There was no shortage of privilege working for the family business. Calling in sick when you didn't feel like working was all too easy when you lived with the proprietors. So was slacking off without serious reprimand. She was resented by her co-workers, but their approval was generally worth less to Gwen than taking full advantage of her situation. She made decent tips in the restaurant and routinely got weekends off, which she usually spent at a bar or a party, getting drunk and handing out her phone number. Her life carried on in this carefree fashion even after she moved out of her parents' house and got her own apartment in Brooklyn. When she couldn't quite cover rent, she'd pout and swindle what she needed out of her father, who always caved and wrote her a check.
A safety net like that was like a siren's song that was hard to deny. With guaranteed job security and little incentive to look elsewhere, Gwen didn't put much stock into secondary education, and spent most of her early twenties travelling on her parents' dime. While her old classmates and friends back home were earning degrees to cement their futures, she was celebrating New Year's eve in Bali or playing tourist in Barcelona, great experiences that left her with little more than bloated photo albums on Facebook. When she got her wanderlust and partying out of her system, the plan was to take up her parents mantle, and run the business in their stead when they were ready to retire.
The only thing about plans is, they don't always work out. Gwen's mom suffered a stroke and was hospitalized over Gwen's twenty-fifth birthday weekend, cutting the festivities short and requiring several days of observation before being discharged. Her prognosis was positive for the most part, but the stress of maintaining a business was too much, and her physician advised selling it off. Gwen, although unequipped to take over, protested the decision, but ultimately lost. And with the dissolution of her parents' company, so went her guaranteed career.
Gwen navigated aimlessly through the workforce over the next two years, settling for minimun wage retail jobs and working for tips at chain restaurants because she lacked the necessary credentials to land anything better. Between poor work ethic and a lack of experience with answering to any authority but her parents, she's been fired more than once for absuing sick days and showing up late. The first time she decided she was going to get her act together, she enrolled in a few courses at a local community college, but ultimately flunked out. The second time around, she got it in her head to pursue dog grooming, but quit the first time one bit her. Currently she's enrolled in a makeup course with the intention of doing freelance work for extra cash, and to date, it's the longest she's ever stuck with anything.
After lapsing on rent for the last time, she was evicted from her apartment and forced to bunk with her best friend from back home. Currently employed at Cubbyhole as a bartender, where she works just hard enough to avoid being fired.
