Marek's Second Job

Marek Kowalski spent eleven years balancing spreadsheets at an insurance office in downtown Chicago. He was good at it — careful, reliable, the kind of employee a manager never has to check up on. But at thirty-four, he quit to open a bakery on Damen Avenue.

“He didn't tell anyone until the lease was signed,” says Priya Shah, a former colleague of his. “We thought he was joking.”

Marek says the decision wasn't sudden. He'd been baking bread on weekends for years, bringing loaves into the office on Fridays. “People kept asking where I bought it,” he says. “Nobody believed I made it in my kitchen.”

The first six months were hard. He was ambitious but not always suited to the pace — up at 4 a.m., asleep by nine, no time for the things he used to enjoy. His savings ran low twice. But he was keen to make it work, and slowly, the neighborhood got involved: a coffee shop next door started stocking his sourdough, and a regular customer, a retired teacher named Lou, wrote a review of his own.

“Best rye in the neighborhood,” Lou told the local paper. “And he still remembers everyone's order.”

Marek has three employees now, all with more baking experience than he had on day one. He kept one thing from the old job, though: a calculator, sitting on a shelf above the oven. He says he doesn't use it much anymore, but the sight of it — after the till closes each night — still makes him laugh.