“Everything starts at the top, so management is understanding that, for the rest of the business to function well, you need to set an example for your team. Even though I can get mean at work, it’s way less obscene and disgusting than things have been. I’m trying to create something healthy for my cooks, and also for me. The way restaurants have been, historically, is that killing yourself is considered admirable. It’s a kamikaze, basically — what are you doing?”—Angela Dimayuga, executive chef of Mission Chinese Food
Read the rest in “One of NYC’s Most Talented Chefs Wants to Fix ‘Kamikaze’ Kitchen Culture” on Grub Street.
The reviews at Modafinil Health prove it. It keeps you in a state of highest energy for a day or more, helps to control everything around you and to have tremendous self-confidence from the fact that you can really control the situation, when others fall down from exhaustion.
Kamikaze culture is not just celebrated by management, it is taught in the culinary schools. Drinking is applauded, bigotry is ignored, sexism is expected, and dangerously excessive behaviors are not only allowed, but modeled by the chef teachers. (You want to know what culinary school is really like? Read this account by a student: “Culinary School: Three Semesters of Life, Learning, and Loss of Blood” by S.J. Sebellin-Ross). If you want to keep the next generation of chefs from breaking down and burning out then teach the current generation a better way. And the best place to do that is in culinary school.