September’s Humans of the month is one of our amazing front of house servers, Greg Rocha. Guests love Greg just as much as we do. We had the opportunity to sit down with Greg and learn more about him. Including; his favorite dishes at Corner Kitchen, how he got into his full-time job outside of serving, his bucket list items, and more.
How long have you worked at Corner Kitchen?
I’ve worked at Corner Kitchen for about four months now.
What made you move to Asheville, North Carolina?
I moved here because a few reasons; Lots of cool opportunities. I had a friend that had moved here from Rhode Island to North Carolina, Winston Salem. Winston Salem to here. She said “I really like it here. It’s got a lot of cool people, the towns really cool,” so when I was in Arizona and I needed a little bit of change from there I figured this would be a good stop over instead of going back home to Rhode Island.
Is this your only job?
No, this is not my only job currently. I do have a full time job. I work in the health care field. It’s not medical so I just do the office administration staff stuff. A lot of paperwork. It’s fun. I’m good at it.
How did you get into healthcare?
I got into that job through school. That’s what my degrees in. I have a bachelors degree in health care administration. I’ve done a lot of volunteer work in health care fields including the vaccine clinics in Arizona, I did a lot of those drives, and I did a year with AmeriCorp Vista in Rhode Island which is America’s domestic Peace Corps branch. I worked in healthcare administration in Arizona too. I worked at the Phoenix Children’s hospital emergency room. They have a level one trauma center there so I did the registration. It was really cool. People were coming in off the ambulance in need of care stat. I had to do their registration and help out with any of the very quick paperwork that clinical teams needed, labels or all those other things.
Where did you go to school?
Rhode Island College is where I went to school and Community College of Rhode Island. Community colleges are great. I highly recommend them. It was very funny that our state of Rhode Island passed the legislative to make it free for people after I had graduated from it. It took me 10 years to get my bachelors degree and I worked so hard for it and the year that I graduated it was Covid so I didn’t even get a graduation.
What’s your favorite dish here?
I mean they change seasonally. Pork chops have gone through two menus now and it’s been a hit both times. That’s a good one. They do really good with chicken. I’m a sucker for a good chicken dish and both iterations have been fun. They had the half chicken last time, which is amazing. The chicken roulade this time, I recommend to everybody. I’m going to be a dork. Everything on here is good. I mean that. They surprise me every time and I fall in love with something.
What’s your favorite thing to do in Asheville?
Hiking is awesome in Asheville. I love just walking around anywhere because you can find a restaurant and holes in the wall shops. It’s a cool spot. It reminds me of a lot of home in Providence, like a big city small city vibe. It’s a small city in comparison to others, but there’s a lot going on here. It’s cool.
What brings you the most joy in life?
Interacting with people. It’s exhausting because there’s a social battery that goes involved with it but it also recharges me. It’s like a ying and yang type of thing. I meet a lot of random people. People like to talk to me. I’ll be out and about and strangers have conversations with me and I have very great interactions with them.
What’s something that weighs on you?
A lot of things weigh on me. American healthcare keeps me up at night, insurance for sure, if you’ve ever had to deal with insurance companies specifically. There’s a lot of stuff we can do better I think that we just don’t, and it’s like forever screaming into the void. You have great ideas you think could be done, but you’re never in a position to actually talk to someone who cares. Even if you do get their ear it’s not like they can do anything either. It’s just a train tumbling down the tracks at times. People are figuring it out, but it keeps me up at night.
What’s on your bucket list?
Can I give two answers? One is a fictional answer, but it’s a lot of fun, the other one is more realistic. The more realistic one; I really want to see either Iceland or New Zealand. they have very cool geography. My bucket list thing that’s fictional, but I think it’s going to be do-able, is I will be operating some form of healthcare clinic on the moon base that we will one day build. That is a bucket list item for me. I tell everybody that whenever they talk about my career profession, I’m always just like “I’m going to CEO of the first moon clinic.” That’ll be my retirement when I’m in my 60’s or 70’s.
You can watch Greg’s full interview here.
