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You know, this is a bad life, right?” These were the words of encouragement given to me by a fellow cook at the restaurant this week following a particularly hectic service. I was initially puzzled—I mean, we get to work in an exciting atmosphere, occasionally sample great food—but I caught on quickly to what he meant.
Cooks live miserable lives and are distracted from their misery only through the grace of alcohol, drugs, sex or other vices. I learn this every night when, after service and during the laborious clean-up, I dream only of one thing: a frosty Budweiser from the family walk-in fridge (we always keep several cases on hand). Marie Antoinette should have told the masses to drink Bud instead of eating cake. Believe me, it calms your anger. The unhealthiness doesn’t end at post-service substance abuse. The job itself is unhealthy. You work long hours on your feet, sometimes lugging back-breaking amounts of food up and down stairs, with little nourishment and sometimes less fresh water. Dehydration is a necessity for a good night’s work, it seems; if my piss isn’t a bright yellow when I stumble home, I know I’ve had too much time to drink water during service.
If you work the grill station, you’re likely to have burned-out forearms that look as though they are inflicted with some kind of skin disease. If you work prep, sharp knives are your best and worst enemies (mine happens to be the French mandolin, however). If you work the fry station, you could get splattering oil on you at any time. Pasta seems a relatively safe haven (maybe I should reconsider my previous comments), but I’m sure they have their own hazards. Hell, even getting ice for the oyster station this week proved a hazard for me. The hinge on the ice machine apparently had broken earlier in the day, and when I opened it the door crashed back down against the bridge of my nose. But despite that my hands now look like an old leper’s, despite that I see my wife maybe one night a week, despite that I usually eat a sandwich or leftovers at 1 a.m. for dinner, despite that I find myself licking my lips when I pass a liquor store, I’m still enamored with the profession. For now, anyway. 
If you've read any of Anthony Bourdain's books or have seen an episode of Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares, you probably can surmise that the culinary world is filled with rejects and goons. Or, as my professor recently told my class, those who are "too short, too ugly, too crazy and too anti-social" to work elsewhere, including the front of the house as a waiter.
My professor warned us that many chefs, especially the masters, are lunatics with various personality disorders. So I decided to take this information and develop my own glossary of the types of people I've been told I should expect to meet:
The Hannibal Lectors: These cultured foodies are well-versed in Escoffier, the process of larding meat, the proper ingredients of white mirepoix, and the glories of a fava beans and a nice Chianti. However, they are also disdainful of all other humans, especially the snarling, br
ead-gnashing hordes of slobs known as customers. They may come across as polished, but if you insult their vicchysoisse, they might just handcuff you to your table and beat you to death while listening to a Satie overture.
The Jack the Rippers: For these gentlemen of leisure, it's not really about the food. It's about the knives, and other gadgets. They love to bucher a great rack of lamb, use tweezers to pull out the pin bones in a salmon fillet, or mince....anything. And in the still-largely-male-dominated culinary world, they are distrustful of women.
The Michael Corleones: Pure sociopaths, they will do anything to get ahead, be it sabotaging fellow co-workers or eliminating the competition. And they thrive in the culinary brigade system, a mafia-style hierarchy of executive chef (boss), sous chef (underboss), chefs de partie (capos), and stagieres and gardes manger (soldiers). So, as my professor said, you might be a budding new garde manger, looking to move up preparing salads and cold appetizers. But oftentimes the only way to do so--according to my professor, that is--is to find the "weakest link" among the chefs de partie, latch onto that person, and wait for him or her them to screw up (i.e., show up late, don't show up at all, burn a steak). Then, strike and attempt to take over that person's position. Then retire and glumly contemplate life at your lake house in Tahoe.
The Patrick Batemans: These all-American Psychos are a bit like the Lectors of the world, in that they can name-drop chic restaurants and chefs. But they are also unbelievable control freaks. From making sure their mise en place is impeccable, to obsessing about fat and nutrition content, they are likely to go far in the culinary world, where obsession and conformity are highly sought-after commodities.
I'm sure there are more, but these seem the major disorders in the culinary world. That's not to say there aren't nice guys/gals in the food biz. In fact, the one thing I've noticed in culinary school is how teamwork is stressed. A mound of dirty dishes? Everybody has to jump in and wash 'em. Somebody falling behind on their prep. Pitch in and help. The comraderie in the kitchen that develops during the hectic times seems to nullify all the anti-social and borderline sociopathic behaviors. Which is a good thing when so many knives are available.
