From Corporate to the Cafe: Paul's Career Pivot

The old version of Paul existed in the corporate world, spending his days in meetings and working within a procurement team. But the Paul we currently know spends his weekends behind the bar at The Foundry, pulling shots and getting to know regulars by name.

Before SCTP, Paul spent years in corporate roles, with his last job at a major beer company. On paper, it was a solid career. In reality, it felt like watching the same day repeat itself. "Mundane" is the word he keeps coming back to when he talks about that chapter. It was not because the work was bad, but because nothing about it lit him up.

What did light him up was mixology, and the idea of actually talking to people again instead of just emailing them. So one Google search later, he found SCTP and Bettr Coffee. He started the programme in January 2025, not entirely sure what came next, but sure that corporate life wasn't it.

Now he works part-time at The Foundry, two days a week, mostly weekends. Paul describes himself as genuinely happier in a front-facing role. There's a particular moment he notices often: catching up with old corporate friends, and realising their lives look almost identical to how they did a couple of years ago. Same job, same routines, same conversations. Meanwhile, he feels like he's picked up an entirely new set of skills, stories, and even a bit of a reputation. He has become the one who ends up being the life of the party at dinners, armed with drink knowledge and a much bigger appetite for talking to strangers.

It hasn't all been smooth pours, though. The operations workflow took getting used to, the physical demands of the job are real in a way a desk job never prepared him for, and there's an age gap between him and a lot of his colleagues that he's had to navigate. But somewhere in the grind, Paul found the value in meaningful moments that show up. A customer asking for a coffee recommendation is a conversation, a connection, sometimes what makes his day.

Corporate life didn't leave Paul empty-handed. Years of managing stakeholders and handling difficult conversations in procurement turned out to be surprisingly good training for handling difficult customers behind a bar.

Paul's story isn't really about quitting a "boring" job for a "fun" one. It's about what happens when someone stops chasing the next promotion and starts valuing the next real conversation — and discovers that everything they learned along the way still counts.

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