June 4, 202402:51
Hear
Lara Fischer (29) is an only child, she grew up with her parents in the neighborhoods of Caballito and Palermo and when she finished high school she didn’t know what to study, she likes many things, she is curious by nature and enjoys learning. She unsuccessfully decided on Industrial Design, then Nutrition and He ended up choosing a tertiary degree in Interior Design. But she wanted to have a university degree, she had always wanted it, so she spent one more year at the University of Palermo to obtain a degree in Business.
With the arrival of the pandemic, a personal crisis appeared, What do I really want to do? The fantasy of going to live abroad had been there for a while and 2020 gave it the push it needed. What she didn’t imagine were the jobs she would end up doing that would change her completely.
Thanks to the advice of his English teacher decided to apply to FIU (Florida International University) in Miami to pursue a master’s degree in the area of hospitality that includes events, restaurants, hotels and everything related to customer service. To enter they required a certain level of English and a certain level of university grades, after a patient process they announced that he had entered.
Lara knew that medical checkups are not a simple issue in the United States, so she decided to carry out all the checks before her departure; So while she was packing her bags and saying goodbye to her friends, she was attending medical appointments. A few days before leaving he had an ophthalmological check-up, his surprise was enormous when they told him that his retina was detached, if he did not have surgery within a week he would lose his eye.. “I couldn’t leave because after the surgery I couldn’t travel for a month. I started to despair, It was like you lost everything you had done until now to get into university and on top of that you went blind. I make a second visit accompanied by my mother who was going to receive it better than me, because when they give me that news I can’t even think, I don’t hear anything. The doctor told me that another option was to have surgery in the United States,” explains Lara. As a student they force her to have health insurance, so she got the best one there was and the week she went to Miami and the first thing she did was go to the eye doctor. “Here they don’t want to have any legal problems, so they ask for several consultations. One doctor wanted to operate on me and another didn’t. My doctor in Argentina told me you have surgery now or you’ll go blind, and it was he who contacted me with a doctor he knew in the United States and I ended up having surgery two weeks after arriving. My dad traveled and stayed for almost a month and a half helping me,” says Lara. Thus she began her first day of school, with a freshly operated bloody eye. “Today I think about it and it was crazy, did not know anybody. I was blinded because I wanted to leave and I didn’t think about it, but if I think about it in cold weather it was crazy,” Lara admits.
Meanwhile, she became friends with three Argentinian women who were studying the same thing. They are her support. “When you feel like leaving, you don’t think about it because you’re excited, but then when you’re alone it’s important to make a group of friends with whom you can share the experience.” culture, “Things happen in the middle and you are here alone, it is not easy”says Lara, referring to when her aunt died suddenly.
He completed the master’s degree in a year and a half, She graduated with honors and was called to join one of the oldest societies in the United States: Phi Kappa Phi, where she is invited to events, network and can request funds to continue studying.
But in the middle Lara had to go out and look for work, the only way to obtain the degree was to fulfill a certain amount of work hours. She He thought that with a CV with his studies and two languages it would be easy, but what he thought would happen overnight took him several months. One of her friends told her that she always wanted to work at the Hard Rock hotel in Miami, so they went to the hotel and asked each person they saw in uniform who they could talk to. Thus they obtained the information that there was an Argentine working at the hotel. They went two more times and didn’t find him. While At the hotel it was said that there were two Argentinian women looking for him. Who was the man in question? The vice president of the hotel and the girls didn’t even know. They scheduled an interview and were offered an internship that prepared them to be a Food and Beverage Manager. “They have many restaurants so they train you in the area, that means being in charge of the restaurants, they make you rotate to have a vision of each one, they give you an overview of what the future job would be like,” says Lara.
Once the internship ended, they offered her an extension but she, who had an excellent relationship with the president of the hotel, got through him to work as VIP Coordinator at the Marriott Miami Turnberry Resort & Spa Hotel. This means being at the disposal of celebrities, and clients with a lot of money. or that they are regulars of the hotel because, for example, they stay for two months several times a year. “People who have money are very complicated, You encounter many complicated situations because they are demanding but also sometimes derogatory., was trying to be firm and politely handle the client. Beyond all that, the fun part is that there was always one or another celebrity, due to politics you can’t take photos, you have to be professional,” says Lara. He met celebrities like Shakira or CardiB who enters the hotel under another name, and on the other hand there were actors who go with their backpack and appear at the hotel. Remember one time CardiB requested that the six-room presidential suite be filled with floral arrangements for the Mexican holidays, this involved a lot of work to carry out and clean up afterwards. Among other anecdotes, he says that It is very common for guests to request a special brand of mineral waterusually Evian, and if something has to be delivered it should be at a certain time, which is when they are not at the hotel in order to avoid disturbing them.
You learn something from all the experiences you have had, “I finished reinforcing English, I value that a lot. And on the other hand, in Argentina I was quite withdrawn, and with this type of work you have to go out and develop yourself, what I value most is what I learned about how to handle clients, It brought out another personality in me, in Argentina I was a lot of forgiveness and permission, here I am Hi, I’m Lara, it brought out that part of me, I imposed myself on the client, I had no other choice, it was a matter of survival “But it’s good because you have another presence in front of people,” Lara analyzes of a job that brought out a hidden facet that he didn’t consider possible.
But after eight months Lara felt that she had nothing more to learn from that job and at the end of November 2023 one of the managers from her previous job called her, Hard Rock, to offer a position as Food and Beverage Manager. He accepted it without hesitation. “There can be between 500 and 800 diners depending on the season, there are also concerts, the other day Ed Sheran was there. My job is to take charge with the restaurant team, we rotate to have a general overview of everything that is happening,” explains Lara.
He says that many famous people attend: “The Messi family comes, he and Antonella are not so common to see because people go crazy, but the family and the children do, Since they have a signed contract, it is very common to see the kids playing with some guy. When they were there the people shouted, I can’t explain to you what it was, he is super humble, we offered him to go from the back because no one will see you but he comes out from the front without a problem, he greets everyone. It is not a lie that they are super humble, it is a reality, “You see it on television and when you’re there it’s crazy, I don’t know how they live like that,” says Lara, surprised by the humility of the world champion. The thing is She’s used to celebrities walking through employee hallways where taking photos is prohibited.. Once it happened that he caught her attention when he saw a woman walking her dog in the internal employee hallways. He stayed talking to her without realizing that it was Kim Petras, the German singer. “It’s a tiring job but those things are the fun parts that make it a little more exciting because there are many hours,” Lara concludes.
