goes wrong, uh, it, it should be able to fix, be fixed later down the line. If it cannot, then we need to find a way to, to recover from it or for that to not happen again. Uh, you, you can have conversations, uh, one to one, uh, face to face. Regarding what happened, the problem that I sometimes see is that when you have a big team and people don't own up to something that wasn't done or wasn't wrong, and you will never know who to speak to, to teach them, to guide them, to show them, okay, this needs to be done this way because of this and that reason, and When it's not done, this happens, for example. So, this kind of thing went into the weekly meeting. Okay, I don't know who did this, but the reason why it needs to be done. A little bit more of a training session on why certain things need to be done. It's a learning curve. Actually, it's, yeah, so. Yeah, to go back to learning opportunity as a reason to move brewery, I found, this is from personal experience only, but I often looked at learning opportunity as the number one metric of why I was moving, so when, I moved from one brewery to another, I took a pay cut to get there because I was like, wow, I, I can see where this could be going and that could be really good for my, my career and my growth. And I think that's a nice reason to move breweries again, what you said together, that learning opportunity. Yeah. And where that ceiling is at that brewery, or maybe not even ceiling, but where you can accelerate your growth to get to where you want to be quicker if you can go somewhere else. not always the case, but can be the right one. Absolutely. When I moved to Scotland, I got to see, I, I, we were working 24 7, four teams, and continuously brewing, and there was, it was non stop. And the amount of things that I got to, I, I got to do, to yeast off, dry hop. brew, centrifuge, filter, uh, barreling the amount of like adding dextrose to beer from the top of a fermenter, uh, try hopping with a hop cannon or going up and seeing, uh, going up a tank, try hopping from the top and seeing the hops coming up and having to close everything very quickly. So all of, all of these. And I'm not even talking about the things that went wrong and had to sort out at the moment, during the time. But the amount of things that you see, and the amount of times that you see them happening, gives you a very strong experience that... My previous job was in Brighton, in a spa brewery, in the countryside, in Sussex, not Brighton. Um, we were brewing once a week, sometimes twice, sometimes we didn't brew, uh, and I was doing sales. I was doing, I did the Christmas delivery, uh, tray run, uh, because everybody else was on, on Christmas leave. So, uh, yeah, basically I was running the brewery with two more people, um, I would have never gotten to see. The amount of things in such a small time, if I had stayed there. So that's why I was talking about a ceiling before. But it's true that it's not necessarily a ceiling, but the amount of experience that you can get in a certain period of time. Yeah, absolutely. So, on the opposite side of this, what shouldn't make a brewer move their job? Well, we talked about the managers, people resigning for the managers. I'm not sure if that should be one of the reasons. I think that there should be an open conversation with the managers to discuss this rather than resigning because of it. Um, I know, for example, that money is a big. The reason why people leave a role, I don't think it should be, because like you said, you took a pay cut for growth and learning opportunity, and, so, the way I think about this is, the brewing industry is very small. And you can only get so far changing breweries to, to gain a little, to, to earn a little bit more money until people catch up and say, this person is changing jobs because they want a higher wage, but can you trust them that they're going to stay with you or in six months once they. Once they want a pay rise, they should, they're going to go looking for a job somewhere else. I think the most, the more honest conversation that people that are looking for a job for a higher wage needs to be within their company. I'm not saying that it's wrong to change because of money. I'm just saying that there should be a conversation within the company, within the brewery that you're in, about What you want to earn, what the company can pay you, and what work you should be doing to, to be earning what you want to, to earn. Yeah, I agree with you in part, money, to me personally, money shouldn't be the defining motivator to move. I don't know if I necessarily agree that if you read someone's CV, they're moving all the time for money that You would take that as a negative necessarily, the thing about money is Often you see people move for, I don't know Four, five, six thousand pounds more or maybe, it's just not that significant It feels it when you look at it. The take home is way less Yeah And what you've got to always remember is where is the ceiling of that, of that company, for example. So, let's take, someone's moving job to somewhere, and they're getting this five, six thousand pound pay rise, sounds amazing. That would probably most likely be close to their salary in five years time. Because they've already at this max, the brewery's already at this max effort, maybe they're, you know, not great. I would always say that, don't, look at money, look at opportunity. I would also look at growth. of the company as well. So moving for, even X amount of thousands more a year, but to a brewery that's not really moving forward. Where is that extra capital that you need? where is the extra revenue they're going to generate to pay you going to come from? So it's more than likely going to be where you're at. Now you could keep moving around these companies, and I think you could probably get up, you can get up that salary ranking fairly... Fairly reasonably, but, um, and the opposite and the other way we're going back to the same thing I was saying before about, opportunity over pay is that again, try not to think about in the short term of the 1, 2, 3 years, maybe think about 5 and where you could be. In five years time, the people who stayed will be far more, now they have a much bigger experience, a better skill set and now I can go out and get more money with that skill set. A real jump. And then you can get a real jump. Or you would have still been earning a bit more each year or every couple of years from that place. And now you've got the skill set in five years. That five, six year pay rise you were looking at last year or four, three years ago or two years ago is now like, well that's irrelevant. Now I can move to a management role or into a bigger brewery, I will underline that with the, there is, pay for me is all about fairness, so if you feel like you are not being paid correctly for your role and you've talked about it internally and they're like, you know, whatever, we just don't have the budget right now, X, Y, Z, blah, blah, blah, I think you are well within your rights to be like, no, that's actually not fair because you are asking of me, Mormon, how common people get their responsibilities promoted before they get promoted. And there is that period, and you're like, Okay, at what point do I get the compensation for what I'm doing? And I think there is, you have to have that, only you really know that time limit, but I think that is... Yeah, it's a personal limit, but I absolutely agree, uh, that pay should be fair. And I really liked your point, uh, that... That you can look at a salary increase of a few of a couple thousand pounds a year now But it might be detrimental for your career in three years You could be earning a lot more if you hadn't moved and you're gonna be stuck Stay on the same level because the company that you move to is not growing it might go under. I don't know. Uh, and also that there might be breweries, uh, separate issue, but there might be breweries that they, they just pay, they, they pay a little bit more than, than the rest to get the people in, but then they, they cannot, uh, do inflation adjustments, for example. Yeah. Yeah. So everyone forgets about inflation. It's not cool, is it, but it is very relevant, especially. Nowadays. Nowadays, yeah. I know about that. From my home country. Yeah. They have 100% inflation at the moment. It's absolutely bonkers. That is insane. That's how. And for the listeners who don't know where you're from. I'm from Argentina, Buenos Aires. Represent. Yeah. Move there, you get 100% inflation. That's absolutely mad. I find it fascinating in our, I don't think it's just our industry, I do see it in other industries on the wonderful environment of LinkedIn, job titles. I had an interesting thought process if you give someone a bigger job title or a better job title. Yeah. They become more approachable by other breweries Yes. If you give people more money, you make some harder to get. Because the more money you give someone, the harder it is for other breweries to compete. But if you give someone a better job title, it's easier for the employee, or that person, to then go and get another job. Because... People just look at the, job titles so they'll see, how many examples of dumb job titles are there in this industry, but Leadbrewer is awesome. Leadbrewer is one of my favourite ones. I was a leadbrewer. You were a leadbrewer. It's just like, what the? He's a leadbrewer. And like, where does that like, You go to one brewery, a lead brewer does one thing, you go to another lead brewer. Libra doesn't completely, completely different. It's irrelevant. Head brewer is another one. The way. Yeah, exactly. It could be anything. So they were leading the brewing. I, yeah, they were. Putting the work through the brew house. Yes, quite common. Yeah, but that it wasn't a role That that was leading other people or exactly. That's what I'm saying. I'm not to say that the person put them up to us. It's just How do you define like job roles are so funny to me job titles like Libra like production brewer system brewer. There's like head brewer. They are down the one I like brew brew pubs with a head brewer Okay, uh, I mean, they're the brewer and they define the recipes and they take care of everything, which is what a head brewer does in a way, among other things, yeah? Among thousands of other things, yeah. To know more, listen to the other podcasts. Yes. But yeah. And who is to say that's not a head brewer? Or you work by yourself. Is that a head rule? It can be. Yeah, what I'm trying to get at, this is a full circle point, is Leaving for a job title. does it make sense or doesn't it? I mean, I... As I said, you... There's people you interview for head... a head brewer role in one company, and it's the head brewer role of another company and it's just not relevant jobs. Yes, exactly. And it could be either way. Have you got any more reasons why a brewery shouldn't move brewery? What do you think about emotional reasons? emotional reasons, for me, are not good business decisions. And moving brewery, or moving job, is a business decision. It's a decision that is taken based on the future of the path. It's not something you should take lightly, and not something you should make irrationally. I think moving brewery for, a specifically bad conversation with someone, or a bad week, or maybe even a bad month. what I would try to say is not to make it an emotional decision. It's simply a business decision. Look at what you want to do in the future. How's the best way of getting there and who's going to help you get there. At the same time, I respect company loyalty, but I also would not be afraid to move if you could find an opportunity better. Personal circumstances, other things, all equal. I, personally, I like loyalty if that loyalty is respected from your company with progression and matching goals of what you want and company culture, etc. my personal opinion is not to get too attached to a company. Because if things go the other way around, let me tell you, there's no emotional attachment there. All of a sudden, revenue starts going down, people just get cut. So don't be afraid to see it from that side. I mean, That's life. That's capitalism, baby. Their hand is not gonna shake, whatsoever, tremble. Yeah, that's how it is. It's gonna be quite firm, like, sorry. And it's a business decision, and I completely agree. I think, I think I've always, at least... Since, since I've been understanding how, how the world, the business or the, the work, the job world, uh, works, uh, I've always, uh, taken that into account. I, I've never doubted that I wanted to leave a, I've never doubted of leaving a job, uh, that I wanted to leave or, or because I got another job. I never felt guilty or anything like that, because if it was the other way around, there wouldn't be any apologies. Yeah, I always, miss the places that I worked, I never regret, but I always think back and thought, I really like that aspect of my time at Thornbridge was just like, excellent, like the best learning I've ever had in my life, it was so amazing, you know, and my time at Beavertown was obviously like, extremely, exciting. But there's a lot of emotional attachment with a place and just enjoy the memories you have and don't be afraid to move forward. A hundred percent. Horatio, you've had a lot of experience, as we mentioned before, people coming and going. how should someone go about changing their job? So, uh, opening conversations. To me, it's key, like having honest conversations. I've said this a few times now in this podcast, but having a conversation with your manager, with your head brewer, talk about your expectations, why you're thinking about moving roles. You never know whether what's the bigger plans of the company, maybe you're not being told if the brewery is looking for your dream role and that they're not even sure what's going to happen. So if, if you're a brewer and, and you're thinking about changing jobs, I think the, the, the best thing to do is to open that conversation with, with your manager, with your head brewer and say, look, um, I, I want to be doing this. I want to be doing that. I would like to. Why am I looking for, to, to, to change Brewery? Do I, why don't I like it here? What, what would I like? What would make me like this place more? For me to not want to look for, for a role outside. Um, The thing about, uh, Too many people think that the career path is always the same for everyone. You start as a Brewer Assistant, you do Junior Brewer, you do Production Brewer, you do Senior Brewer, you do Lead Brewer, you do Brewery Manager, you do Head of Production, you start your own brewery at some point, I don't know, it's, I think that there's a lot more to explore in terms of career paths that are not delimited by, are not limited by The career path that the person next to you wants to go and I think each person needs to look within and understand that their own path can be different and Having that conversation with your manager might help you Understand what's the path that you want or at least even what you don't want because that's a And that defines a lot what you will want eventually. So how to go about it? I think, yeah, from the side of where you are now, I would go that way. From the side of you're already going somewhere else, if you need to change breweries, maybe look for the breweries that you like. Look for the breweries that you like the beer. Or, I was having a funny thought recently. Eh, like trying the beers of a brewery that is not doing very well and, and go, go there to improve them. like, uh, Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares. Yeah. Horatio's Brewing Nightmares. Yes. I'll be well into that. Go to the tap room, uh, I want to see the head pro. No, but, uh, everybody hates, no, don't do that. To everyone, please don't do that. It's, don't be a hated person. I'm still reeling over that. Um, but yeah, if, if you, if you're looking for a job, if you want to change jobs, then I think you should look for companies that Uh, you, you admire that you, that you like, that you, you know people that work there and are happy, understand the, what, what needs to be done, uh, look at the, the size of the brewery, understand what, what they're doing, and, and maybe see what you, go to the interview, if you get one, uh, with knowing. Uh, what you will bring to, to them and if you go with that to the interview, then that's it, the role is yours. Easy. Yeah. I always think, yeah, it's, how should someone go about changing brewing? I agree a hundred percent. Communication on the first level is, totally key. communicate with the company that you're in why you might want to leave. what it is that you're actually not enjoying. any of the motivations we talked about today, but then also making sure you communicate that with the future employer as well as to being like, these are the gaps that I'm missing. How do you fill those gaps? the interviews that I've been a part of the best ones have always been where, the candidate, challenges you, what are you going to do for me? And you're like, well, actually, damn, that's a great question. And then you end up being interviewed for the last five minutes. So I really like that though, cause it's shows someone who's got a clear path. This is what I want, this is what I, I'm after. Or as you said, even if you don't know that, 'cause it's quite hard. It's like, what am I not after? And how are you not like that? And I think that's, you know, you can, you'll be on a much path and then it's a great decision to leave, in my opinion, if you can find, if you can alleviate those issues. before we wrap up this podcast here, let's, let's just talk about maybe job interviews and, any success stories or ways of approaching the industry to help people get the jobs that they want. Um, I always ask questions during the interview. I think it's, it's, uh, read their website, uh, be informed about what the role is. Uh, if you, if you're already in the, in the industry, you might know somebody that place or, uh, is, is currently working. So go in to an interview informed. Uh, it is priceless. Yeah. Like, it, it, it's gonna give you, uh, an advantage that it's very hard to, to get any other way. Yeah, absolutely. it is no different to going to any other interview in, in the world really. Yeah. Although I do find that in brewing interviews, it's so funny trying to get Right. What a tire to wear. Yes. how do you know how the people interviewing you are gonna be dressed? I'd say like, I don't know how many industries, maybe tech's the same as brewing, but the rock up in pair of shorts, a t-shirt and it's, yeah, you're fine. Completely fine. It's not even a bat on the eye, off the eye. No, it's, you don't need to be pressed. Uh, smartly or in, like, having a, a, a, a, a, a nice haircut. So, I, when I started in brewing, I did not know that the brewing industry was like this. And I was interviewing for Thornbridge and I wore a shirt, tie, I think, like a top, and I got the job. And I was like, well, there you go. so then I came down to Beavertown, in London, and I wore like a shirt and a tie and people are still to this day laughing at me for it. They're still like, I remember when you walked into the brewery floor in a shirt and tie and she was like, who the hell is this kid? And bearing in mind the people who don't know what I look like, I look about 12 years old. So they were just like, who is this 12 year old in a shirt and tie in the brewery floor coming for a snack? It's like a production or senior brewer job. They're like, I can't believe it. Straight from school. This is exactly right. It's so funny, I got that wrong. I have a similar anecdote about my first role here in professionally brewing. I went to my interview with a nice shirt, nice trousers, shoes. I didn't wear a tie, but I was I was kind of calmed, and if you know me, I'm never calmed, my hair is a mess. So I went to the interview, and I had it with the head brewer and the owner of the brewery, both of them, in the top room. And they were asking me questions, and I was telling them, yeah, yeah, yeah. And after the interview, I went home, and they took a few days to call me back. But basically, I got the job, so good news. When I went in, um, that they told me, come, come with comfortable clothes, clothes, uh, don't, yeah, no. Nothing too fancy. Okay, cool. Uh, when I met with the head brewer for, for the induction, he told me I, I was com. I, I had to be convinced to hire you . Why? Because of how you were dressed? I mean, I, I don't, I don't appreciate, uh, somebody that, that comes in. So, so, so dressed up, uh, for, for a, for a role that's mainly cleaning, that's mainly, uh, physical work. And I was shocked, like, okay, fair enough. But I was coming to the interview, . I wasn't gonna go into on the floor and start working.. Uh, yeah. But, uh, because of how you were dressed, I didn't think that you had the, the, the, the guts to, to the, to do the job. Yeah. Fair enough. And that's how I learned. And never again I wore a shirt for an interview. Yes. And that's actually, that's so funny. And again, how many interviews you get where like, you know, I had to be convinced to hire you because you were wearing smart clothes. Exactly. So funny. The owner, for some reason, liked me and said, yeah, yeah, this guy is gonna do, is gonna be well. That's hilarious, man. do you know what Horatio, have you got anything else you'd like to add? I'm happy with our conversation so far, so, um Yeah, completely new style podcast, to what we usually do, but I hope everyone enjoyed it, please do give me the feedback, as always, I always really appreciate it and before we say goodbye to Horatio, just remember to hit that follow Or subscribe button. Don't miss an episode. I really really appreciate it. It really helps me give belief into what i'm doing. So I really do appreciate it. But yeah, thank you so much Horatio. No, thank you chris. It's been a pleasure Absolutely, my man and Well, we're actually doing the first ever live recording or in person recording So we're actually gonna finish this podcast and go have a beer which is extremely exciting. Yes So thank you so much for everyone for listening again, hit that subscribe button if you've had any feedback, please let me know and I will see you on the next episode of the modern brewer podcast