Sound Advice From the Guy in the Kitchen

For those who know me personally you will know that I love to read but I am a pretty slow reader and therefore rarely have the time to actually read a book cover to cover just for fun. When I do get the opportunity to read a book, however, I really enjoy it and was lucky enough to just that during my recent vacation. I read a book that's been sitting at the top of the ever growing pile on my nightstand: Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential. I've been a fan of his work for a couple of years now mostly through his T.V. show No Reservations on the Travel Channel. He is a phenomenally entertaining storyteller and the book was a lot of fun. While I wasn't directly involved in the grizzly underbelly of the restaurant world while I was living in New York, the context in which he told his tale was very familiar and rang very true to me as I knew people who were in that world.

The penultimate chapter of the book is entitled 'So You Want to Be a Chef? A Commencement Address' and is his attempt to dissuade those who aren't really serious about a career in the restaurant business to not follow that path. For those who do end up choosing "the path" he provides some advice that seemed generally useful and wise. Here are his 14 points with my commentary.

1. Be fully committed.

This is so true and doesn't just apply to your professional life, but life in general. You can't, and shouldn't, do anything worth doing unless you are fully committed to it. If you're not fully committed then don't bother, go do something that matters less and requires less effort. You will just end up disappointed.


2. Learn Spanish!

This doesn't necessarily apply to my job but a LOT of people on this planet speak Spanish and if you believe that a good percentage of them have valuable ideas to share then you better learn how to communicate with them. Growing up in New York you learn a little through osmosis but I really should brush up.


3. Don't steal.

This is obvious and should require no further explanation.


4. Always be on time.

This is for some folks, including myself, very hard to do sometimes. It is, however, very important and something you should work at simply because being on time shows respect to those who are waiting for you. Do your best and if you're late, apologize.


5. Never make excuses or blame others.

This is, in my opinion, one of the more important pieces of advice on the list. If you screw up, just own up to it. Trust me, in all the years I've been working, nobody remembers the occasional mistakes of the guy that owned up to them and corrected the error. The guy that tries to make his mistake someone else's fault will eventually gain a reputation as being a slippery and untrustworthy character. These guys are the worst because they infect organizations with mediocrity and make others work harder to pull up the slack. It has been my experience that over time the best run organizations weed out this behavior and the worst organizations deal with it by becoming mediocre themselves.


6. Never call in sick.

Come on, this is something we should have all learned was not cool back in grade school. If you're doing this, re-consider your place of employment because you probably just don't want to be there.


7. Lazy, sloppy and slow are bad.

This is pretty obvious but I will disagree slightly with Tony that slow is always bad. In a kitchen he's probably right although I can't really say that with a lot of confidence since I've never worked in a professional kitchen. I do think, partly because I generally do things a bit more slowly than a lot of my faster friends, that being slow isn't always a bad thing in that it can sometimes help you be more precise and can often given you the opportunity to obtain a deeper understanding of a problem.


8. Be prepared to witness every variety of human folly and injustice.

People are sometimes very bizarre and when you're thrown into a pressure-filled situation weird things happen. I do think, however, that the restaurant business brings out a much more bizarre crowd than I see in my line of work. You'll have to read his book to understand what I mean by this.


9. Assume the worst.

He goes on to warn you that you must be careful to not let this seemingly negative outlook poison you and I completely agree. You need to think of this piece of advice as developing the ability to realistically calibrate your expectations of people and situations so that when things get messed up you aren't so surprised that you can't function effectively. Sometimes people and situations surprise you in a positive way and then there's nothing but joy.


10. Try not to lie.

This should be obvious and is very good advice. It's an underlying value that you should try to adhere to when dealing with other people as well as yourself. Everyone slips up here once in a while but it's important to try to make it right as much as possible.


11. Avoid restaurants where the owner's name is over the door.

I'll have to trust him on this, he's in the restaurant business and I am not.


12. Think about that resume!

A friend of mine at Opsware once gave me some extremely good advice that is a complement to this wise nugget from Tony. To paraphrase, my friend said "Do good work and the rest will come." What he meant was work on things you believe in, work on things that matter, work on things that are hard, and all the good things (satisfaction, money, respect, learning) will come. In the process you will build yourself a nice resume.


13. Read!

I don't follow Tony's advice too well here as I am often short on time. I'll have to work on this.

I really enjoyed this book and if you like food, his show, or the stories associated with a completely dysfunctional work environment that is somehow at the same time addictive you would probably enjoy it too.